Cognitive-affective resilience indicia as predictors of burnout and job-related outcome

Resiliency has emerged as a critical construct in areas as far ranging as child development to disaster mental health. Resiliency may be thought of as the ability to rebound, or bounce back, from adversity (Kaminsky, McCabe, Langlieb, & Everly, 2007). Numerous interventions have been postulated and/or shown to enhance resiliency, e.g., journaling, social support, psychological first aid, and formal crisis intervention systems, such as Critical Incident Stress Management. As the search to develop more efficient and effective resiliency enhancement interventions continues, it becomes important to search for the mechanisms of action that actually serve to account for the ability to rebound after adversity. One such postulated mechanism is that of positive emotionality. Positive emotionality may be thought of as the presence of ambient positive emotions, as well as the ability to express positive emotions in the wake of adversity. Constructs such as confidence, optimism, and the ability to find meaning may underlie such expressions. This investigation attempted to assess the relationship between the expression of ambient emotions (within the last few weeks) upon measures of burnout, job satisfaction, perceived performance, and intention to leave one's job. This study represents a randomized sample of 2,500 out of approximately 91,333 potential subjects. Four hundred eighty-nine and four hundred ninety-one usable responses were received for inclusion in the analyses. Correlational analyses revealed that expressed positive emotions, as well as expressed negative emotions, were related to the outcome variables in a significant but complementary manner.