Self-Oriented, Other-Oriented, and Socially Prescribed Perfectionism in Employees: Relationships with Burnout and Engagement

Abstract

Burnout and engagement affect employees, organizations, and customers in numerous positive and negative ways. Consequently, it is important to know how individual differences contribute to employees' burnout and engagement. This study examines how individual differences in self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed perfectionism were associated with burnout and engagement in a sample of 106 employees. Results of correlation and regression analyses showed that perfectionism explained variance in all facets of burnout (exhaustion, cynicism, reduced efficacy) and engagement (vigor, dedication, absorption). Whereas socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with higher levels of burnout and lower levels of engagement, self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionism were associated with lower levels of burnout and higher levels of engagement. The findings indicate that individual differences in perfectionism may be a contributing factor to burnout and engagement in the workplace.

KEYWORDS:

• burnout
• employees
• engagement
• perfectionism
• stress

The authors thank Kathleen Otto for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

Note. N = 106. For comparability, means and standard deviations are provided for sum scores.

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Note. N = 106.

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.