Individual traits, strain, and job satisfaction in Taiwan

This study looked at the links between stress, burnout and several aspects of personality. Two aspects of stress were measured in this study. The first was hindrance stress and the results indicate that this aspect of stress impacted burnout and job satisfaction. Specifically, higher levels of hindrance stress resulted in higher reported levels of burnout and lower levels of job satisfaction. On the other hand, challenge stress had little or no effect on burnout and job satisfaction. This was attributed to the low level of challenge stress experienced by the population in this study rather than the fact that challenge stress does not impact individuals in organizations. Certainly, many researchers have argued that challenge is an important aspect of job satisfaction and job burnout. Being presented with challenges on the job is generally accepted as enhancing job satisfaction and reducing burnout for most employees.; The impact of self-evaluation traits was also considered in this study. Five traits were considered. They were locus of control, self-efficacy, self-esteem and emotional stability (neuroticism) and conscientiousness. With the exception of conscientiousness, the traits had an impact of the subject's ability to resist burnout and maintain job satisfaction. Individuals with an internal locus of control, high self-efficacy, high self esteem and who were emotionally stable with a low level of neuroticism were more likely to be able to overcome the effects of hindrance stress. However, conscientiousness seemed to have no effect. That is individual's who are very conscientious exhibited equivalent levels of job satisfaction and burnout as individuals with low conscientiousness. While this finding was rather surprising it may be that conscientiousness is the most individually centered trait and therefore more resistant to external factors and influences.