Burnout (psychology)

Burnout is a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest (depersonalization or cynicism), usually in the work context. It is also used as an English slang term to mean exhaustion. Burnout is often construed as the result of a period of expending too much effort at work while having too little recovery, but it is sometimes argued that workers with particular personality traits (especially neuroticism) are more prone to experiencing burnout. Further, it appears that researchers disagree about the nature of burnout. While many researchers argue that burnout refers exclusively to a work-related syndrome of exhaustion and depersonalization/cynicism, others feel that burnout is a special case of the more general clinical depression or just a form of extreme fatigue/exhaustion (thus omitting the cynicism component).

Health care workers are often prone to burnout. Cordes and Doherty (1993), in their study of employees within this industry, found that workers who have frequent intense or emotionally charged interactions with others are more susceptible to burnout. Still, burnout can affect workers of any kind, including students at the high school and college levels.

High stress jobs can lead to more burnout than normal ones. Taxicab drivers, law enforcement personnel, air traffic controllers, musicians, teachers, lawyers, emergency service workers and high technology professionals seem more prone to burnout than others. General practitioners seem to have the highest proportion of burnout cases (according to a recent Dutch study in Psychological Reports, no less than 40% of these experienced high levels of burnout).

The most well-studied measurement of burnout in the literature is the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Maslach and her colleague Jackson first identified the construct "burnout" in the 1970s, and developed a measure that weighs the effects of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced sense of personal accomplishment. This indicator has become the standard tool for measuring burnout in research on the syndrome. People who experience all three symptoms have the greatest degrees of burnout, although emotional exhaustion is said to be the hallmark of burnout.

Although burnout is work-related, most responsibility for burnout currently rests on the individual worker in the United States. Other countries, especially in Europe, have included work stress and burnout in occupational health and safety standards, and hold organizations (at least partly) responsible for preventing and treating burnout.

Burnout is now being studied in its reported antitheses, job engagement.

The word is also used as pejorative slang, referring to an individual who has burned themselves out on a vice, such as drugs or alcohol. It may also refer to an individual who has "burned out" his or her interest in life, similar to a slacker.