Christina Maslach
American social psychologist of job burnout
American social psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, known for research on job burnout. With Susan Jackson she created the Maslach Burnout Inventory (1981). She also objected to the treatment of prisoners in the Stanford prison experiment in 1971.
Why this person matters
Her work gave burnout a definition and a questionnaire, so that chronic work stress could be measured and compared across occupations. Berkeley ties her research to the World Health Organization's 2019 decision to include burn-out in ICD-11 as an occupational phenomenon. The inventory was built with Susan E. Jackson, and Michael Leiter later co-wrote books with her.
Main contributions
Maslach Burnout Inventory
Maslach and Susan E. Jackson created the inventory in 1981, first for human services work; versions for education (1986) and general occupations (1996) followed. It measures emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and reduced personal accomplishment, and is reported to be the most commonly used burnout measure.
From emotion research to burnout
Berkeley describes her as first trained as an experimental social psychologist studying emotion; she turned to burnout while exploring how people cope with emotionally demanding jobs. Her books include Burnout: The Cost of Caring (1982), The Truth About Burnout (1997, with Michael Leiter) and The Burnout Challenge (2022, with Leiter).
Objection during the Stanford prison experiment
As a recent Stanford PhD she was brought in to interview participants. Philip Zimbardo's own account says she objected to the way prisoners were treated, and that her objection was the second of two reasons he gave for ending the study after six days in August 1971.
Context and limits
WHO states that ICD-11 lists burn-out as an occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition, and applies the term only to work settings. DSM-5 does not recognise it as a distinct disorder. Rotenstein and colleagues (2018) found 142 definitions across 182 studies of physician burnout, and Bianchi and colleagues (2015) concluded that studies had not shown burnout to be distinct from depression. The inventory is proprietary.
In your introductory course
Stress, health and wellbeing.Appears in the stress and health chapter as the standard account of burnout, usually alongside work on chronic stress and coping.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 14.2. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1971
Received her PhD from Stanford University; in August she objected to the Stanford prison experiment, which ended on 20 August.
- 1981
Published the Maslach Burnout Inventory with Susan E. Jackson.
- 1982
Published Burnout: The Cost of Caring.
- 1997
Published The Truth About Burnout with Michael Leiter, and was named National Professor of the Year.
- 2019
The World Health Organization included burn-out in ICD-11 as an occupational phenomenon, a decision Berkeley's biography ties to her research.
Sources
- UC Berkeley Department of Psychology, Christina MaslachUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.
- UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science, Maslach receives APS award for lifetime achievementUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.
- McGraw-Hill, Christina Maslach, test developer profilePublisher. Institutional biography inspected.
- World Health Organization, Burn-out an occupational phenomenon: International Classification of DiseasesSociety or association. Text passages inspected.
- Stanford Prison Experiment, Conclusion (Philip Zimbardo)Original work. Text passages inspected.
- Wikipedia, Christina MaslachReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Occupational burnoutReference work. Reference article inspected.