Work-related psychological health and psychological type: a study among Catholic priests in Italy

Abstract

This paper explores the connection between psychological type and burnout among a sample of 155 Catholic priests serving in Italy. Burnout was assessed by the Francis Burnout Inventory (FBI) that draws on Bradburn's classic model of balanced affect to conceptualise poor work-related psychological health (burnout) in terms of high levels of emotional exhaustion in ministry in the absence of good levels of satisfaction in ministry. Psychological type was assessed by the Francis Psychological Type Scales (FPTS) that draw on the development of Jung's classic model that distinguishes between two orientations (extraversion and introversion), two perceiving functions (sensing and intuition), two judging functions (thinking and feeling), and two attitudes (judging and perceiving). The data demonstrated that higher levels of burnout were experienced by introverts than by extraverts.These findings are consistent with the view that the clerical profession has been shaped by inter-personal expectations that are more readily met by extraverts.

Work-Related Psychological Wellbeing: Testing the Balanced Affect Model among Anglican Clergy

“…The items describe feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work. The item with the highest factor loading on this dimension is one referring directly to burnout, "I feel burned out Barnard and Curry (2012), Randall (2013a;2013b), Sterland (2015), Francis and Crea (2015), and Durkee-Lloyd (2016).…”

Psychological type, religion, and culture: Further empirical perspectives

“…These articles are divided across two issues of the journal and are presented thematically. Part one (Issue 9) contains eight articles (Francis & Crea, 2015;Payne & Lewis, 2015;Randall, 2015;Royle, Norton, & Larkin, 2015;Smith, 2015;Watt & Voas, 2015;Village, 2015). Of these, seven articles are focused on Church leaders.…”

“…Royle et al (2015) report on a sample of 26 clergywomen and 89 clergymen serving within the Reformed Church in the US located in two synods in the New York metropolitan using the FPTS. Francis and Crea (2015) report on a sample of 155 Roman Catholic priests in Italy using the FPTS. One article is focused on Biblical scholars.…”

Proceedings of the Iii International Scientific and Practical Conference “Psychological Health of the Person: Life Resource and Life Potential”

“…C. Rogers believed that realizing the personal meaning of one's own behavior is a condition for psychologically healthy development. Thereby, according to our approach, the driving force of personal development is considered to be the development of value and meaning systems that serve as the sources of personal behavior (Francis, & Crea, 2015;Schleider, Abel, & Weisz, 2015;Malkina-Pykh, & Pykh, 2016).…”