Emotional exhaustion

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Emotional exhaustion is a chronic state of physical and emotional depletion that results from excessive job and/or personal demands and continuous stress.[1] It describes a feeling of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work. It is manifested by both physical fatigue and a sense of feeling psychologically and emotionally "drained".[2]


Most emotional exhaustion research has been guided by Maslach's and Jackson's three-component conceptualization of burnout. This model suggests burnout consists of three interrelated parts: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment. Depersonalization, also called dehumanization, refers to a set of callous and insensitive behaviors displayed by a worker toward a client.[citation needed] Diminished personal accomplishment refers to negative evaluations of the self.[3][4][5]


The level of emotional exhaustion which is experienced by an employee is influenced by a variety of determinants, such as: personal resources, coping strategies, emotional culture, and supervisory regulation of display rules.

Personal resources[edit]

Personal resources, such as status, social support, money or shelter, may reduce or prevent an employee's emotional exhaustion.

According to the Conservation of Resources theory (COR), people strive to obtain, retain and protect their personal resources, either instrumental (e.g., money or shelter), social (e.g., social support or status) or psychological (e.g., self-esteem or sense of autonomy). The COR's theory suggest that people must invest resources in order to protect against resource loss, recover from losses, and regain resources. Therefore, those with greater resources are less vulnerable to resource loss and more capable of orchestrating resource gain, whereas, for those with fewer resources, ongoing resource loss may result in a rapid influential loss spiral. [6] [7] [8] [9]

In a field study, those experiencing higher levels of job autonomy (the freedom to take initiative and exercise discretion in decision-making), low task complexity, supervisory support, and the internal locus of control (a tendency to attribute events to one's own control; such as, the tendency to attribute a success to internal causes, like one's ability or effort, rather than external causes, such as good luck), tend to experience lower degrees of emotional exhaustion .[10]

Similarly, researchers reveal that even though higher degree of using emotion regulation on the job is related to higher levels of employees' emotional exhaustion, when employees believe that they have autonomy in their job behaviors, emotion regulation, that is otherwise exhausting, is not associated with exhaustion at all .[11]

Another field study, basing on a sample of call-center workers in a large telecommunications corporation, indicate that employees who are highly identified with the service work, possess higher levels of self-efficacy (the belief in one's ability to succeed;[12]), and receive social support from their supervisors, are less likely to experience emotional exhaustion.[13]

Coping strategies[edit]

Main article: Coping strategies

Researchers suggest that emotional exhaustion may be a result of using inadequate strategies in order to cope with problematic events on the job.

Accordingly, there are empirical evidences that employees, who tend to use more control strategies, which are considered more productive strategies (concerned with addressing the situation; such as direct action and help seeking) tend to experience lower levels of emotional exhaustion than do those who tend to use more escape strategies, which are considered inadequate strategies, (used to avoid problems; such as avoidance and resignation with the problematic situation). [10]

Emotional culture[edit]

Regional and national cultures have been shown to have different norms for emotional expressions,[14] and vary in their expectations for regulating and expressing emotions in the workplace.[15] Such differences are part of the emotional culture of those cultures. For example, some cultures are more institutionally-oriented, with strong norms about regulating emotions to fulfill institutional roles and standards, whereas other cultures are more impulsively-oriented that value expressing unregulated emotions.[16]

An example of a culture with a strong institutional-orientation toward emotions is the United States, due to the strong American norm to act positively and hide negative feelings, ("the service with a smile" norm);[17] Whereas, France can be used as an example of a country with a more impulsive-orientation toward emotions.[18]

People within cultures that tend to use an impulsive orientation to understand and evaluate social situations are likely to feel more personal control over their expressions than people within institutional-oriented cultures, resulting in more of a buffer against strain and emotional exhaustion.[16]

On the basis of those arguments, an organizational research investigated the influence of emotional culture on the degree of emotional exhaustion experienced by employees who work on jobs that include interaction with clients and emotional labor demands. In this study, among employees working at such jobs, those who belonged to more impulsive-oriented culture (France) showed lower degrees of emotional exhaustion, than those who belonged to more institutional-oriented culture (U.S.).[11]

Supervisory regulation of "display rules"[edit]

Supervisors are likely to be important definers of interpersonal demands at the job level, given their direct influence on worker's beliefs about high-performance expectations. Moreover, supervisors' impressions of the importance of display rules (the rules about what kind of emotions are allowed to be expressed on the job) influence the employees' impressions of these display rules.[19][20]

Recent study also suggests that employees who hold the same job (e.g., call center representatives) may experience the same "display rules" differently if they work for different supervisors, who vary in the emphasis they place on their subordinates' interpersonal role requirements, and by so, experience different levels of emotional exhaustion. Such that having a supervisor who places greater importance on interpersonal job demands results in greater emotional exhaustion (especially for those subordinates who have low career identity) .[13]

Social interaction model of effects on work strain[edit]

Current models of how emotion regulation impacts strain focus on intraindividual processes that operate within the mind and body of the person regulating the emotion, but these models have several limitations [21]

  1. Research indicates that emotion regulation is sometimes positively, sometimes negatively and sometimes not associated with strain.[22] The intraindividual models do not predict when strain increases or decreases.
  2. The existing models do not distinguish between amplification and suppression of emotion, even though results tend to differ for them.
  3. These models do not refer to the social or interpersonal functions of emotions.[23]
  4. They also do not explain the different effects that different discrete emotions have on strain (e.g. pleasant vs. unpleasant).

Cote (2005) suggests a social interaction model that takes into account these limitations. In this model, work strain is predicted according to:

  1. The type and authenticity of the emotion expressed by a sender in an interpersonal situation.
  2. Receiver's skill of decoding emotion display.
  3. Sender's response to receiver's reaction.

According to Cote (2005), interpersonal feedback is far more potent than intraindividual feedback, and dominates if the two processes are in opposition. The social interaction model suggests an alternate route by which to proceed with theory building and future research.


Researches have linked emotional exhaustion to a plethora of ailments, and a general breakdown in feelings of community.[5] However, a growing body of research has begun to demonstrate that emotional exhaustion can have deleterious consequences for organizations as well;

For example, Russell Cropanzano and his colleagues, in their two field studies, indicate that exhausted employees show lower organizational commitment, lower job performance, less organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) directed toward the organization (OCBO) and their supervisors (OCBS), and higher turnover intentions. They suggest that emotional exhaustion can be seen as a cost that qualifies the value of any benefits received through employment, and so that an organization, which overworks its employees to the point of emotional exhaustion, may be seen as unfair. [24]

Similarly, longitudinal studies found that exhausted employees show not only lower job performance, but also more absences, and greater likelihood of seeking employment elsewhere (actual voluntary turnover).[1][25]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b Wright TA, Cropanzano R (June 1998). "Emotional exhaustion as a predictor of job performance and voluntary turnover". J Appl Psychol 83 (3): 486–93. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.83.3.486. PMID 9648526. 
  2. ^ Zohar D. (1997). "Predicting burnout with a hassle-based measure of role demands". Journal of Organizational Behavior 18 (2): 101–115. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-1379(199703)18:2<101::AID-JOB788>3.0.CO;2-Y. JSTOR 3100244. 
  3. ^ Maslach C. (1982). The Burnout: The Cost of Caring. Engelwood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-091231-X. 
  4. ^ Maslach C., Jackson S.E. (1986). The Maslach Burnout Inventory (2nd ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. ISBN 99963-45-77-7. 
  5. ^ a b Maslach C., Leiter M.P. (1997). The truth about burnout: How organizations cause personal stress and what to do about it. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 0-7879-0874-6. 
  6. ^ Hobfoll SE (March 1989). "Conservation of resources. A new attempt at conceptualizing stress". Am Psychol 44 (3): 513–24. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.44.3.513. PMID 2648906. 
  7. ^ Hobfoll S.E. (2002). "Social and psychological resources and adaptation". Review of General Psychology 6 (4): 307–324. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.6.4.307. 
  8. ^ Hobfoll S.E. (2001). "The influence of culture, community and the nested-self in the stress process: Advancing conservation of resources theory". Applied Psychology: an International Review 50 (3): 337–421. doi:10.1111/1464-0597.00062. 
  9. ^ Hobfoll S.E. (1998). Stress, Culture, and Community. New York: Plenum Press. ISBN 0-306-45942-6. 
  10. ^ a b Ito J., Brotheridge C. (2003). "Resources, coping strategies, and emotional exhaustion: A conservation of resources perspective". Journal of Vocational Behavior 63 (3): 490–509. doi:10.1016/S0001-8791(02)00033-7. 
  11. ^ a b Grandey AA, Fisk GM, Steiner DD (September 2005). "Must "service with a smile" be stressful? The moderating role of personal control for American and French employees". J Appl Psychol 90 (5): 893–904. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.90.5.893. PMID 16162062. 
  12. ^ see Albert Bandura
  13. ^ a b Wilk SL, Moynihan LM (September 2005). "Display rule "regulators": the relationship between supervisors and worker emotional exhaustion". J Appl Psychol 90 (5): 917–27. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.90.5.917. PMID 16162064. 
  14. ^ Ekman P. (1972). "Universals and cultural differences in facial expressions of emotions". In Cole J. Nebraska symposium on motivation 1971. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 207–283. 
  15. ^ Cooper, D., Doucet, L., & Pratt, M. (2003, August). I'm not smiling because I like you: Cultural differences in emotional displays at work. Paper presented at the Academy of Management, Seattle, WA.
  16. ^ a b Gordon S.L. (1989). "Institutional and impulsive orientations in selective appropriating emotions to self". In Franks D.D., McCarthy D. The sociology of emotions: Original essays and research papers. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. pp. 115–136. 
  17. ^ Schneider D.J. (1981). "Tactical self-presentations: Toward a broader conception". In Tedeschi J.T. Impression management theory and social psychological research. New York: Academic Press. pp. 23–40. 
  18. ^ Hallowell R., Bowen D.E., Knoop C.I. (2002). "Four seasons goes to Paris". Academy of Management Executive 16 (4): 7–24. doi:10.5465/AME.2002.8951308. 
  19. ^ Zapf D. (2002). "Emotion work and psychological well-being. A review of the literature and some conceptual considerations". Human Resource Management Review 12 (2): 237–268. doi:10.1016/S1053-4822(02)00048-7. 
  20. ^ Diefendorff JM, Richard EM (April 2003). "Antecedents and consequences of emotional display rule perceptions". J Appl Psychol 88 (2): 284–94. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.88.2.284. PMID 12731712. 
  21. ^ Cote S. (2005). "A social interaction model of the effects of emotion regulation on work strain". Academy of Management Review 30 (3): 509–530. doi:10.5465/AMR.2005.17293692. 
  22. ^ Barsade S.G., Brief A.P., Spataro S.E. (2003). "The affective revolution in organizational behavior: The emergence of a paradigm". In Greenberg J. Organizational Behavior: The state of the science (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 3–52. 
  23. ^ Frijda N.H., Mesquita B. (1994). "The social roles and functions of emotions". In Kitayama S., Markus H.R. Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of mutual influence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. pp. 51–87. 
  24. ^ Cropanzano R., Rupp D.E., Byrne Z.S. (2003). "The relationship of emotional exhaustion to work attitudes, job performance and organizational citizenship behaviors" (PDF). Journal of Applied Psychology 88 (1): 160–9. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.88.1.160. PMID 12675403. 
  25. ^ Grandey A., Dickter D., Sin H.P. (2004). "The customer is not always right: Customer aggression and emotion regulation of service employees" (PDF). Journal of Organizational Behavior 25 (3): 397–418. doi:10.1002/job.252. 

Further reading[edit]

  • Hendrix W.H., Robbins T., Miller J., Summers T.P. (1998). "Effects of procedural and distributive justice on factors predictive of turnover". Journal of Social Behavior & Personality 13 (4): 611–632. 
  • Kahill S. (1988). "Symptoms of professional burnout: A review of the empirical evidence". Canadian Psychology 29 (3): 284–297. doi:10.1037/h0079772. 
  • Wayne S.J., Shore L.M., Liden R.C. (1997). "Perceived organizational support and leader-member exchange: A social exchange perspective". Academy of Management Journal 40 (1): 82–111. doi:10.2307/257021. JSTOR 257021. 

External links[edit]