Christina Maslach

Christina Maslach (born January 21, 1946)^[1] is an American social psychologist and professor emerita of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley,^[2] known for her research on occupational burnout.^[3] She is a co-author of the Maslach Burnout Inventory^[4] and Areas of Worklife Survey.^[5] Early in her professional career, Maslach was instrumental in stopping the Stanford prison experiment.^[6] In 1997, she was awarded the U.S. Professor of the Year.

Christina Maslach
Born	(1946-01-21) January 21, 1946 (age 79)
Education	Radcliffe College (BA) Stanford University (PhD)
Occupations	Psychologist psychology professor
Known for	Stopping the Stanford prison experiment
Spouse	Philip Zimbardo ​ ​ (m. 1972; died 2024)​

Education and career

Maslach graduated from Berkeley High School (California) (1963), Radcliffe College (1967) and earned a Ph.D. in psychology at Stanford University (1971).^[7] After receiving her Ph.D., Maslach joined the psychology department at Berkeley as an assistant professor.^[2]

Her critique of the Stanford prison experiment persuaded investigator Philip Zimbardo (later her husband) to stop the experiment after only six days.^[6] The experience also shaped Maslach's later career, particularly her interest in occupational burnout^[8] as a response to unavoidable stress.^[9] Maslach and Zimbardo married in 1972, a year after the study.^[10]

In 1981, Maslach and Susan E. Jackson authored the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) to assess an individual's experience of occupational burnout in human services settings.^[4] She later developed alternative versions of the original MBI to be used to assess education settings (1986) and general occupational settings (1996).^[11] More than 30 years later, in 2014, the Maslach Burnout Inventory was still being cited as "the mainstream measure for burnout".^[12]

From 1988 to 1989, she was president of the Western Psychological Association (WPA). Since 2001, she has been vice provost for undergraduate education at the University of California, Berkeley.^[7]

Awards and honors

In 1991, Maslach was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association^[7] and of the WPA.^[13]

At Berkeley, Maslach has received the Distinguished Teaching Award and the Social Sciences Service Award.^[14] In 1997, she was named the U.S. Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1997.^[15] In 2008, Maslach won the WPA Outstanding Teaching Award.^[13]