ABSTRACT
Recent methodological improvements within the area of burnout have permitted a more solid foundation for the burnout phenomenon (cf. Garden, 1987a; Golembiewski, Munzenrider, & Stevenson, 1986; Jackson, Schwab, & Schuler, 1986; Keinan & Melamed, 1987; McCranie & Brandsma, 1988; Melamed, Kushnir, & Shirom, 1992; Schaufeli & Van Dierendonck, 1992; Shamir, 1986; Wade, Cooley, & Savicki, 1986; Wolpin, 1988). In his valuable review, Shirom (1989) delineates and discusses many conceptual consequences of these later studies. He concludes that burnout essentially “refers to a combination of physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion and cognitive weariness” and that “the depletion of energetic resources … does not overlap any other established behavioral science concepts” (p. 33). Burnout is a chronic, negative, affective response with fatigue and emotional exhaustion as its core aspects. This view of the burnout phenomenon is here referred to as the state conception of burnout, since it identifies burnout with affective states. Re-searchers within the field may have different opinions regarding antecedents and consequences of the phenomenon, but most of them appear to adhere to this state conception and to the view that burnout is adequately operationalized by the Burnout Measure (BM) (Pines & Aronson, 1988) or by the emotional exhaustion scale from the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) (Maslach & Jackson, 1981a). Shirom seems to be an exception in stating that scales 96such as MBI and BM are contaminated by depression, frustration, and anxiety and that these scales should be purified.
