📖Stress. Chapter 43 - Burnout

three aspects: exhaustion (physical, emotional, cognitive), cynicism (withdrawal, distancing), self-inefficacy (discouragement)

p.352 exhaustion prompts actions to distance oneself from work. presumably to cope with work overload. this distancing is part of cynicism. a strong relationship between exhaustion and cynicism is consistently found in burnout research

p.352

People experiencing burnout are not simply fatigued or overwhelmed by their workload. They also have lost a psychological connection with their work that has implications for their motivation and their identity. If the only issue were exhaustion, the term “burnout” would add nothing beyond what is already and more straightforwardly captured by the term chronic fatigue.

p.353 the positive antithesis of burnout has been defined as “engagement.” In burnout research, engagement is defined to consist of a state of high energy, strong involvement, and a sense of efficacy. “An alternative view is that work engagement is an independent, distinct concept, which is not the opposite of burnout, although it is negatively related to it. In this model, engagement is defined as a positive state of mind characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption”

p.353 two main models:

• job demands–resources (JD-R): burnout arises when individual experiences a continuous stream of job demands without adequate resources to resolve or reduce them

• conservation of resources (COR): burnout arises as a result of persistent threat to available resources. individuals try to maintain the resource if they perceive the resources they value are threatened. The loss or impending loss of resources can aggravate the burnout

p.354 six areas of worklife:

• workload: the quantity and quality of workload. it should be sustainable and manageable to allow time to rest and recover

• control: the lack of control contributes to burnout. “However, when employees have the perceived capacity to influence decisions that affect their work, to exercise professional autonomy, and to gain access to the resources necessary to do an effective job, they are more likely to experience job engagement.”

• reward: insufficient recognition and reward (financial, institutional, social) contribute to the feeling of not being valued (inefficacy) and burnout.

• community: relationship with other people on the job. lack of support and trust, unresolved conflicts contribute to burnout. when job-related relationships are working well, it contributes to engagement

• fairness: the extent to which decisions at work are perceived as being fair and equitable.

• values: alignment between individual and organizational values. if there is a conflict, employees have to trade-off between the work they want to do and the work they need to do

p.355 the primary factors are work-related, although there are a couple of personal traits related to burnout.

• less “hardy” personalities, who have external locus of controls, those that score high on “neuroticism” in big-five have higher tendency to burnout

• older people score less on burnout (correlation, it’s unknown what causes it)

• men tend to score slightly higher on cynicism