Christina Maslach discusses how to tell if employees are in danger of burnout.

Mike interviews Christina Maslach of the University of California-Berkeley about her research on employee burnout. Her most recent study found that employees who show one of the symptoms of burnout will likely show full-blown burnout a year later, if their jobs also have one of the accompanying conditions leading to burnout.

Christina Maslach is Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, and Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. She received her A.B., magna_cum laude, in Social Relations from Harvard-Radcliffe College in 1967, and her Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University in 1971. She has conducted research in a number of areas within social and health psychology. However, she is best known as one of the pioneering researchers on job burnout, and the author of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the most widely used research measure in the burnout field.

Date of the interview: August 5, 2008

Recommended further readings:

Leiter, M. P., & Maslach, C. (2005). Banishing burnout: Six strategies for improving your relationship with work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (1997). The truth about burnout. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2008). Early predictors of job burnout and engagement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 498-512

Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W. B., & Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job burnout. In S. T. Fiske, D. L. Schacter, & C. Zahn-Waxler (Eds.), Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397-422.

Schaufeli, W. B. & Enzmann, D. (1998). The burnout companion to study and practice: A critical analysis. London: Taylor & Francis.