Burnout and the Emotional Mind: Investigating EQ and Self-Esteem as Predictors in a Young Adult Population

Abstract

This quantitative study explores the relationships among burnout, emotional intelligence, and self-esteem among a sample of 200 young adults. Using standardized testing tools—the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Brief Emotional Intelligence Scale—the study utilized non-parametric statistical analyses because of the non-normality of data. The findings revealed a statistically significant negative relationship between emotional intelligence and burnout, but no significant relationship between self-esteem and burnout. Further regression tests revealed that emotional intelligence predicted burnout and explained about 9.3% of the variance. In addition, the scores of burnout were significantly impacted by gender, with women exhibiting higher burnout scores. To the contrary of expectations, no moderating influence of self-esteem on the relationship between emotional intelligence and burnout was found. The findings of this study have widespread implications both at the societal and organizational levels and underscore the importance of developing emotional intelligence as well as confronting gender dynamics. Besides, moderation and mediation analyses were conducted using Process Models, which revealed that self-esteem did not function as a moderator or mediator. Ensuring rigorous testing of gender differences was the utilization of the Mann–Whitney U test. This article ends with an in-depth discussion of the pivotal role of emotional intelligence in burnout prevention, and proposes interventions in learning stress management and social skills as possibly more useful than interventions directed toward the sole enhancement of self-esteem.