ABSTRACT

This two-wave study examined whether job burnout relates negatively to employees’ performance in executive functions (i.e., working memory, inhibition capacity, cognitive flexibility, reasoning, problem solving, and planning – assessed through psychometric tests) and positively to everyday cognitive failures (rated by colleagues) over time. Furthermore, based on cognitive reserve and self-regulation theories, we hypothesized that poor cognitive functioning mediates the negative relationship between burnout and job performance (i.e., task and contextual performance), as rated by employees and their close colleagues. The study was conducted among 102 employees and their colleagues, who were followed up over a period of about a year. Structural equation modelling analyses revealed that burnout related to lower performance on working memory and inhibition capacity and to more cognitive failures over time, while reduced cognitive flexibility was associated to higher burnout over time. Moreover, results showed that poor working memory and cognitive failures mediated the negative relationship between burnout and task performance. These findings suggest that burnout prevents optimal utilization of cognitive resources limiting cognitive functioning and consequently, job performance.

摘要

这项两波研究检验了工作倦怠是否与员工在执行功能（即工作记忆、抑制能力、认知灵活性、推理、解决问题和计划——通过心理测试评估）的表现呈负相关，并与日常认知失败呈正相关（同事评价）随着时间的推移。此外，基于认知储备和自我调节理论，我们假设，根据员工及其亲密同事的评价，认知功能不佳会调节倦怠与工作绩效（即任务和情境绩效）之间的负相关关系。这项研究是在 102 名员工及其同事中进行的，他们在大约一年的时间内进行了跟踪。结构方程模型分析表明，倦怠与工作记忆和抑制能力的较低表现以及随着时间的推移更多的认知失败有关，而随着时间的推移，认知灵活性的降低与更高的倦怠有关。此外，结果表明工作记忆力差和认知障碍介导了倦怠与任务绩效之间的负相关关系。这些发现表明，职业倦怠会阻碍认知资源的最佳利用，从而限制认知功能，进而影响工作绩效。