ABSTRACT
Despite the fact that occupational burnout in the human service professions has been the focus of numerous research efforts, most research in this area has been atheoretical and has focused little attention on the social psychological processes that might be relevant. Moreover, although in-depth social psychological analyses of the burnout phenomenon have been presented (e.g., Harrison, 1983; Maslach & Jackson, 1982), these approaches have lacked firm empirical evidence. This chapter tries to bridge the gap between social psychological theory and burnout research. This will be done in part by linking burnout to recent developments in social exchange theory (e.g., Buunk & VanYperen, 1991; Walster, Berscheid, & Walster, 1978). However, the main focus in this chapter will be upon applying recent theoretical work on social comparison processes under stress to occupational burnout (e.g. Taylor, Buunk, & Aspinwall, 1990; Taylor & Lobel, 1989).
