The big five personality traits and parental burnout: Protective and risk factors

Sarah Le Vigouroux (1) , Céline Scola (2) , Marie-Emilie Raes (3) , Moira Mikolajczak (3) , Isabelle Roskam (3)

1 LPS - Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale
2 PsyCLÉ - Centre de Recherche en Psychologie de la Connaissance, du Langage et de l'Émotion
3 IPSY - Institut de recherche en sciences psychologiques

Parental burnout is an emotional disorder related to the context of parenthood (Roskam, Raes, & Mikolajczak, 2017). Personality differences in parental burnout were explored. One thousand seven hundred twenty-three parents, age 20 to 75 years, responded to a questionnaire. Results indicated that three personality traits are linked to this syndrome. A high level of neuroticism, a low level of conscientiousness, and a low level of agreeableness were all found to be risk factors for parental burnout. Parentswho have difficulty initiating and maintaining positive affective relations with their child(ren) (high neuroticism), identifying and responding to their child(ren)’s needs (low agreeableness), or providing their child(ren) with a structured and coherent environment (low conscientiousness) are more likely to experience parental burnout syndrome.

Mots clés: parental burnout; personality; parents; children; dispositional factors

Domaines: Psychologie

Sarah Le Vigouroux, Céline Scola, Marie-Emilie Raes, Moira Mikolajczak, Isabelle Roskam. The big five personality traits and parental burnout: Protective and risk factors. Personality and Individual Differences, 2017, 119 (C), pp.216-2019. ⟨10.1016/j.paid.2017.07.023⟩. ⟨hal-01875372⟩