Personal goal facilitation, burnout and work engagement: the role of self-discrepancy.

Authors

Jacinth J X Tan, Bek Wuay Tang

Published in

Frontiers in psychology. Volume 17. Pages 1904130. Epub Jul 27, 2026.

Abstract

Employees who perceive greater personal goal facilitation through work (PGFW) experience lower burnout and higher work engagement. This research examined whether self-discrepancies and emotional experiences explain these relationships across two cross-sectional studies involving a nationally representative sample of working adults (Study 1; N = 889) and a sample of public school teachers (Study 2; N = 228) in Singapore. Participants listed personal goals and rated how much their jobs facilitated these goals, alongside measures of self-discrepancy, emotions, burnout, and engagement. Across both samples, higher PGFW predicted lower burnout and greater engagement. These associations were consistently explained by lower ideal self-discrepancy and greater positive emotions, but less consistently explained by ought self-discrepancy and negative emotions. Findings suggest that organizations may reduce burnout and enhance engagement by fostering employees' sense that their work supports attainment of their ideal self.

PMID:
42577234
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 11 Aug 2026.

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