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Maslach Burnout Inventory\n\nThird Edition\n\nChristina Maslach, University of California at Berkeley\nSusan E. Jackson, New York University\nMichael P. Leiter, Acadia University\n\n• Instrument names\nMaslach Burnout Inventory*\nMBI\nMBI—Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS)\nMBI—Educators Survey (MBI-ES)\nMBI—General Survey (MBI-GS)\n\n• Developers\nChristina Maslach, Ph.D., Department of Psychology,\nUniversity of California at Berkeley\nSusan E. Jackson, Ph.D., Department of Management, New\nYork University\n\n• Contact Information\nConsulting Psychologists Press, 3803 E. Bayshore Road,\nP.O. Box 10096, Palo Alto, CA 94303\nTelephone: (800) 624-1765, fax: (415) 969-8608\n\nDescription and History of the Instrument\nStaff members in human services and educational institutions\nare often required to spend considerable time in intense\n\n*The MBI is a copyrighted measure, and may not be reproduced by any means without written permission of Consulting Psychologists Press.\n191\n 192 • CHRISTINA MASLACH, SUSAN E. JACKSON, AND MICHAEL P. LEITER\ninvolvement with other people. Frequently, the staff-client\ninteraction is centered around the client's current problems\n(psychological, social, or physical) and is therefore charged\nwith feelings of anger, embarrassment, fear, or despair. Be-cause solutions for client's problems are not always obvious\nand easily obtained, the situation becomes more ambiguous\nand frustrating. For the person who works continuously with\npeople under such circumstances, the chronic stress can be\nemotionally draining and lead to burnout.\n\nBurnout is a psychological syndrome of emotional exhaus-tion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplish-ment that can occur among individuals who work with other\npeople in some capacity. A key aspect of the burnout syn-drome is increased feelings of emotional exhaustion; as emo-tional resources are depleted, workers feel they are no longer\nable to give of themselves at a psychological level. Another\naspect of the burnout syndrome is the development of de-personalization (i.e., negative, cynical attitudes and feel-ings about one's clients). This callous or even dehumanized per-ception of others can lead staff members to view their clients\nas somehow deserving of their troubles (Ryan, 1971). The\nprevalence of this negative attitude toward clients among\nhuman service workers has been well documented (Wills,\n1978). The development of depersonalization appears to be\nrelated to the experience of emotional exhaustion, and so\nthese two aspects of burnout should be correlated. A third\naspect of the burnout syndrome, reduced personal accom-plishment, refers to the tendency to evaluate oneself neg-atively, particularly with regard to one's work with clients.\nWorkers may feel unhappy about themselves and dissatisfied\nwith their accomplishments on the job.\n\nThe consequences of burnout are potentially very serious\nfor workers, their clients, and the larger institutions in which\nthey interact. Our initial research on this syndrome involved\ninterviews, surveys, and field observations of employees in a\nwide variety of human services professions, including health\ncare, social services, mental health, criminal justice, and education (Jackson & Maslach, 1982; Maslach, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982a, 1982b; Maslach & Jackson, 1983, 1984a, 1984b, 1985; Maslach & Pines, 1977; Pines & Maslach, 1978). Our findings suggested that burnout can lead to a deterioration in the quality of care or service provided by the staff. It appears to be a factor in job turnover, absenteeism, and low morale. Furthermore, burnout seems to be correlated with various self-reported indexes of personal dysfunction, including physical exhaustion, insomnia, increased use of alcohol and drugs, and marital and family problems. The generally consistent pattern of findings that emerged from this research led us to postulate a specific syndrome of burnout and to devise an instrument to assess it. This measure, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), contains three subscales that assess the different aspects of experienced burnout. It has been found to be reliable, valid, and easy to administer.\n\nScale Description\n\nThe MBI is designed to assess the three components of burnout syndrome: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. There are 22 items, which are divided into three subscales. There are 22 items, which are divided into three subscales. The general term recipients is used in the items to refer to the particular people for whom the respondent provides service, care, or treatment. The items are written in the form of statements about personal feelings or attitudes (e.g., \"I feel burned out from my work,\" \"I don't really care what happens to some recipients\"). The items are answered in terms of the frequency with which the respondent experiences these feelings, on a 7-point, fully anchored scale (ranging from 0, \"never\" to 6, \"every day\"). Because such a response format is least similar to the typical format used in other self-report measures of attitudes and feelings, spurious correlations with other measures (due to similarities of response formats) should be minimized. Furthermore, the explicit anchoring of all 7 points on the frequency dimension creates a more standardized response scale, so that the researcher can be fairly certain about the meanings assumed by respondents for each scale value. In the original version of the MBI (Maslach & Jackson, 1981a), there was also a response scale for intensity of feeling. However, because of the redundancy between the frequency and intensity ratings, the intensity scale was deleted from subsequent editions.\n\nThe nine items in the Emotional Exhaustion subscale assess feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work. The five items in the Depersonalization subscale measure an unfeeling and impersonal response toward recipients of one's service, care, treatment, or instruction. For both the Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization subscales, higher mean scores correspond to higher degrees of experienced burnout. Because some of the component items in each subscale had low loadings on the other, there is a moderate correlation between the two subscales, which is in accordance with theoretical expectations that these are separate, but related, aspects of burnout. The eight items in the Personal Accomplishment subscale assess feelings of competence and successful achievement in one's work with people. In contrast to the other two subscales, lower mean scores on this subscale correspond to higher degrees of experienced burnout. The Personal Accomplishment subscale is independent of the other subscales, and its component items do not load negatively on them. In other words, Personal Accomplishment cannot be assumed to be the opposite of Emotional Exhaustion or Depersonalization. Indeed, the correlations between the Personal Accomplishment subscale and the other subscales are low.\n\nEach respondent's test form is scored by using a scoring key that contains directions for scoring each subscale. The scores for each subscale are considered separately and are not combined into a single, total score; thus, three scores are computed for each respondent. If desired for individual feedback, each score can then be coded as low, average, or high by using the numerical cutoff points listed on the scoring key.\n\nConditions for Use\n\nThe MBI takes about 10 to 15 minutes to fill out. It is self-administered. Complete instructions are provided for the respondent. To minimize response biases, the testing sessions should be characterized by the following conditions.\n\nRespondent Privacy\n\nRespondents should complete the MBI privately, without knowing how other respondents are answering. They can be tested individually or in a group session in which privacy is ensured. Although respondents may take the MBI home and fill it out at their leisure, this procedure has drawbacks. First, respondents' answers may be influenced if they talk to other people, such as spouses, friends, or coworkers. Second, the response rate would be less than 100% because some people may not return the completed forms.\n\nRespondent Confidentiality\n\nBecause of the sensitive nature of some items, respondents must feel comfortable about expressing their true feelings. Ideally, they should be able to complete the MBI anonymously. If this is not possible because identification is required (e.g., in a longitudinal study), then efforts should be made to use a form of identification that is not personally revealing, such as a code number or a label.\n\nAvoidance of Sensitization to Burnout\n\nPeople have widely varying beliefs about burnout. To minimize the reactive effect of such personal beliefs or expectations, respondents must be unaware that the MBI is a burnout measure, and they must not be sensitized to the general issue of burnout. For this reason, the test is labeled MBI Human Services Survey rather than Maslach Burnout Inventory. The scale should be presented as a survey of job-related attitudes and not be linked to burnout in any way. Of course, once the measure has been administered to all respondents, then a discussion of burnout and the MBI's assessment of it is appropriate.\n\nNo special qualifications or procedures are required of the person who is administering the MBI. However, the examiner should not be a supervisor or administrator who has direct authority over the respondents because this approach could cause respondents to be less candid in their answers. Ideally, the examiner should be seen as a neutral person. However, if the examiner is well known to the respondents, he or she should be someone they trust. The major responsibilities of the examiner are to minimize response bias and to ensure completion of all items.\n\nScale Development\nItems for the MBI were designed to measure hypothetical aspects of the burnout syndrome. The interview and questionnaire data collected during earlier, exploratory research were valuable sources for ideas about the attitudes and feelings that characterize burned-out workers. In addition, numerous established scales were reviewed for relevant content material, although no items were borrowed outright.\nA preliminary form of the MBI was constructed that consisted of 47 items. This preliminary form was administered to a sample of 605 people (56% male, 44% female) from a variety of health and service occupations that have a high potential for burnout according to previous research (Maslach, 1976, 1982a). In all of these occupations, the worker must deal directly with people about issues that either are or could be problematic. Consequently, strong emotional feelings are likely to be present in the work setting, and this sort of chronic emotional stress that is believed to induce burnout.\nThe data from the first sample were subjected to a factor analysis using principal factoring with iteration and an orthogonal (varimax) rotation. Ten factors accounted for over three fourths of the variance. A set of selection criteria was then applied to the items, yielding a reduction in the number of items from 47 to 25. Items were retained that met all of the following criteria: a factor loading greater than .40 on only one of the factors, a large range of subject responses, a relatively low percentage of subjects checking the \"never\" response, and a high item-total correlation.\nTo obtain confirmatory data for the pattern of factors, the 25-item form was administered to a new sample of 420 people (31% male, 69% female). The results of the factor analysis on this second set of data were very similar to those of the first, so the two samples were combined (n = 1,025). The factor analysis of the 25 items, based on the combined samples and using principal factoring with iteration plus an orthogonal rotation, yielded a four-factor solution. Three of these factors had eigenvalues greater than unity and are considered subscales of the MBI. This three-factor structure has been replicated with numerous samples of various human services occupations, in many different countries (for a review, see the MBI Manual (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996); also see Benszur, Schaufeli, & Girault, 1995; Golembiewski, Scherb, & Boudreau, 1993. Summary of Development Research\nReliability\nThe reliability coefficients were based on samples that were not used in the item selections to avoid any improper inflation of the reliability estimates. Internal consistency was estimated by Cronbach's coefficient alpha (n = 1,316). The reliability coefficients for the subscales were the following: .90 for Emotional Exhaustion, .79 for Depersonalization, and .71 for Personal Accomplishment. The standard error of measurement for each subscale is as follows: 3.80 for Emotional Exhaustion, 3.16 for Depersonalization, and 3.73 for Personal Accomplishment.\nData on test-retest reliability of the MBI were reported for two samples. For a sample of graduate students in social welfare and administrators in a health agency, the two test sessions were separated by an interval of 2 to 4 weeks. The test-retest reliability coefficients for the subscales were the following: .82 for Emotional Exhaustion, .60 for Depersonalization, and .80 for Personal Accomplishment. Although these coefficients range from low to moderately high, all are significantly beyond the .001 level. In a sample of 248 teachers, the two test sessions were separated by an interval of 1 year. The test-retest reliabilities for the three subscales were .60 for Emotional Exhaustion, .54 for Depersonalization, and .57 for Personal Accomplishment (Jackson, Schwab, & Schuler, 1986). Subsequent studies have found the MBI subscales to be stable over time, with correlations in the .50 to .82 range on time spans of three months to one year (Leiter & Durup, 1996).\n\nConvergent Validity\nConvergent validity was demonstrated in several ways. First, an individual's MBI scores were correlated with behavioral ratings made independently by a person who knew the individual well, such as a spouse or coworker. Second, MBI scores were correlated with the presence of certain job characteristics that were expected to contribute to experienced burnout. Third, MBI scores were correlated with measures of various outcomes that had been hypothesized to be related to burnout. All three sets of correlations provided substantial evidence for the validity of the MBI and are presented in more detail in the MBI Manual (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996). The first type of validating evidence came from outside observers whose independent assessments of an individual's experience corroborate the individual's self-rating. Within the job setting, a knowledgeable observer would be a person's coworker. As predicted, people who were rated by a coworker as being emotionally drained by the job scored higher on Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization. Furthermore, people who were rated as appearing physically fatigued also scored higher on Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization. As also predicted, high scores on Depersonalization were correlated with more frequent complaints about clients (as rated by coworkers). Within the home setting, a knowledgeable observer would be the person's spouse, so spouse evaluations were collected from a study of police officers and their wives (Jackson & Maslach, 1982). Police who scored high on Emotional Exhaustion were rated by their wives as coming home upset and angry, stressed or anxious, physically exhausted, and complaining about problems at work. However, police who scored high on Personal Accomplishment were rated by their wives as coming home in a cheerful or happy mood and as doing work that was a source of pride and prestige for the family. The validity of the MBI was demonstrated further by data that confirmed hypotheses about the relationships between various job characteristics and experienced burnout. It was predicted that higher rates of burnout would occur as workload increased. This pattern of response was found in a nationwide survey of public contact employees: when caseloads were very large, scores were high on Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization and low on Personal Accomplishment (Maslach & Jackson, 1984b). Physicians who spent all or most of their working time in direct contact with patients scored high on Emotional Exhaustion, whereas Emotional Exhaustion scores were
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Maslach Burnout Inventory\n\nThird Edition\n\nChristina Maslach, University of California at Berkeley\nSusan E. Jackson, New York University\nMichael P. Leiter, Acadia University\n\n• Instrument names\nMaslach Burnout Inventory*\nMBI\nMBI—Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS)\nMBI—Educators Survey (MBI-ES)\nMBI—General Survey (MBI-GS)\n\n• Developers\nChristina Maslach, Ph.D., Department of Psychology,\nUniversity of California at Berkeley\nSusan E. Jackson, Ph.D., Department of Management, New\nYork University\n\n• Contact Information\nConsulting Psychologists Press, 3803 E. Bayshore Road,\nP.O. Box 10096, Palo Alto, CA 94303\nTelephone: (800) 624-1765, fax: (415) 969-8608\n\nDescription and History of the Instrument\nStaff members in human services and educational institutions\nare often required to spend considerable time in intense\n\n*The MBI is a copyrighted measure, and may not be reproduced by any means without written permission of Consulting Psychologists Press.\n191\n 192 • CHRISTINA MASLACH, SUSAN E. JACKSON, AND MICHAEL P. LEITER\ninvolvement with other people. Frequently, the staff-client\ninteraction is centered around the client's current problems\n(psychological, social, or physical) and is therefore charged\nwith feelings of anger, embarrassment, fear, or despair. Be-cause solutions for client's problems are not always obvious\nand easily obtained, the situation becomes more ambiguous\nand frustrating. For the person who works continuously with\npeople under such circumstances, the chronic stress can be\nemotionally draining and lead to burnout.\n\nBurnout is a psychological syndrome of emotional exhaus-tion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplish-ment that can occur among individuals who work with other\npeople in some capacity. A key aspect of the burnout syn-drome is increased feelings of emotional exhaustion; as emo-tional resources are depleted, workers feel they are no longer\nable to give of themselves at a psychological level. Another\naspect of the burnout syndrome is the development of de-personalization (i.e., negative, cynical attitudes and feel-ings about one's clients). This callous or even dehumanized per-ception of others can lead staff members to view their clients\nas somehow deserving of their troubles (Ryan, 1971). The\nprevalence of this negative attitude toward clients among\nhuman service workers has been well documented (Wills,\n1978). The development of depersonalization appears to be\nrelated to the experience of emotional exhaustion, and so\nthese two aspects of burnout should be correlated. A third\naspect of the burnout syndrome, reduced personal accom-plishment, refers to the tendency to evaluate oneself neg-atively, particularly with regard to one's work with clients.\nWorkers may feel unhappy about themselves and dissatisfied\nwith their accomplishments on the job.\n\nThe consequences of burnout are potentially very serious\nfor workers, their clients, and the larger institutions in which\nthey interact. Our initial research on this syndrome involved\ninterviews, surveys, and field observations of employees in a\nwide variety of human services professions, including health\ncare, social services, mental health, criminal justice, and education (Jackson & Maslach, 1982; Maslach, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982a, 1982b; Maslach & Jackson, 1983, 1984a, 1984b, 1985; Maslach & Pines, 1977; Pines & Maslach, 1978). Our findings suggested that burnout can lead to a deterioration in the quality of care or service provided by the staff. It appears to be a factor in job turnover, absenteeism, and low morale. Furthermore, burnout seems to be correlated with various self-reported indexes of personal dysfunction, including physical exhaustion, insomnia, increased use of alcohol and drugs, and marital and family problems. The generally consistent pattern of findings that emerged from this research led us to postulate a specific syndrome of burnout and to devise an instrument to assess it. This measure, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), contains three subscales that assess the different aspects of experienced burnout. It has been found to be reliable, valid, and easy to administer.\n\nScale Description\n\nThe MBI is designed to assess the three components of burnout syndrome: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. There are 22 items, which are divided into three subscales. There are 22 items, which are divided into three subscales. The general term recipients is used in the items to refer to the particular people for whom the respondent provides service, care, or treatment. The items are written in the form of statements about personal feelings or attitudes (e.g., \"I feel burned out from my work,\" \"I don't really care what happens to some recipients\"). The items are answered in terms of the frequency with which the respondent experiences these feelings, on a 7-point, fully anchored scale (ranging from 0, \"never\" to 6, \"every day\"). Because such a response format is least similar to the typical format used in other self-report measures of attitudes and feelings, spurious correlations with other measures (due to similarities of response formats) should be minimized. Furthermore, the explicit anchoring of all 7 points on the frequency dimension creates a more standardized response scale, so that the researcher can be fairly certain about the meanings assumed by respondents for each scale value. In the original version of the MBI (Maslach & Jackson, 1981a), there was also a response scale for intensity of feeling. However, because of the redundancy between the frequency and intensity ratings, the intensity scale was deleted from subsequent editions.\n\nThe nine items in the Emotional Exhaustion subscale assess feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work. The five items in the Depersonalization subscale measure an unfeeling and impersonal response toward recipients of one's service, care, treatment, or instruction. For both the Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization subscales, higher mean scores correspond to higher degrees of experienced burnout. Because some of the component items in each subscale had low loadings on the other, there is a moderate correlation between the two subscales, which is in accordance with theoretical expectations that these are separate, but related, aspects of burnout. The eight items in the Personal Accomplishment subscale assess feelings of competence and successful achievement in one's work with people. In contrast to the other two subscales, lower mean scores on this subscale correspond to higher degrees of experienced burnout. The Personal Accomplishment subscale is independent of the other subscales, and its component items do not load negatively on them. In other words, Personal Accomplishment cannot be assumed to be the opposite of Emotional Exhaustion or Depersonalization. Indeed, the correlations between the Personal Accomplishment subscale and the other subscales are low.\n\nEach respondent's test form is scored by using a scoring key that contains directions for scoring each subscale. The scores for each subscale are considered separately and are not combined into a single, total score; thus, three scores are computed for each respondent. If desired for individual feedback, each score can then be coded as low, average, or high by using the numerical cutoff points listed on the scoring key.\n\nConditions for Use\n\nThe MBI takes about 10 to 15 minutes to fill out. It is self-administered. Complete instructions are provided for the respondent. To minimize response biases, the testing sessions should be characterized by the following conditions.\n\nRespondent Privacy\n\nRespondents should complete the MBI privately, without knowing how other respondents are answering. They can be tested individually or in a group session in which privacy is ensured. Although respondents may take the MBI home and fill it out at their leisure, this procedure has drawbacks. First, respondents' answers may be influenced if they talk to other people, such as spouses, friends, or coworkers. Second, the response rate would be less than 100% because some people may not return the completed forms.\n\nRespondent Confidentiality\n\nBecause of the sensitive nature of some items, respondents must feel comfortable about expressing their true feelings. Ideally, they should be able to complete the MBI anonymously. If this is not possible because identification is required (e.g., in a longitudinal study), then efforts should be made to use a form of identification that is not personally revealing, such as a code number or a label.\n\nAvoidance of Sensitization to Burnout\n\nPeople have widely varying beliefs about burnout. To minimize the reactive effect of such personal beliefs or expectations, respondents must be unaware that the MBI is a burnout measure, and they must not be sensitized to the general issue of burnout. For this reason, the test is labeled MBI Human Services Survey rather than Maslach Burnout Inventory. The scale should be presented as a survey of job-related attitudes and not be linked to burnout in any way. Of course, once the measure has been administered to all respondents, then a discussion of burnout and the MBI's assessment of it is appropriate.\n\nNo special qualifications or procedures are required of the person who is administering the MBI. However, the examiner should not be a supervisor or administrator who has direct authority over the respondents because this approach could cause respondents to be less candid in their answers. Ideally, the examiner should be seen as a neutral person. However, if the examiner is well known to the respondents, he or she should be someone they trust. The major responsibilities of the examiner are to minimize response bias and to ensure completion of all items.\n\nScale Development\nItems for the MBI were designed to measure hypothetical aspects of the burnout syndrome. The interview and questionnaire data collected during earlier, exploratory research were valuable sources for ideas about the attitudes and feelings that characterize burned-out workers. In addition, numerous established scales were reviewed for relevant content material, although no items were borrowed outright.\nA preliminary form of the MBI was constructed that consisted of 47 items. This preliminary form was administered to a sample of 605 people (56% male, 44% female) from a variety of health and service occupations that have a high potential for burnout according to previous research (Maslach, 1976, 1982a). In all of these occupations, the worker must deal directly with people about issues that either are or could be problematic. Consequently, strong emotional feelings are likely to be present in the work setting, and this sort of chronic emotional stress that is believed to induce burnout.\nThe data from the first sample were subjected to a factor analysis using principal factoring with iteration and an orthogonal (varimax) rotation. Ten factors accounted for over three fourths of the variance. A set of selection criteria was then applied to the items, yielding a reduction in the number of items from 47 to 25. Items were retained that met all of the following criteria: a factor loading greater than .40 on only one of the factors, a large range of subject responses, a relatively low percentage of subjects checking the \"never\" response, and a high item-total correlation.\nTo obtain confirmatory data for the pattern of factors, the 25-item form was administered to a new sample of 420 people (31% male, 69% female). The results of the factor analysis on this second set of data were very similar to those of the first, so the two samples were combined (n = 1,025). The factor analysis of the 25 items, based on the combined samples and using principal factoring with iteration plus an orthogonal rotation, yielded a four-factor solution. Three of these factors had eigenvalues greater than unity and are considered subscales of the MBI. This three-factor structure has been replicated with numerous samples of various human services occupations, in many different countries (for a review, see the MBI Manual (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996); also see Benszur, Schaufeli, & Girault, 1995; Golembiewski, Scherb, & Boudreau, 1993. Summary of Development Research\nReliability\nThe reliability coefficients were based on samples that were not used in the item selections to avoid any improper inflation of the reliability estimates. Internal consistency was estimated by Cronbach's coefficient alpha (n = 1,316). The reliability coefficients for the subscales were the following: .90 for Emotional Exhaustion, .79 for Depersonalization, and .71 for Personal Accomplishment. The standard error of measurement for each subscale is as follows: 3.80 for Emotional Exhaustion, 3.16 for Depersonalization, and 3.73 for Personal Accomplishment.\nData on test-retest reliability of the MBI were reported for two samples. For a sample of graduate students in social welfare and administrators in a health agency, the two test sessions were separated by an interval of 2 to 4 weeks. The test-retest reliability coefficients for the subscales were the following: .82 for Emotional Exhaustion, .60 for Depersonalization, and .80 for Personal Accomplishment. Although these coefficients range from low to moderately high, all are significantly beyond the .001 level. In a sample of 248 teachers, the two test sessions were separated by an interval of 1 year. The test-retest reliabilities for the three subscales were .60 for Emotional Exhaustion, .54 for Depersonalization, and .57 for Personal Accomplishment (Jackson, Schwab, & Schuler, 1986). Subsequent studies have found the MBI subscales to be stable over time, with correlations in the .50 to .82 range on time spans of three months to one year (Leiter & Durup, 1996).\n\nConvergent Validity\nConvergent validity was demonstrated in several ways. First, an individual's MBI scores were correlated with behavioral ratings made independently by a person who knew the individual well, such as a spouse or coworker. Second, MBI scores were correlated with the presence of certain job characteristics that were expected to contribute to experienced burnout. Third, MBI scores were correlated with measures of various outcomes that had been hypothesized to be related to burnout. All three sets of correlations provided substantial evidence for the validity of the MBI and are presented in more detail in the MBI Manual (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996). The first type of validating evidence came from outside observers whose independent assessments of an individual's experience corroborate the individual's self-rating. Within the job setting, a knowledgeable observer would be a person's coworker. As predicted, people who were rated by a coworker as being emotionally drained by the job scored higher on Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization. Furthermore, people who were rated as appearing physically fatigued also scored higher on Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization. As also predicted, high scores on Depersonalization were correlated with more frequent complaints about clients (as rated by coworkers). Within the home setting, a knowledgeable observer would be the person's spouse, so spouse evaluations were collected from a study of police officers and their wives (Jackson & Maslach, 1982). Police who scored high on Emotional Exhaustion were rated by their wives as coming home upset and angry, stressed or anxious, physically exhausted, and complaining about problems at work. However, police who scored high on Personal Accomplishment were rated by their wives as coming home in a cheerful or happy mood and as doing work that was a source of pride and prestige for the family. The validity of the MBI was demonstrated further by data that confirmed hypotheses about the relationships between various job characteristics and experienced burnout. It was predicted that higher rates of burnout would occur as workload increased. This pattern of response was found in a nationwide survey of public contact employees: when caseloads were very large, scores were high on Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization and low on Personal Accomplishment (Maslach & Jackson, 1984b). Physicians who spent all or most of their working time in direct contact with patients scored high on Emotional Exhaustion, whereas Emotional Exhaustion scores were