Burnout, Psychology of

Burnout is a prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job. It is defined by the three dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. The experience can impair both personal and social functioning, and thus contributes to a decline in the quality of work and interpersonal relationships. As a reliably identifiable job stress syndrome, burnout clearly places the individual stress experience within a larger organizational context of people's relation to their work. Interventions to alleviate burnout and to promote its opposite, engagement with work, can occur at both organizational and personal levels. The social focus of burnout, the solid research basis concerning the syndrome, and its specific ties to the work domain make a distinct and valuable contribution to people's health and well being.