Thesis

develop burnout (see for example Layman & Guyden, 1997). Burke & Richardsen (1996)
have shown that people who are sensitive, idealistic, too enthusiastic, empathic, anxious, and
obsessive have a higher risk of developing burnout. Maslach (1982) is also mentioning
personality factors being more prone to burnout. A person who is weak and unassertive when
she is dealing with others, who is not able to take control over different situations is more
prone to burnout. Such a person might also be more impatient and intolerant, and get easily
angry or frustrated. Also self-esteem plays a big part and a person who has a low self-esteem,
little ambition, and who is reserved runs bigger chances of being burned out.
Maslach (1982) pointed out that all of the personality characteristics mentioned in connection
to burnout, must in some way occur together for a person to be prone to burnout. One should
not take for granted that only those people who have the above mentioned personality
characteristics are the only people who will burn out. Everybody runs a risk to burnout, to a
certain point, if emotional stress at ones workplace becomes disproportionate. However, the
difference might be that people with a certain personality structure will run higher chances of
burning out irrelevant of the level of the stress at work. Also, one should not presume that
every single one of the personality characteristics mentioned above have to be present in order
for a person to be at risk for burnout, since any of the personality characteristics might make a
person more prone to burnout. Several researchers have mentioned the importance personality
plays in the development of burnout (see for example Bakker, Van Der Zee, Lewig & Dollard,
2006; Baramee & Blegen, 2003; Harrisson, Loiselle, Duquette & Semenic, 2002; Houkes,
Janssen, de Jonge & Bakker, 2003; Schmitz, Neuman & Opperman, 2000). According to these
researchers personality might offer a very important explanation of burnout.
According to Garrosa et al. (2006) positive psychology is contributing to the field of
personality and burnout by the area of the hardy personality. It has been shown, for example,
that if nurse’s hardy personality is increased then it might lessen the risk of work-related
burnout, by lessen the experience of stress it self. The hardy personality might reduce
occurrence of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and increase personal
accomplishment. Garrosa et al. (op. cit.) suggested that interventions to decrease burnout
might be more efficient if they would be directed at increasing nurses’ personality instead of
only concentrating on diminishing work-related stress factors. Thus, the hardy personality can
have an important implication for the whole organization in that personality attributes like