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

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.