Repetitive negative thinking mediates relationship between self-esteem and burnout in students, study finds

When people are very stressed for prolonged periods, they can sometimes feel a state known as professional exhaustion, characterized by pronounced emotional, mental and physical exhaustion. Stress factors leading to professional exhaustion could be personal, such as family conflicts or the end of a relationship, as well as academics or professionals, such as studying a lot for exams or working long hours while taking very few breaks or vacation.

Individuals who experience professional exhaustion are generally difficult to focus on their daily activities, can take more time to do tasks or feel that they do not work as well at work or at school. Although professional exhaustion is fairly common, it can be very debilitating for some. Understanding the factors stimulating its emergence could help to design more effective strategies or prevention interventions designed to help people resume their energy levels and basic efficiency.

Researchers from Bielefeld University recently carried out a study to explore the relationship between professional exhaustion, self -esteem and repetitive negative thinking, the tendency to think frequently of stressful or painful subjects. Their results, published in Communications psychologysuggest that a lower self -esteem is linked to greater feelings of professional exhaustion and negative thinking patterns mediate this relationship.

“Low self -esteem and repetitive negative thought are associated with a higher risk of exhaustion in university students at the level between people,” Malin Brueckmann, Justin Hachenberger and their colleagues in their article. “However, there is growing evidence that associations identified in analyzes between persons do not always reflect the processes occurring within individuals. Consequently, we conducted a four -week ecological evaluation study (EMA) with N = 96 students during an exam period.”

While several previous studies have explored the link between professional exhaustion or other forms of psychological distress and self -esteem, most of these studies have explored differences between different individuals or groups of people. Consequently, they sometimes fail to capture changes that can occur inside the same person over time and their effects on professional exhaustion.

To also study these changes and interior processes, Brueckmann, Hachenberger and their colleagues relied on a method known as EMA. It is an experimental approach that involves data collection several times in real time because participants are engaged in their daily activities, the duration of a study.

The researchers recruited 96 students from Bielefeld University and asked them to periodically answer the questions designed to assess their level of stress, their exhaustion, their self -esteem and the extent to which they have engaged in repetitive negative thinking patterns. They then analyzed the data they collected to explore the relationship between these different variables.

“The results have shown that higher self -esteem was followed by a less exhausted feeling at a level of the day and everyday,” wrote the authors. “In addition, higher self-esteem was followed by a lower repetitive negative thought (that is to say rumination in terms of days and pre-sum concern at the daily level), which in turn was followed by a less exhausted feeling.”

Essentially, the researchers found that when the students felt better in their skin and kept themselves with higher respect, they seemed less inclined to burnout, even if they were under similar levels of stress. The team also carried out other statistical analyzes to determine whether repetitive negative thought explained in part the observed relationship between self -esteem and professional exhaustion.

“Mediation analyzes have shown that a substantial proportion of associations between self -esteem and the feeling of exhaustion was mediated by a repetitive negative thought at the intra and between person,” wrote Brueckmann, Hachenberger and their colleagues.

“In addition, we have also found evidence of an opposite time sequence. Higher levels of professional exhaustion have been followed by an increase in repetitive negative thought, which has in turn led to lower self -esteem. Finally, the instability of self -esteem has partially moderate the associations of self -esteem and the exhaustion and subsequent bullshit people.”.

The results collected by this team of researchers suggest the possibility that a low self -esteem is linked to a more repetitive negative thought and to a high self -esteem to a less repetitive negative thought. Rumination (that is to say, linger on past problems) and the concern of future events, which are both repetitive negative thinking patterns, in turn seem to contribute to professional exhaustion, by perpetuating mental and emotional distress.

In their future studies, the research team could explore the more closely observed dynamics to better understand the psychological factors contributing to professional exhaustion. Their work could possibly inspire the development of more effective advice or psychotherapy interventions aimed at preventing or combating professional exhaustion in academic and professional contexts.

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