Pseudo-inefficacy and volunteer burnout in humanitarian organizations

Burnout can contribute to diminished personal accomplishment, depersonalization and relationship difficulties in a variety of social settings. The resulting costs of burnout become particularly problematic among humanitarian workers, whose work environment requires constant exposure to those in need of help as well as coordination of emergency situations. While much research has been devoted to investigating how individual traits may increase vulnerability to burnout, it is unclear to what extent burnout is related to cognitive decision-making biases common in the valuation of human lives. Drawing on the notion that vital aid that could be provided is sometimes withheld due to an illusion of ineffectiveness (i.e., pseudo-inefficacy), we investigated whether such a tendency is related to burnout among 235 humanitarian workers. Results showed that the exhaustion due to burnout significantly correlates with pseudo-inefficacy. This study provides insights into how cognitive biases influence burnout and sheds light on the relationship between pseudo-inefficacy, warm glow feelings, and the exhaustion component of burnout in volunteers.