Thesis

Diener & Tov (2005, in Kitayama & Cohen, 2007) have suggested that life satisfaction can be
reliably measured across nations and that the life satisfaction concept in itself is understood in
an equally way in many different countries. Thus, these researchers argue that the concept of
life satisfaction is universal and the life satisfaction measurement is responded to similarly in
different countries.
2.7.2. Burnout and Life Satisfaction
Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner & Schaufeli (2000) conducted a research in regard to burnout
and satisfaction with life among 185 nurses from Germany. They wanted to look at the
nurses’ general life satisfaction in connection to burnout. The researcher made a distinction
between two separate groups of working circumstances, i.e., job resources and job demands
and they wanted to test three different hypotheses. First of all the researchers wanted to see if
emotional exhaustion could be best predicted by job demands (i.e., challenging relationships
with patients and time pressure), that is, to see if enduring experience of job demands would
cause emotional exhaustion but not depersonalization. Secondly, the researchers wanted to see
if depersonalization from work could be best predicted job resources (i.e., presence or non-
presence of rewards and involvement or non-involvement in making decisions), that is, to see
if non-existing job resources would result in depersonalization but not emotional exhaustion.
Thirdly and lastly, the researchers wanted to see if life satisfaction was impacted by job
demands and job resources, as a result of nurses experiencing burnout, that is, to see if
depersonalization and emotional exhaustion would work as mediators of job resources and job
demands on satisfaction of life.
According to Demerouti et al. (2000) life satisfaction can be described as the extent to how
much a person’s life is satisfying her/his physical and psychological desires and wishes. The
person’s desires and wishes can be reflected in many different areas of the person’s life, like
when the person is a worker, a parent, a wife/husband, and a friend. A person’s work is
believed to have significant impact on satisfaction of life in many different ways. For
example, work is the supplier of monthly income which is a way for people to reach their
desires and wishes. Also, a person is spending most of her/his waking hours at the workplace
and it has been shown that the job has an impact on the self-esteem of people. It has also been
shown that unemployment is a cause of major stress for a person. One of the challenges in the