Free to be you and me: a climate of authenticity alleviates burnout from emotional labor.

Given the emotional nature of health care, patients and their families may express anger and mistreat their health care providers; in addition, those providers are expected to manage their own emotions when providing care--two interpersonal stressors that are linked to job burnout. Integrating conservation of resources (Hobfoll, 2002) and ego depletion (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000) theories, we propose that this creates a resource loss spiral that can be slowed by the presence of a "climate of authenticity" among one's coworkers. We describe this climate and how it differs from other work climates.