Teachers' Burnout: The Role of Trait Emotional Intelligence and Social Support.

Caterina Fiorilli,Alessandro Pepe,Luciano Romano,Paula Benevene,Ilaria Buonomo,Loredana Addimando,Simona De Stasio

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02743

Abstract

The current study investigates the relations among teachers’ trait emotional intelligence, internal and external social support, and their levels of burnout. We hypothesized that both emotional intelligence and teachers’ perceived social support were associated with low level of teachers’ burnout. We further expected that internal and external support mediated the relationship between trait emotional intelligence and burnout scores. Participants were 318 in-service Italian teachers. The structural equation modeling analysis supports the idea that teachers’ trait emotional intelligence is strongly and directly associated with their burnout. Furthermore, internal social support (from the teachers’ workplace relationships) was more effective on burnout than support forthcoming from their external context. On the contrary, the mediation hypothesis was partially supported by the empirical data. These findings shed light on the relationship between teachers’ emotional competence and their burnout experience at school.

Highlights

Trait Emotional Intelligence is a constellation of self-perceived, emotion-related abilities that enable individuals to recognize, process, and use emotional information (Sevdalis et al, 2007; Petrides, 2010)
The aim current study was to model within a single structural equation model, the cumulative network of relationships among teachers’ trait emotional intelligence, perceived internal and external social support, and levels of professional burnout
With regard to the associations between burnout and social support, we found that, as expected, negative correlations with all subscales, with the exception of the studentrelated burnout that showed no association with supervisor support

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Trait Emotional Intelligence (trait EI) is a constellation of self-perceived, emotion-related abilities that enable individuals to recognize, process, and use emotional information (Sevdalis et al, 2007; Petrides, 2010). An in-depth comparison of the two kinds of social support (internal versus external) is required to build up a more comprehensive picture of teachers’ burnout risk in relation to their personal characteristic named trait emotional intelligence. The aim current study was to model within a single structural equation model, the cumulative network of relationships among teachers’ trait emotional intelligence, perceived internal (e.g., colleagues and supervisor) and external social support (e.g., family and friends), and levels of professional burnout (see Figure 1). In line with evidences gathered in previous studies, the current study tested the following specific directional hypotheses: (1) teachers’ trait emotional intelligence would be negatively correlated with burnout scores as well as positively associated with perceived external and internal support. In order to test the network of associations among the variables of interest, structural equation modeling with the decomposition of total effects and analysis of regression coefficients was adopted (Byrne, 2013)

Participants

Procedure

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

ETHICS STATEMENT

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT