The Moderating Role of Emotional Intelligence on the Relationship Between Conflict Management Styles and Burnout among Firefighters

Abstract

Background: While the organizational factors that account for firefighters' burnout have been extensively explored, the individual factors related to how they regulate interpersonal conflicts and emotions remain to be investigated. Previous research has demonstrated the association between emotional intelligence and conflict management styles and burnout, but no study has looked at the interrelationships among these factors in high-risk sectors. The present exploratory study aimed to fill this research gap by investigating the relationships between conflict management style, emotional intelligence and burnout in a sample of firefighters.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 240 French firefighters. Measures comprised validated scales of conflict management styles, emotional intelligence and burnout.

Results: Results showed that the integrating conflict style reduced burnout. They also revealed the effects of emotion regulation on burnout, whereby the awareness and management of one's own emotions reduced burnout. Moreover, awareness of one's own emotions moderated the relationship between integrating conflict resolution style and burnout, whereby the effect of integrating style on reduced burnout was higher when awareness of one's own emotions was high.

Conclusion: These results reveal that strategies used by firefighters to regulate their emotions in order to meet the emotional demands specific to their job are important for reducing the emotional exhaustion component of burnout. Training programs for conflict and emotion management are needed to preserve the mental health of firefighters and ensure the safety of interventions.

Keywords: Burnout; Conflict management style; Emotional intelligence; Firefighters; Occupational stress.

Fig. 1

Simple slope analysis of integrating style predicting emotional exhaustion for 1 SD below the mean of awareness of one's own emotions, and 1 SD above the mean of awareness of one's own emotions.

Fig. 2

Simple slope of integrating style predicting emotional exhaustion for 1 SD below the mean of management of one's own emotions, and 1 SD above the mean of management of one's own emotions.