Burnout and Emotions at Work: The Moderating Role of Guilt in a Cross-National Sample

Burnout is a prevalent occupational phenomenon with significant consequences for employee well-being. Although emotions have been studied in relation to burnout, less attention has been paid to their function as burnout outcomes and to the role of guilt as a boundary condition of this process. This study examined the relationships between burnout and positive and negative emotions at work, as well as the moderating role of guilt, from a cross-national and gender perspective. A sample of 857 employees (57.2% women; M age = 38.50 years) from Spain, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico completed validated measures of burnout (Spanish Burnout Inventory), emotions at work, and guilt. Structural equation modelling and multigroup analyses were conducted, complemented by moderation analyses using the PROCESS macro. Burnout was negatively associated with positive emotions and positively associated with negative emotions. Multigroup analyses supported strict invariance across gender and configural–metric invariance across countries. Guilt significantly moderated both relationships, such that the associations between burnout and emotional experiences were weaker at higher levels of guilt. At comparable levels of burnout, higher guilt was associated with less favorable predicted emotional levels, indicating that guilt shapes the strength, rather than the direction, of the burnout–emotion association. These findings position guilt as a boundary condition of the burnout–emotion association, with implications for burnout prevention and employee well-being interventions.