Job Burnout In Police System Background: Emotional Intelligence As Its Antecedent And A Moderator Of The Role Conflict-Job Burnout Relationship

Job burnout, a psychological response to work stress that is characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced feelings of personal accomplishment, is believed to be more likely to happen among workers dealing with human services. Many of the police officers, over-loaded with the daily human interactive works, are experiencing job burnout. However, we have scant studies on this burnout issue among police officers in China.Emotional intelligence, an essential factor responsible for determining success in life and psychological wellbeing, seems to play an important role in shaping the interaction between individuals and their work environment. It seems reasonable for us to predict its preventing effects on job burnout. Thus, the main purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between emotional intelligence and job burnout and the moderating role of emotional intelligence upon stressor-job burnout link.After a comprehensive review of the literature on occupational stress, burnout, emotional intelligence and burnout in law enforcement system, a questionnaire survey was designed and applied to a sample of 328 police officers. Statistical analysis of the collected data showed that,First, emotional intelligence was negatively and significantly related to police officers' job burnout. To be more specific, job burnout correlated negatively and significantly with depersonalization and reduced feelings of personal accomplishment. However, the relationship between emotional intelligence and emotional exhaustion was not statistically significant. Role conflict had a significant positive influence on job burnout. Specifically speaking, role conflict was positively associated with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, except for reduced feelings of personal accomplishment.Emotional intelligence moderated the relationship between role conflict and job burnout, i.e. the positive relationship between role conflict and job burnout is stronger among individuals who have lower levels of emotional intelligence. To be specific in the dimensions of burnout, emotional intelligence significantly moderates the role conflict-emotional exhaustion link and role conflict-depersonalization link as well. While in the dimension of the reduced feelings of personal accomplishment, this kind of moderation effect is not significant.Job burnout was negatively related to career commitment and life satisfaction. The negative relationship between altruism behaviors and job burnout was not statistically supported.