The Big Five Personality Factors as Predictors of Changes Across Time in Burnout and Its Facets

We tested the effects of N euroticism and C onscientiousness on burnout across time, controlling for age, gender, work hours, and depressive symptoms. Our theoretical model included both global burnout and its physical, emotional, and cognitive facets, consistent with the bifactor approach to modeling second‐order constructs in structural equation modeling. Data were gathered from 1,105 respondents (63% men) who completed questionnaires at Time 1 ( T 1) and approximately 24 months later at Time 2 ( T 2). Neuroticism positively predicted T 1 global burnout and negatively predicted T 1 and T 2 emotional exhaustion. Conscientiousness negatively predicted T 1 global burnout and T 1 and T 2 cognitive weariness, and positively predicted T 1 and T 2 emotional exhaustion. Our gender‐specific exploratory analysis revealed that for each gender, N euroticism and C onscientiousness predicted different facets of burnout at T 1 and T 2. We recommend that future research test the possibility that the associations of N euroticism and C onscientiousness with global burnout and its facets may be gender specific.