Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout?

Megatrends in the organization and management of work promote intensification and acceleration processes in the form of overload and overtime. These processes, in a framework of deregulation and individualization of labor relations, constitute burnout risk factors. To tackle this contemporary pandemic, the positive occupational psychology proposes engagement as a strategic resource for preventing that syndrome, delaying its appearance, or cushioning its effects. The present study is based on the suspicion that engagement, in addition to functioning as a means of protection against burnout, may also constitute a risk factor for this pathology. The purpose of its exposition is to contextualize, situate, and argue the logic of this approach, and to advance a response proposal to the question about in which circumstances the engagement constitutes a risk factor of burnout: in moderate doses, it works as a protective factor of burnout, while in excessive doses, it acts as a risk factor by hiding the warning signs of the syndrome