Emotional labor is a term popularized by the American sociologist Arlie R. Hochschild, who defines it as work that requires emotional management from the worker in his/her daily communication with clients. The aim of this paper is to provide a narrative overview of the current scientific approach to the research of emotional labor in the professional sphere. The first part of the paper provides a conceptual description and explanation of the phenomenon, review of the development of A.R. Hochschild's theory, the gender, class and cultural consequences of this phenomenon, and a brief overview of how this phenomenon has been researched so far. The second part of the paper presents and discusses the results of a systematized review of previous research published on the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus bibliographic databases. From these databases, a list of 2015 papers were taken that were subjected to the first level of analysis, where the papers were excluded according to the title and abstract. A total of 1838 papers were excluded, leaving 285 papers that were included in the second level of analysis. Regarding the methodology (quantitative, qualitative, mixed method / multi-method approach), three different work protocols were created that were used as data entry required for analysis. The final number of papers from all three protocols included in the analysis was 94. The results of the analysis of the collected papers indicate that each approach contributes to the understanding of certain aspects of emotional labor research. While the specificity of papers using quantitative methodology is found in the description of the connection with some other variables (e.g., gender, burnout, job satisfaction), papers using qualitative methodology contribute to the understanding of experiences and experiences of emotional work, as well as research into the causes and wider consequences for individuals. The mixed-methodological approach enables the integration of the previous two approaches and indicates that to understand this complex phenomenon, it is necessary to go "outside" the established research methods. At the end of the paper, translations of scales from three selected scientific papers were offered so that they could be used by scientists and experts in Croatia and beyond.