The role of stress mindset and academic buoyancy in school burnout in middle adolescence

School burnout, defined as prolonged feelings of exhaustion, cynical attitude and inadequacy feelings towards schoolwork, can lead to mental problems during adolescence. To find effective ways to prevent burnout, this study examined the synergistic role of two positive personal resources, a stress-is-enhancing mindset and academic buoyancy in relation to school burnout dimensions. The participants were 932 Finnish middle-school 9th-grade (age = 14-15) students. The results of SEM revealed that academic buoyancy and stress-is-enhancing mindset were jointly negatively related to one dimension of school burnout, cynicism. However, the stress-is-enhancing mindset had an indirect effect on all dimensions (exhaustion, inadequacy and cynicism) via academic buoyancy. The findings highlight their joint effect and especially the role of academic buoyancy in relation to school burnout. The implications of the results to burnout prevention and stress theories are discussed.