Surface acting has long been characterized as a uniformly detrimental strategy of emotional labor. Challenging this monolithic perspective, this study utilizes cognitive dissonance theory to deconstruct surface acting into two distinct strategies: proactive faking (the agentic display of unfelt emotions) and suppressive faking (the dual task of inhibiting felt emotions while faking the required ones). Employing a 10-day daily diary completed by 60 educators (n=596), time-lagged multilevel path analysis was used to examine the differential impacts of these variables on burnout. The results revealed opposing psychological trajectories: proactive faking predicted reduced next-day burnout through decreased emotional dissonance, whereas suppressive faking predicted increased subsequent burnout through heightened dissonance. These findings suggest that the psychological costs traditionally attributed to surface acting are driven by the act of suppression―which threatens an employee's self-concept―rather than the performance of the emotion itself. Decoupling proactive faking from suppression allows it to function as an adaptive coping mechanism for employees. This distinction necessitates a fundamental theoretical refinement of the conceptualization and management of emotional labor in high-demand professions.