A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Masters of Arts, Johannesburg, 1990. / The prevailing understanding of burnout is firmly entrenched in, and has been fundamentally influenced by, the three component definition of the burnout concept proposed by Maslach and Jackson (1981), as evidenced in its almost exclusive application in the burnout research and theoretical developments (Maslach & Jackson, 1986; Shirorn, 1989). Although the construct validity of the three factor burnout structure is well established, no research could be found which has investigated the discriminant validny of this construct. Thus the aim of tha present study was to determine how emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and low feelings of personal accomplishment may relate differentially to conceptually related variables. [Abbreviated Abstract. Open document to view full version] / MT2017