Abstract

This study examined how religious coping influences the relationship between job demands and emotional exhaustion, integrating the job demands and resources (JDR) model, conservation of resources (COR) theory, and lifespan developmental perspectives. Using a cross-sectional design, 210 full-time employees from diverse occupational sectors completed measures of job demands, burnout, and religiosity. Regression analyses indicate that job demands were a strong predictor of emotional exhaustion, explaining variance beyond demographic controls. Contrary to expectations, neither positive nor negative religious coping significantly moderated the demands–exhaustion relationship. However, zero-order correlations revealed that negative religious coping was positively associated with exhaustion, suggesting a potential relationship between maladaptive theological appraisals and strain. No significant age-related moderation emerged across private, public, or commitment-based religiosity. Theoretically, these findings reinforce JDR and COR frameworks by demonstrating burnout arises from excessive demands and may also arise from insufficient recovery and blocked resource replenishment. Building on my findings, I propose the spiritual recovery dynamics model for future research, which reframes spirituality as an active recovery rhythm that complements the JDR model’s motivational pathway and COR theory’s gain-spiral mechanism, highlighting recovery as the critical missing link in understanding burnout.