The Difference Between Mental Load and Emotional Labor

Key points

Physical tasks are the things you do with your hands: fold laundry, wash dishes, mow the lawn.

Cognitive labor is the thinking work: anticipating, researching, making decisions and evaluating.

Emotional labor is the feeling work: how can I temper my own emotions? How can I manage other's emotions?

Mental Load is when cognitive labor and emotional labor overlap.

This article is co-authored by Molly Dickens, Ph.D.

The English lexicon is always evolving to accommodate our lived reality. In the last decade, we have seen many terms find their way into the mainstream that help us describe the full experience of home life. As it relates to household labor, we now use a range of terms to describe the various parts and pieces, like physical tasks, emotional labor , invisible load