The Big Five Personality Factors as Predictors of Changes Across Time in Burnout and Its Facets

Abstract

We tested the effects of Neuroticism and Conscientiousness on burnout across time, controlling for age, gender, work hours, and depressive symptoms. Our theoretical model included both global burnout and its physical, emotional, and cognitive facets, consistent with the bifactor approach to modeling second-order constructs in structural equation modeling. Data were gathered from 1,105 respondents (63% men) who completed questionnaires at Time 1 (T1) and approximately 24 months later at Time 2 (T2). Neuroticism positively predicted T1 global burnout and negatively predicted T1 and T2 emotional exhaustion. Conscientiousness negatively predicted T1 global burnout and T1 and T2 cognitive weariness, and positively predicted T1 and T2 emotional exhaustion. Our gender-specific exploratory analysis revealed that for each gender, Neuroticism and Conscientiousness predicted different facets of burnout at T1 and T2. We recommend that future research test the possibility that the associations of Neuroticism and Conscientiousness with global burnout and its facets may be gender specific.

Psychological distress, burnout and personality traits in Dutch anaesthesiologists

“…One of these factors is personality traits. Consistent with studies in other areas 4 Van der Wal et al found that burnout in anaesthetists is related to neuroticism; and drew attention to the fact that personality traits are usually considered stable over time and are hard to change.…”

“…3 It would be mere speculation to discuss explanations, which could be as miscellaneous as research methodological reasons, like the questionnaires or sample selection bias, or social or organisational factors. As to the latter it would certainly be interesting to compare work-related stressors and factors causing satisfaction (which are protective against burnout 4 ) between countries in a multinational study. We recently submitted a second study that includes an analysis of the importance of work-related stressors and factors causing satisfaction in the daily life of the anaesthesiologist.…”

Vulnerability to burnout within the nursing workforce—The role of personality and interpersonal behaviour

“…Armon et al. () state that certain personality traits may predispose individuals to experience stressors more intensely, thus subsequently eliciting burnout. Neuroticism was described as the disposition to interpret events negatively.…”

“…Armon et al. () attempted to contradict this by reporting that neuroticism predicted emotional exhaustion both at T1 and T2 (1 year later). However, because neuroticism was not assessed during T2, the possibility of reverse causation could not be tested nor disconfirmed.…”

Relationships between individual-level factors and burnout: A meta-analysis of Chinese participants

“…The causes of burnout are multifactorial and complex in nature, which are frequently grouped into three distinct levels: organizational, job and individual (Maslach et al, 2001). However, previous studies have focused primarily on the organizational or job characteristics (Lee & Ashforth, 1996), while individual factors have received only sporadic attention despite a general appreciation of their importance (Armon, Shirom, & Melamed, 2012).…”