Correlates of Burnout Among Public Service Lawyers

Abstract

Several hypotheses suggested by the theoretical literature on burnoutwere empirically tested in an attempt to identify the organizationalconditions associated with employee burnout. Public service lawyers in theU.S. (N = 391) completed a survey designed to assess (a) three components ofburnout, namely, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of lowpersonal accomplishment; (b) perceptions of several job conditions predictedto be associated these three components of burnout, including workload, roleconflict, social support, decision making policies, and autonomy; and (c)organizational commitment. Results indicate that emotional exhaustion is moststrongly associated with role conflict and quantitative workload. Feelings ofpersonal accomplishment were associated with supervisory social support andjob level. Depersonalization was associated with role conflict and decisionmaking policies. Finally, each burnout component is significantly related toorganizational commitment.