Thesis

commitment, control, and challenge, which are all part of hardiness, can be transformed to co-
operation, credibility, and creativity at an organizational level.
Maslach et al. (2001) stated that the area of personality in relation to burnout has been studied
in order to find which type of personality may experience burnout to a higher degree, i.e.,
which the burnout personality is. Also Maslach et al. (op. cit.) has mentioned hardiness in
connection to burnout and said that nurses who showed decreased hardiness were
experiencing higher levels of burnout; these nurses had especially higher levels of emotional
exhaustion. Another personality mentioned by Maslach et al. (op. cit.) which has been
associated with burnout is having external locus of control. This personality factor means that
a nurse is attributing different events and achievements to others or to pure chance. In contrast
to having external locus of control, a nurse might have an internal locus of control, which
means that a nurse is attributing different events and achievements to her own ability and
effort. Also the area of self-esteem has been associated with burnout, where high levels of
emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and low levels of personal accomplishment have
been associated with lower levels of self-esteem. In connection to all these personality factors
it has been shown that low hardiness, lower self-esteem, and having an external locus of
control, is associated with a stress-prone personality.
According to Maslach et al. (2001) another personality type which has been associated with
burnout is the Big Five personality dimensions like neuroticism, extraversion, openness to
experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. In the research of burnout it has been
shown that burnout has been associated with the personality dimension of neuroticism. The
personality dimension of neuroticism includes characteristics like anxiety, hostility,
depression, self-consciousness, and vulnerability, and it is said that neurotic nurses are
emotionally not as stable and that they are prone to experience a lack of psychological well-
being. Other personality areas which have been looked into in connection to burnout are
Type-A behaviour and rational versus emotional personality types. When it comes to Type-A
personality it has been shown that this personality type has been associated with the emotional
exhaustion dimension of burnout. When it comes to rational versus emotional personality
types, it has been shown that nurses who are emotional types are experiencing burnout to a
higher degree.