I can see the reasoning here but I think it's a little different. Learned helplessness is the phenomenon where people stop trying to change their situation or circumstance because they feel ("learn") that nothing will help. Burnout is a little different. Burnout is more like when you simply don't want to do something any more, but often people with burnout still have the capacity to change their circumstance. Often people with burnout will quit or take time off and seriously reconsider their situation, whereas that is not the case with learned helplessness.
In my opinion burnout is actually more of a natural phenomenon, which is the mind simply needing to do something totally different and perhaps more meaningful. I believe it is also due to the unnatural tendency for people to work in the same or similar field of expertise for far too long, which is simply not natural especially for highly intellectual fields.
> In my opinion burnout is actually more of a natural phenomenon, which is the mind simply needing to do something totally different and perhaps more meaningful.
Strong disagree. Scientists burn out harder than programmers and what they do is arguably more "meaningful", at least to the individual scientist. Actually I think burnout is often triggered by moral injury, which starts by having a personal investment in the narrative of your objective
Is it possible that the difference is just a matter of scope?
Like you said, "Burnout is like when you don't want to do something anymore". Isn't that what learned helplessness is, with a 'something' that's life-scoped instead of work-scoped?
The key aspect of learned helplessness is that the person has a lot of trouble changing their situation. Just being very averse to doing something does not fall under than unless the person also has trouble exiting from the situation that they are burnt out from, which is generally not the case with burnout.
In my opinion burnout is actually more of a natural phenomenon, which is the mind simply needing to do something totally different and perhaps more meaningful. I believe it is also due to the unnatural tendency for people to work in the same or similar field of expertise for far too long, which is simply not natural especially for highly intellectual fields.