Adult attachment styles and their relationship to burnout: a preliminary, cross-cultural investigation

Abstract While many studies have addressed the relationship between adult attachment styles and stress, so far no studies have addressed the relationship between attachment styles and burnout, which is thought often to characterize highly motivated individuals. Based on a psychodynamic existential perspective it was predicted that adult attachment styles would correlate with burnout: that there would be a negative correlation between secure attachment style and burnout and a positive correlation between insecure attachment styles (avoidant or anxious/ambivalent) and burnout. A pilot study was conducted in a sample of Israeli MBA students (N=41), nearly all of whom were in full-time employment. A further four studies were then conducted on Hungarian social studies students (N=751), Israeli dialysis nurses (N=216) and national samples of Israeli Jews (N=511) and Arabs (N=505). These studies supported this hypothesis. Finally, a follow-up study involving Israeli students (N=160), who described the importance of various work features and their strategies for coping with burnout-causing situations, helps to explain the findings. These results have a theoretical and a practical implication: burnout research and intervention should include greater emphasis on personal factors in addition to contextual factors. Keywords: BurnoutAdult attachment styles Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank Professor Agnes Utasi from the University of Szeged in Hungary for collecting the Hungarian data, Muhamad Haskia for collecting the data from the dialysis nurses and Rachel Israeli for conducting the telephone surveys of the national samples of Israelis and Arabs. The research described in this paper was supported by a grant from the School of Management at Ben-Gurion University, Israel.