Abstract: | An empirical approach to understanding burnout is presented. Data from 183 protective service workers revealed two types of burnout: active and passive. Correlation analyses suggest that active burnout is associated witb organizational factors or elements external to the professional; passive burnout appears to be associated with more internal social psychological factors. These findings help render consistent the variety of definitions offered in the literature, and they underscore a need to operationalize the phenomenon of burnout. |