Fear of Relationship Loss: Attachment Style as a Vulnerability Factor in Job Burnout

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the correlation between attachment styles and various burnout risk groups (“relaxed”, “wornout”, “challenged” and “burnout”) and whether attachment styles suitably discriminate between individual burnout risk groups. METHOD: The study involved 2,320 participants (1,668 women and 652 men), who completed an adrenal burnout syndrome questionnaire, a performance-based self esteem scale, a work addiction risk test and a relationship questionnaire. RESULTS: A one-way analysis of variance confirmed attachment style differences between burnout risk groups. The challenged and burnout groups differed from the relaxed and wornout groups by having a significantly lower secure attachment style score and a higher insecure (avoidant and preoccupied) attachment style score. The canonical discriminant analysis showed that the predictors (secure, preoccupied and avoidant attachment styles) can be used to appropriately classify 85.4% of respondents in the predicted burnout risk groups. CONCLUSION: The study confirmed the hypothesis that two insecure attachment styles (i.e. avoidant and preoccupied) predominate in the challenged and burnout groups, and that a secure attachment style predominates in the relaxed and wornout groups. Burnout syndrome can thus be conceived as the result of excessive and compulsive efforts to retain a relationship that is perceived as insecure or to reduce (excessive) fear of losing this relationship.