BURNOUT - A PERSPECTIVE FROM SOCIAL-COMPARISON THEORY

This chapter offers some preliminary evidence about the role of social exchange and social comparison processes in the development of burnout. It discusses recent developments in social comparison theory that are important for understanding stress at work. The chapter describes a number of major stressors in the nursing profession and a number of personality variables that seem relevant to burnout. It then presents some findings from a study among nurses, and expresses that each of the burnout dimensions proposed by Maslach has different relationships to various stressors and personality characteristics. The chapter also discusses some of our findings on the role of social comparison processes as related to burnout. Social comparison theory seems particularly relevant for understanding burnout among nurses because, as in many other human service professions, uncertainty seems a rather salient stressor within nursing, and uncertainty is supposedly a major factor instigating social comparisons.