Abstract
It has often been asserted that burnout is primarily linked to occupational-context factors, and only secondarily to individual-level (e.g., personality) and non-work (or general) factors. We evaluated the validity of this view by examining the links between burnout and an array of 22 work-situated (effort-reward imbalance, unreasonable work tasks, unnecessary work tasks, weekly working hours, job autonomy, skill development, performance feedback, and support in work life), work-unrelated (sentimental accomplishment, familial accomplishment, number of child[ren], leisure activities, residential satisfaction, environmental quality, security in daily life, and support in personal life), dispositional (neuroticism, sex, age, and physical condition), and intersecting (work–non-work conflict and non-work–work conflict) variables. The study involved schoolteachers from three different countries: France (N = 4,395), Spain (N = 611), and Switzerland (N = 514). Burnout was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory for Educators. Most of our predictors were assessed based on widely used measures (e.g., neuroticism was assessed with the NEO-Five Factor Inventory). In order to assess sentimental accomplishment and familial accomplishment, we created two self-reported measures, namely, the Sentimental Accomplishment Inventory (SAI; 9 items) and the Familial Accomplishment Inventory (FAI; 9 items). The SAI and the FAI both showed strong reliability and high factorial validity. Exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis and Mokken scaling suggested that both instruments could be considered essentially unidimensional. The study results showed that neuroticism, job strain, skill development, security in daily life, and work–non-work conflict were consistently associated with burnout across the three samples. Sample-specific predictors of burnout included sex, age, unreasonable work tasks, weekly working hours, job autonomy, support in work life, sentimental accomplishment, leisure activities, support in personal life, and non-work–work conflict. Relative weight analysis indicated that neuroticism was the best predictor of burnout in each sample. Our findings suggest that burnout’s nomological network may not be primarily job-related. We conclude that the tendency to de-emphasize individual-level and non-work factors in burnout research is unwise. This tendency may constitute a roadblock in the development of effective interventional strategies. The implications of our findings for burnout’s conceptual status are discussed. The neuroticism-burnout link should be further examined in longitudinal studies.
Highlights
Burnout has been generally regarded as an occupational syndrome combining emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a sense of diminished personal accomplishment (Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1998; Maslach et al, 2001)
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 25 prospective/case-control studies conducted by Aronsson et al (2017) concluded that job support and workplace justice were protective against burnout symptoms whereas high job demands, low job control, high workload, low job reward, and job insecurity fostered the development of burnout symptoms
Sex, age, physical condition, job strain, unreasonable work tasks, unnecessary work tasks, weekly working hours, job autonomy, skill development, performance feedback, support in work life, sentimental accomplishment, familial accomplishment, number of child(ren), leisure activities, residential satisfaction, environmental quality, security in daily life, support in personal life, and both work–non-work conflict and non-work–work conflict
Summary
Burnout has been generally regarded as an occupational syndrome combining emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a sense of diminished personal accomplishment (Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1998; Maslach et al, 2001). Emotional exhaustion refers to the feeling of being stressed out and drained of one’s energy at work. Diminished personal accomplishment involves a sense of ineffectiveness and failure in the job. Burnout has been considered a product of insurmountable job stress (Maslach et al, 2001). There is evidence, for instance, that increases in job demands (e.g., workload) and decreases in job resources (e.g., job autonomy), which can give rise to unmanageable difficulties at work, predict burnout (Schaufeli et al, 2009; Hakanen et al, 2019). An even more recent metaanalysis revealed that burnout increases job stressors much more than vice versa (Guthier et al, 2020)
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