Determination of the effect of personality traits of lawyers on job burnout (Sample of Adana Bar Association)

Burnout is defined as the state of exhaustion that occurs in the internal resources of the individual as a result of failure, weariness, depletion of energy and not meeting the needs. Burnout is more common among individuals in occupational groups that work face to face with people. Lawyers who have high professional responsibilities and who work in peer-to-peer communication with people and in stressful environments carry a high risk of burnout. The efforts to reduce the burnout levels of lawyers will increase their professional productivity and enable them to work more effectively for individuals to access their rights. Knowing what burnout is, its symptoms, and the factors that cause it will make the burnout person aware of it and lead the individual to seek a way to eliminate it. One of the important factors affecting burnout is personality traits. Personality is the sum of the characteristics that differentiate the individual from the others, and the widely accepted model for evaluating personality is the five-factor personality model. This model, also called the big five, describes personality in five dimensions: extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of lawyers' personality traits on their professional burnout levels. The population of the study consists of lawyers working in the city center of Adana. Data were collected from 267 lawyers by snowball and convenience sampling methods. According to the findings obtained from the analysis of the data, neuroticism personality trait affects emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment from the sub-dimensions of burnout, agreeableness personality trait affects emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, conscientiousness personality trait affects depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment, and extraversion and openness to experience affect only reduced personal accomplishment senses. According to the findings of the research, there are statistically significant relationships between emotional exhaustion and extraversion (r= -255; p< 0,01), neuroticism (r= 522; p< 0,01), conscientiousness (r= -339; p< 0,01), agreeableness (r= -320; p< 0,01), openness to experience (r= -182; p< 0,01); there are statistically significant relationships between depersonalization and extraversion (r= -137; p< 0,05), neuroticism (r= 292; p< 0,01), conscientiousness (r= -292; p< 0,01), between agreeableness (r= -421; p< 0,01); there are statistically significant relationships between reduced personal accomplishment and extraversion (r= -464; p< 0,01), neuroticism (r= 408; p< 0,01), conscientiousness (r= -510; p< 0,01), openness to experience (r= 511; p< 0,01). Neuroticism is one of the most important personality traits that affect burnout. It was observed that emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment increases as this feature increases. Individuals with high neurotic personality overreact to stress and are prone to developing psychological problems. It would be beneficial for these individuals to review their attitudes towards seeking psychological help and seek psychological help when necessary. To reduce the risk of burnout, it is important for individuals to gain awareness about their personality traits, to determine the personality traits that affect burnout, to know which personality trait affects burnout more and in which direction.