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Literature Review
The first recognized scholar to study burnout was Herbert Freudenberger when he published his 1974 article “Staff Burn-Out” in the Journal of Social Issues. Freudenberger’s article was initiated by his own feelings of exhaustion, fatigue, frequent headaches, sleeplessness, gastrointestinal problems, shortness of breath and lingering illnesses such as a cold or flu. Freudenberger (1974) wrote:
The burn-out candidate finds it just too difficult to hold in feelings. He cries too easily, the slightest pressure makes him feel overburdened and he yells and screams. With the ease of anger may come a suspicious attitude, a kind of suspicion and paranoia. The victim begins to feel that just about everyone is out to screw him, including other staff members (p. 160).
Freudenberger (1974) also described the characteristics of those susceptible to burnout, which include people dedicated and committed to their jobs, particularly those in health-care professions working in clinics, crisis intervention centers and therapeutic communities. He said long workdays, pressure to perform the job, monotony of the job, lack of organizational goals, and minimal social and organizational support can cause burnout. Schaufeli and Enzmann (1998) described Freudenberger’s work as a spark that ignited an interest in burnout research that launched its popularity.
Almost simultaneously to Freudenberger’s studies, social psychological researcher Christina Maslach stumbled across the phrase “burnout” while conducting research on emotions in the workplace (Maslach & Jackson, 1984). Maslach and Susan Jackson had been interviewing health care professionals in an effort to understand how those in crisis situations are able to control their emotional arousal and also how they are able to detach themselves from the patient. Controlling emotional arousal allows the worker to conduct his or her work without emotional interference, and detachment allows the worker to identify the patient as a “case” instead of a person who is suffering (Maslach & Jackson, 1984). While describing the interviews to a lawyer, Maslach and Jackson learned that poverty lawyers working in legal services experienced similar feelings as health care workers. Those lawyers called it “burnout” (Maslach & Jackson, 1984). Maslach and Jackson (1984) wrote:
Several points came out of the discussion. One, of course, was the term burnout itself, which seemed to be a more useful label for the phenomenon that people were reporting. Second, the emotional strain was not a unique function of health care but could appear in other service occupations as well. This suggested that there was something about dealing with people per se that was emotionally stressful and that could, if not handled effectively, result in burnout (p. 136).
Maslach and Jackson (1981) constructed three aspects of the burnout syndrome: burnout is an increased feeling of emotional exhaustion; it is the development of negative, cynical attitudes and feelings toward one’s clients (depersonalization); and it is the tendency to negatively evaluate oneself (personal accomplishments) – workers are unhappy with themselves and dissatisfied with their job accomplishments. Maslach and Jackson (1981) described burnout as a “syndrome of emotional exhaustion and cynicism that occurs frequently among individuals who do ‘people-work’ of some kind” (p. 99). Using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, higher scores on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization coupled with lower scores on personal accomplishment would indicate burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1981).
Initially, burnout research was regarded as “pop psychology” by some academics and professionals, and ignored outright. When Maslach and Jackson attempted to publish their manuscript that outlined the MBI scales, they were met with resistance. That has since changed. Between 1976 and 1996, 93 percent of 498 journal articles referred to the MBI (Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998).
In 1996, Maslach, Jackson and Leiter developed the MBI-General Survey to measure burnout in other occupational groups not working in health care. Maslach et al. (1996) wrote: “The MBI-GS defines burnout as a crisis in one’s relationship with work, not necessarily as a crisis in one’s relationships with people at work” (p. 20). Unlike the MBI, the MBI-GS does not emphasis the relationships with clients but instead focuses on work performance in general.
With the MBI-GS, exhaustion examines fatigue, cynicism examines “indifference or a distant attitude toward work,” and professional efficacy measures expectations and accomplishments (Maslach, Jackson and Leiter, 1996, p. 21). In their 2001 retrospective, Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter wrote that while exhaustion is reflective of the stress aspect of burnout it does not examine the relationship workers have with their work. The authors contend that people experiencing exhaustion create distance by becoming indifferent or cynical. The link to efficacy isn’t as clear. Byrne (1994), and Lee and Ashforth (1996) determined that inefficacy was a product of either exhaustion or cynicism or a combination of the two elements. Maslach et al. (2001) argue that a lack of efficacy develops in correlation with exhaustion and cynicism.
However, burnout does not occur without warning. An increase in stressors creates stress, and stress paves the path to burnout. In citing data reported in three studies, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health wrote that 40 percent of workers reported that their jobs are “very or extremely stressful,” 26 percent of workers are “often or very often burned out or stressed by their work,” and 29 percent felt “quite a bit or extremely stressed at work” (NIOSH, 1999, p. 4). NIOSH defined job stress as “the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker” (p. 6).
Emotional and mental stressors are not only associated with unpleasant experiences. Accepting a new job or promotion can be just as stressful as being laid off. Emotional and mental stressors in the workplace include fear (of sanctions), joy (of promotion), anger (over injustice), challenge (of a new position), shock (after sexual harassment or racial taunt), competition (with colleagues), conflicts (with subordinates or managers), contradictory instructions, negative thoughts, time pressure, structural changes, monotonous tasks, night shifts and overtime (von Onciul, 1996).
Experiences, values and adaptability largely determine how an individual reacts as stressors accumulate. If a familiar support system falters, a solitary stressor can become exacerbated -- for instance, a person rushing to a meeting gets stuck in traffic because of an accident (von Onciul, 1996). Similarly, a reporter’s stress is compounded when he or she is hurrying to post a story on the Web and the computer crashes.
Stressors create stress but defining stress has been a challenge. In his book, The Stress of Life, Hans Selye (1956), considered by many to be the father of modern stress research, defined stress as:
. . . the rate of wear and tear on the body. Anyone who feels that whatever he is doing – or whatever is being done to him – is strenuous and wearing, knows vaguely what we mean by stress. The feelings of just being tired, jittery, or ill are subjective sensations of stress. But stress does not necessarily imply a morbid change: normal life also causes some wear and tear in the machinery of the body. Indeed, stress can even have curative value, as in shock therapy, bloodletting, and sports (p. 3).
Selye said stress is a necessary part of our lives, and not all stress is bad. He writes: “. . .it is the spice of life, for any emotion, any activity causes stress. But, of course, your system must be prepared to take it. The same stress which makes one person sick can be an invigorating experience for another” (p. vii).
Others contend that stress increases when job responsibilities exceed a person’s ability to adapt (Lazarus and Launier, 1978), which results in unhappiness, decreased performance and physical ailments (Brill, 1984). While a person suffering high degrees of stress might stabilize and actually improve (Brill, 1984), burnout victims generally cannot (Maslach, et al. 2001). Stress-related illnesses take its toll on individuals and organizations. Webster and Bergman (1999) reported that occupational stress sufferers miss on average 23 workdays a year. Additionally, accidents, absenteeism, turnover, reduced productivity, medical and insurance costs, and workers’ compensation caused by job stress cost U.S. businesses between $200 and $300 billion each year (The American Institute of Stress, 2006).
In two separate Associated Press Managing Editor surveys, 39 percent of editors said they suffer from stress-related health problems (Gloede, 1983) and 47 percent described their jobs as “highly stressful” (Fitzgerald, 1995). In the 1995 study, nearly 67 percent said their stress levels increased with the implementation of a new pagination system.
Although Maslach and Jackson (1981) take minimal steps in defining stress, they recognized its impact on burnout, writing, “chronic stress can be emotionally draining and poses a risk of ‘burnout’” (p. 99). Two stress-related theories emerged in the early years of MBI development (Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter, 2001): One, people who are incredibly dedicated to their work exceed their limit when pursuing their ideals; and two, burnout occurs during extended exposure to job stressors, which would result in burnout occurring later in people’s careers. More than 25 years of burnout research has established a direct link from exhaustion to cynicism (Maslach, et al., 2001). Maslach et al. (2001) wrote: “Burnout scores are fairly stable over time, which supports the notion that burnout is a prolonged response to chronic job stressors” (p. 405).
In newspaper journalism, stress is an acceptable byproduct when pursuing deadlines, scoops, and the demands of editors and readers. Stressors are compounded when working long hours, the job conflicts with family and the increased pressure to produce not only on a daily basis but perhaps on an hourly basis. Reinardy (2006a) wrote: “The emotional stressors provide an additional element of fear (of getting scooped), joy (of getting the scoop), anger (of being ignored by sources), competition (with other reporters and other media) and conflicts (when chasing a controversial story)” (p. 400).
The MBI-GS has been utilized in a multitude of studies, including the examination of managers, clerks, foremen, technicians and blue-collar workers in multinational companies (Schutte, Toppinen, Kalimo and Schaufeli, 2000); police officers, air traffic controllers, construction managers and journalists (Richardsen and Martinussen, 2005); industrial white-collar and blue-collar employees (Toppinen-Tanner, Kalimo and Mutanen, 2002); workers who use technology in their jobs (Salanova, Peiro and Schaufeli, 2002); information and communication technology professionals (Kouvonen, 2005); a general population of Finnish employees (Ahola, Honkonen, Isometsa, Kalimo, Nykyri, Koskinen, Aromaa, Lonnqvist, 2006); and a general population of Swedish workers (Lindblom, Linton, Fedeli and Bryngelsson, 2006).
Only a few studies have utilized the MBI or MBI-GS to examine burnout among journalists. Cook and Banks (1993) used the MBI to determine burnout among 117 full-time reporters and 43 copy editors from five different daily newspapers with circulations ranging from about 23,000 to about 250,000. Cook and Banks determined that the journalist most “at-risk” for burnout is a young, entry-level copy editor working at a small newspaper. He or she makes less than the average salary, “expresses intentions to leave the field, has found journalism to be much different from what was expected and demonstrates a low overall level of job satisfaction” (p. 116).
Among 120 reporters and copy editors, Cook, Banks and Turner (1993) also reported that young copy editors demonstrated higher rates of burnout compared to older journalists and reporters. However, journalists at larger newspapers reported lower levels of personal accomplishment than those at smaller papers. Additionally, reporters were more satisfied in their jobs than copy editors. Craig (1999) also found high levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization among copy editors at the Daily Oklahoman.
In comparing human service workers, social work administrators and journalists, Peckham (1983) reported that journalists were less burned out than the service workers and “slightly more” than the social work administrators.
Reinardy (2006a) examined the rate of burnout among sports writers, desk personnel and sports editors. He reported that while all sports journalists score high in personal accomplishment, they rate in the moderate range of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization on the MBI. Desk personnel had a lower level of emotional exhaustion than either sports writers or editors but sports writers had the lowest level of depersonalization among the groups. Also, sports editors clearly suffered from a higher rate of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and a lower rate of personal accomplishment than the other groups.
In a follow-up study using the MBI-GS, Reinardy (2006b) reported that sports editors (n = 184) demonstrated a moderate rate of emotional exhaustion and cynicism, but have a high level of professional efficacy. Richardsen and Martinussen (2005) reported similar results among 93 journalists.