Depersonalization
Depersonalization, also called cynicism or callousness, is the second dimension of burnout in the Maslach framework: a defensive emotional detachment from the work and the people the work serves. In knowledge work it manifests as cynicism toward stakeholders, dismissiveness about the value of the work, and a loss of identification with the organisation's mission.
The depersonalization dimension is the trickiest to detect and the most diagnostic. Emotional exhaustion can be confused with overwork (which has different remediation paths), but depersonalization is a specific psychological response that signals the burnout syndrome has progressed past the early stage. The Maslach Burnout Inventory measures it with items like 'I feel I treat some of my colleagues as if they were impersonal objects' and 'I worry that this job is hardening me emotionally' on a 7-point scale. Engineering organisations that miss depersonalization typically do so because their surveys use single-item burnout proxies that ask only about exhaustion. The most-rigorous engineering-burnout studies use the full MBI-HSS short form precisely to catch this dimension.