School burnout in adolescents: what are the roles of emotional autonomy and setting life goals?

This study was conducted to investigate the mediating role of setting life goals in the relationship between emotional autonomy and school burnout. The mediation model was tested on 304 high school students [156 (51.3%) females, 148 (48.7%) males; Mage = 16.12, SD = 1.20]. According to the results, we found that school burnout had negative significant correlations with emotional autonomy and setting life goals. On the other hand, there was a significant positive correlation between emotional autonomy and setting life goals. The analysis results indicated that setting life goals had a mediating role between emotional autonomy and school burnout. Accordingly, emotional autonomy promoted setting life goals and contributed to mitigating school burnout. In this respect, this study points out that some positive emotional factors have a protective function against school burnout.