Psychologv in the Schools

Volume 30, October 1993

PERSONALITY AND BURNOUT AMONG SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS

JONATHAN SANDOVAL.
Division of Education
University of California. Davis
Personality factors along with organizational factors and interpersonal factors have
commonly been thought to contribute to the experience of burnout among human
services workers, including school psychologists. This study validates the relation-
ship of personality characteristics as measured by the California Psychological In-
ventory (CPI) and burnout as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory. School
psychologists with well-integrated personalities (high Factor 3 scores on the CPI) are
less prone to burnout than others.

School psychology is not a stress-free profession. There is high turnover among

school psychologists (Connolly & Reschly, 1990) and a high level of burnout (Huberty
& Huebner, 1988; Huebner, 1992; Reiner & Hartshorne, 1982). Burnout has been
described as a condition occurring in human services professions that is characterized
by a high level of emotional exhaustion, a sense of depersonalization, and a sense of
reduced personal accomplishment (Maslach & Jackson, 1986).
Huebner (1993) has recently reviewed the literature on burnout among school
psychologists and other professionals examining three categories of factors related to
burnout: organizational factors (role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload, lack
of resources), interpersonal factors (quality of peer and supervisory interactions), and
intrapersonal factors (personality traits and competencies in school psychologists). The
first two factors have been studied suggesting that burnout is related to lack of resources,
interpersonal conflicts, unclear performance expectations, lack of supervisory support,
and perceived heavy caseloads coupled with insufficient time (see Huebner, 1993, for
a comprehensive review). Most of the research to date has focused on the relationship
between burnout and demographic variables, job-related stressors, and role conflicts,
and these factors have been thought to be more influential than intrapersonal variables
in accounting for the variance in burnout (Huebner, 1993).
This last category, intrapersonal factors, has only recently been examined in school
psychologists (Huebner & Mills, in press). Huebner and Mills examined the relation-
ship between burnout and selected personality characteristics and role expectations in
a sample of South Carolina school psychology practitioners. Using multiple regression,
they predicted Maslach’s burnout dimensions of Depersonalization and Personal Ac-
complishment (but not Emotional Exhaustion) from personality factors measured by
the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness,
and Conscientiousness), from demographic factors (number of psychologists, highest
degree, student ratio, number of schools served, gender, and age), and from role-
satisfaction measures (discrepancy between actual and ideal amount of time spent in
assessment, consultation, research, and clerical activities). The resulting equations sug-
gest that the personality factors are equally or more able to explain burnout variance
than the demographic factors and contributed uniquely to prediction. Specifically,
agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness along with dissatisfaction with con-
sultation and counseling, and high psychologist-to-student ratios were predictive of burn-

Requests for reprints should be sent to Jonathan Sandoval, Division of Education, University of California-
Davis, Davis, CA 95616-8579.
32 1
322 Sandoval

out. School psychologists experiencing burnout tended to be high in competitiveness

and egocentricity and low in conscientiousness and extraversion, to be frustrated with
professional roles, wishing to spend more time in consultation and counseling, and to
have high work loads. The present study seeks to expand our knowledge of the rela-
tionship between personality variables and burnout among school psychologists using
a sample from a different state and a more comprehensive personality measure, and
all three established dimensions of burnout.

METHOD
Subjects and Procedure
The subjects for this investigation were 100 randomly selected members of the
California Association of School Psychologists. There were 1,189 Association members
at the time of the study, most practicing school psychologists (academic school
psychologists are usually associate members). More California school psychologists
belong to the state association than to any other group-local, regional, or national.
The participants were sent a letter of invitation explaining the study, and those volunteer-
ing were sent the study materials. One follow-up letter was used when there was no reply.
As an incentive, those completing the questionnaire received their individual results with
an interpretation. Fifty of the original random sample agreed to participate and returned
all tests for a 50% return. Those returning the materials were representative geograph-
ically of those sampled. Sixty-two percent of the subjects were female, with a mean age
of 44.5 and an average of 1 I years working as school psychologists. The sample was
predominantly Caucasian (90070), with one Asian, one African-American, and three
Hispanic school psychologists also participating.

Measures
Each participant was asked to complete a demographic questionnaire indicating
age, gender, ethnicity, level of education, and number of years in practice. In addition,
each school psychologist completed the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; Gough,
1987) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI; Maslach & Jackson, 1986).
The CPI was selected for a number of reasons. First, it has been recently revised
and has good psychometric properties (c.f., Anastasi, 1987; Domino, 1985). Second,
it is designed to assess the personality of the general population rather than individuals
with mental illness. According to Gough (1987), the CPI seeks “. . . to assess the kind
of everyday variables that ordinary people use in their daily lives to understand, classify,
and predict their own behavior and that of others” (p. 1). Third, the measure was
developed and normed, to a great extent, on California groups (Gough, 1987). Fourth,
the scale seems to be valid with different cultural groups in the U.S. and abroad (e.g.,
Brislin, Lonner, & Thorndike, 1973). Fifth, the CPI has been used in other research
on occupational groups. Finally, the scale yields a number of scores of theoretical in-
terest in the study of school psychologists, such as folk scales of Empathy, Psychological
Mindedness, and Social Presence.
The CPI is a 462-item paper-and-pencil test. The respondent answers yes or no to
each statement. The author states that it has two aims: to predict what people will say
and do in specified contexts, and to identify individuals who will be evaluated and
described in particular and interpersonally significant ways (Gough, 1987). The CPI yields
20 “folk scales” and three scales derived from factor-analytic studies of the instrument.
 Personality and Burnout 323

The folk scales were designed to correlate with how significant others describe an in-
dividual. The factor scores have been labeled and represent the following psychological
constructs: Internality vs. Externality (v. I), Norm Favoring vs. Norm Questioning (v.2),
and Self-Realization (v.3). The score for Self-Realization, which the author also terms
“psychological integration,” is, in essence, a single measure of adjustment or adaptation.
The MBI has been used in other research on burnout among school psychologists
(Aronin & Kubelun, 1981;Huberty & Huebner, 1988;Huebner, 1992). It is a paper-
and-pencil self-report in which the respondent indicates the frequency and occurrence
of 22 behaviors from never (0) to every day (6). An example of one item is “I feel I
treat some recipients as if they were impersonal objects.” The inventory has good
psychometric properties (Sandoval, 1989) and yields three scales: Emotional Exhaus-
tion (EE), Depersonalization (DP), and Personal Accomplishment (PA). High scores
on the first two scales suggest burnout; low scores on PA suggest burnout. Cronbach’s
alpha coefficients for the three scales have been reported in the manual as .90for EE,
.79for DP, and .71 for PA (Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Huberty and Huebner (1988)
have validated the inventory’s factor structure for school psychologists.

Table 1
Correlation of CPI Factor Scores and Folk Scales with ThreeMBIMeasures of Burnout (n = 50)
CPI Emotional Depersonalization Personal
Exhaustion Accomplishment

Factor Scores
Internality vs. Externality -.I17 - .048 - .078
Norm Favoring vs.
Norm Questioning .ooo - .I26 .050
Self-Realization - .314* - .423** .342*
Folk Scores
Dominance .097 - .083 .I72
Capacity for Status ,258 .I35 -.116
Sociability .I10 .071 - .033
Social Presentation .038 .023 - .010
Self-Acceptance .229 .032 .017
Independence - .I49 - .316 .240
Empathy .I26 .022 .I08
Responsibility .053 - .I49 .I90
Socialization - .220 - .I91 -.I18
Self-Control - .316* - .325* .I40
Good Impression - .326* - .363** .093
Communality .I56 - .080 .052
Well-Being - .3%** - .294* .222
Tolerance - .040 - .436** .3%**
Achievement via Conformance - .246 - .238 - .056
Achievement via Independence - .078 -.I44 .268
Intellectual Efficiency - .I08 - .256 .I90
Psychological Mindedness .057 - .I62 .29S*
Flexibility - .I09 - .I38 ,225
Femininity/Masculinity .229 .060 - .I63

* p < .05. * p < .01.

3 24 Sandoval

RESULTS
The scores on the MBI were EE M = 20.62, SD = 8.54; DP M = 5.94, SD = 4.44,
and P A M = 38.14, SD = 5.73. These levels of burnout are very close to those reported
in other studies (Huberty & Huebner, 1988; Huebner, 1992) and are in the average or
moderate range for human services workers. The MBI manual defines high burnout scores
as 27 and above on EE, 13 and above on DP, and 31 and below on PA. The CPI means
have been reported elsewhere (Davis & Sandoval, 1992).
Table 1 presents the correlations between the CPI scores and the MBI scores. Of
the three factor scores for the CPI, only the Self-Realization factor (v.3) is related
significantly to burnout. High scorers do not report burnout. According to the manual,
“Persons scoring higher on v.3 tend to be viewed as relatively free of neurotic trends
and conflicts, moderate, mature, insightful, optimistic, and as having a wide range of
interests. Persons scoring low tend to be viewed as unsure of self, dissatisfied, uncom-
fortable with uncertainty and complexity, and as having a narrow or reduced range of
interests. . . . High-scorers feel themselves to be capable, able to cope with the stresses
of life, and reasonably fulfilled or actualized” (Gough, 1987, p. 20).
In order to understand further the relationship between burnout and personality,
the correlations between the folk scores and the burnout indicators were also computed.
These correlations must be viewed with caution in that 20 variables were examined for
only 50 subjects. Three folk scales are consistently and significantly (p < .01) related
to burnout. Individuals high in Good Impression and Well-Being tend to be low in
Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization. A person scoring high in Good Impression
wants “to make a good impression; tries to do what will please others”; someone scoring
lower “insists on being himself or herself, even if this causes friction or problems” (Gough,
1987, p. 6). Someone scoring high on Well-Being “feels in good physical and emotional
health; optimistic about the future”; someone with lower scores is likely to be “concerned
about health and personal problems; worried about the future” (Gough, 1987, p. 6).
Individuals scoring high in Tolerance score low in Depersonalization and high in
Personal Accomplishment. High Tolerance scores denote that a person “is tolerant of
others’ beliefs and values, even when different from or counter to own beliefs,” whereas
low scores indicate that a person is “not tolerant of others; skeptical about what they
say” (Gough, 1987, p. 6).
Psychological Mindedness and Self-control also correlate positively with one or
two of the burnout indicators but at a lower level of significance (p < .05).
Maslach and Jackson state that “burnout is conceptualized as a continuous variable,
ranging from low to moderate to high degrees of experienced feeling. It is not viewed
as a dichotomous variable, which is either present or absent” (Maslach & Jackson, 1986,
p. 2). Nevertheless, the MBI manual does indicate cutoffs for a high degree of burnout
that are equivalent to the upper third of the normative distribution. In the present sam-
ple, 13 subjects were considered high on the EE scale, 4 were considered high on the
DP scale, and 5 were considered high on the PA scale. Burnout manifests itself most
among these school psychologists as emotional exhaustion. The means of the three CPI
factors for the high EE group were contrasted with the means of the moderate and low
scoring group. The two groups did not differ on any of the factors, although the difference
almost reached significanceon v. 1, internality-externality,(t = 1.81, one tailedp = .04),
with the high burnout group (M = 12.77, SD = 4.85) scoring more externalized (out-
going, confident, talkative, having social poise and presence) than the others (M = 15.95,
SD = 5.62).
 Personality and Burnout 325

DISCUSSION
The results of this study support the notion that intrapersonal factors (i.e., per-
sonality) are related to burnout among school psychologists. Individuals who are in-
tegrated and well adjusted are less prone to burnout. Although this “adaptation” factor
is related to burnout, other dimensions of personality (internality-externality and norm
favoring vs. norm questioning) are not. These results do not agree precisely with those
of Huebner and Mills (in press), which suggest a role for factors termed Extraversion
and Conscientiousness. In fact, there was a suggestion here that extroversion was related
to emotional-exhaustion burnout. Huebner found no relationship between Emotional
Exhaustion and any of his predictors, including personality variables. More research
will be needed to clarify which dimensions of personality are related to which dimen-
sions of burnout.
Causality is not clear in the present correlational study, since being burned out in
one’s job may lead to a sense of poor personality integration. Longitudinal and ex-
perimental studies might better elucidate cause and effect.
The general finding that individuals who are not well adjusted are more prone to
burnout is important, in that attempts at intervention for burnout such as stress manage-
ment (Huebner, 1993) may not be enough. It may be more important to select well-
adjusted individuals for training programs in school psychology or for high-stress school
psychology positions rather than trying to intervene before or after burnout.
One would wish a larger sample size before trusting the results of the correlations
between the folk scores and the burnout indices. Nevertheless, the findings make sense
and are intriguing. The pattern of correlations with Well-Being and Good Impression
suggests both good adjustment and good coping strategies. The notion that tolerant
individuals are less likely to depersonalize clients is appealing. Those who are tolerant
and psychological minded are more likely to have a sense of accomplishment, simply
because they are able to imagine and perceive a wider range of outcomes for clients
focusing on changes in thoughts and feelings, not just actions.
A further limitation of this study is that it relied on self-reports; there was no in-
dependent verification of burnout. On the other hand, both measures have been well
validated and burnout may be more important as a self-perceived phenomenon than
as one viewed by others. The fact that the subjects were a sample from a single state
and were all volunteers raises questions about the generalizability of the results. A next
step in research on burnout in school psychology would be to include proven measures
of organizational, interpersonal, and personality factors in a single study predicting burn-
out. In this way, the relative and unique contributions to explaining the variance in bur-
nout could be assessed. Thereafter, longitudinal and experimental studies might be
attempted.

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