Big five model personality traits and job burnout: a systematic literature review
verifiedrich profile · BMC Psychology · 2023
Angelini, Giacomo
How this was studied
A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.
What this article reports
The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.
conscientiousness → burnout
openness to experience measures → burnout
extraversion → burnout
neuroticism → burnout
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
agreeableness correlates burnout
conscientiousness correlates burnout
extraversion correlates burnout
neuroticism correlates burnout
openness to experience measures correlates burnout
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
BACKGROUND: Job burnout negatively contributes to individual well-being, enhancing public health costs due to turnover, absenteeism, and reduced job performance. Personality traits mainly explain why workers differ in experiencing burnout under the same stressful work conditions. The current systematic review was conducted with the PRISMA method and focused on the five-factor model to explain workers' burnout risk. METHODS: The databases used were Scopus, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and PsycINFO. Keywords used were: "Burnout," "Job burnout," "Work burnout," "Personality," and "Personality traits". RESULTS: The initial search identified 3320 papers, from which double and non-focused studies were excluded. From the 207 full texts reviewed, the studies included in this review were 83 papers. The findings show that higher levels of neuroticism (r from 0.10** to 0.642***; β from 0.16** to 0.587***) and lower agreeableness (r from - 0.12* to - 0.353***; β from - 0.08*** to - 0.523*), conscientiousness (r from -0.12* to -0.355***; β from - 0.09*** to - 0.300*), extraversion (r from - 0.034** to - 0.33***; β from - 0.06*** to - 0.31***), and openness (r from - 0.18*** to - 0.237**; β from - 0.092* to - 0.45*) are associated with higher levels of burnout. CONCLUSIONS: The present review highlighted the relationship between personality traits and job burnout. Results showed that personality traits were closely related to workers' burnout risk. There is still much to explore and how future research on job burnout should account for the personality factors.
What the literature says about it
Attributed, open-access quotes from other works that cite this article, plus the citation-graph verdict tally. Corroborations and disputes, in one place — the honest-broker view.
supports “In a 2023 systematic review of these traits concerning burnout, those physicians with higher levels of neuroticism, lower agreeableness, greater conscientiousness, less extraversion, and reduced openness demonstrate higher levels of burnout [126].”
supports “High levels of agreeableness, on the other hand, correlate with effective interpersonal relationships and emotional intelligence, and, consequently, lower burnout rates [32].”
supports “Neuroticism has been previously shown to correlate more strongly with burnout than the other factors [25,26,46] and seems to function as a vulnerability factor that makes burnout more likely.”
supports “In a 2023 systematic review of these traits concerning burnout, those physicians with higher levels of neuroticism, lower agreeableness, greater conscientiousness, less extraversion, and reduced openness demonstrate higher levels of burnout [126].”
supports “A systematic review of 83 papers (Angelini, 2023) showed that higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness were associated with higher levels of burnout.”
supports “In a 2023 systematic review of these traits concerning burnout, those physicians with higher levels of neuroticism, lower agreeableness, greater conscientiousness, less extraversion, and reduced openness demonstrate higher levels of burnout [126].”
supports “In our multivariable analysis, neuroticism remained an independent predictor of burnout, suggesting that psychological vulnerability—particularly difficulty with emotional regulation and stress tolerance—plays a key role in burnout development [20].”
disputes “Individuals with higher levels of neuroticism are more likely to experience job burnout, which is consistent with the findings of Angelini (2023) and Bianchi (2018).”
supports “…2000); neuroticism and conscientiousness, to account for stable personality traits linked to workaholism, overcommitment, and burnout (e.g., Angelini, 2023; Clark et al., 2016); and the autoregressive effects of overcommitment and burn-out to control for their temporal stability (Grimm et…”
supports “More recent empirical work and meta-analyses suggest that neuroticism consistently predicts higher levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, while extraversion serves as a protective factor against burnout (Angelini, 2023; Roloff et al., 2022).”
supports “…on the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and job burnout: Giacomo Angelini found through a systematic literature review that higher neuroticism and lower agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness are significantly correlated with job burnout (Angelini, 2023).”
supports “…review of studies using the Five-Factor personality model further reinforced these associations, identifying neuroticism as the most consistent predictor of burnout across occupational groups, while conscientiousness and extraversion were consistently associated with lower burnout risk [20].”
supports “…review of studies using the Five-Factor personality model further reinforced these associations, identifying neuroticism as the most consistent predictor of burnout across occupational groups, while conscientiousness and extraversion were consistently associated with lower burnout risk [20].”
supports “Extraversion demonstrated protective effects against all burnout dimensions in most primary research [20].”
supports “…review of studies using the Five-Factor personality model further reinforced these associations, identifying neuroticism as the most consistent predictor of burnout across occupational groups, while conscientiousness and extraversion were consistently associated with lower burnout risk [20].”
supports “A systematic review of 83 papers (Angelini, 2023) showed that higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness were associated with higher levels of burnout.”
supports “According to studies on the relation of burnout with the FFM [25,26], burnout has a positive correlation with neuroticism and a negative correlation with the other four factors.”
Ancillary research
Neighbouring works in the citation graph around this article.
- 10.3390/encyclopedia5020074
- 10.3390/bs14030178
- 10.1371/journal.pone.0339258
- 10.3390/bs15060730
- 10.1371/journal.pone.0349336
- 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1438772
- 10.1017/sjp.2025.10007
- 10.3390/bs15111499
- 10.3390/healthcare13212810
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.