Il modello delle organizzazioni di significato personale come ipotesi esplicativa del burnout negli insegnanti

Research on burnout reached over 35 years of profitable studies and theorization showing, at first among the so-called “helping professions”, then in many other working environments, worrying epidemiological data. Researches and interventions focused mainly on variables linked to the cultural and organizational context, showing their predictive capabilities on burnout. Individual factors were studied in terms of coping strategies and of locus of control, but in respect of personality, in its broader and deeper meaning, little was found about how it influences job achievements, although its well known that personality has important effects on stress vulnerability. This study tries to look at these aspects referring to a theoretical framework that focuses on the ways people use to build the meaning of their life events, as it’s postulated in the Personal Meaning Organization model (Guidano & Liotti, 1983). The main hypotheses are that different patterns of meaning attribution may lead to a vulnerability to different dimensions of burnout, and may cause people to use different sources of social support to face these vulnerability. Results partially confirm the first hypothesis (differences in Emotional Exhaustion and lack of Personal Accomplishment), but not the latter (no differences in teachers’ use of sources of social support). The practical implication of this research is that it may be more useful to establish diverse types of interventions for teachers, rather than try to find out which one is capable of being effective for all of them and in any situation.