The Making of the MBI Hegemony and the Dead End of Burnout Research (1973–2023)

Among occupational psychology’s most studied concepts, burnout is described by ICD-11 through its instrument’s dimensions. Though criticized for circularity and construction, it has kept this structure for over forty years; its critics have inherited an origin story drawn from Maslach-coauthored syntheses, from which her 1973 report is absent. Drawing on the 1973–2023 record, including this report, absent from later reconstructions examined, critical accounts included, and a text-by-text analysis of the conceptual articulations leading to the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), this article shows how the instrument filled in for a missing theoretical definition. From 1973, Maslach’s texts invoke an institutional experience, data, and results they do not present, and articulate a conceptual chain without demonstration. The hypothesized syndrome enters the items; statistical sorting organizes responses into dimensions presented as emerging from the data; items record as respondent properties what was previously attributed to work, while work is used to validate the scores without entering the measure. Maslach and Schaufeli then make the instrument the threshold of the empirical phase, reformulating the review they cite. An instrumental quasi-monopoly and instrument–concept equivalence form around a commercially licensed questionnaire. Effects on prevention lacking validated case identification, and reasons for this persistence, are discussed.