Sales is often described as one of the most stressful careers out there. Salespeople juggle competing demands from customers, managers, and internal teams. Their performance is frequently measured, publicly ranked, and tied directly to their paychecks. Rejection is a daily reality. And in an age of smartphones and constant connectivity, the line between work and personal time has all but disappeared.
Over time, that relentless pressure can lead to burnout, a state of emotional and mental exhaustion that drains motivation, lowers performance, and drives people to quit. So what separates the salespeople who manage the stress from those who flame out?
A study published in the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management investigated whether a specific set of interpersonal skills could help salespeople cope with stress and reduce burnout. The research, led by Richard G. McFarland of ESSEC Business School in France and Andrea L. Dixon of Baylor University, examined something called “interpersonal mentalizing.” Along the way, the team stumbled onto a finding they did not expect: that switching back and forth between two opposite coping strategies may be more effective than relying on just one.
What is interpersonal mentalizing?
Interpersonal mentalizing is often described in everyday language as the ability to “put yourself in someone else’s shoes.” In more technical terms, it refers to the skill of figuring out what another person believes, wants, intends, or feels. It is sometimes called “theory of mind,” a concept that originated in developmental psychology and autism research.
People with strong interpersonal mentalizing skills tend to be good at reading body language and facial expressions, understanding the broader context of a conversation, and steering interactions in a positive direction. But there is another side to this skill that is less obvious: people who are better at understanding others also tend to be better at understanding themselves. They have stronger self-awareness, can monitor their own emotions more effectively, and are better equipped to regulate how they react to stressful situations.
Previous research had already shown that salespeople with stronger interpersonal mentalizing skills tend to be better at adaptive selling and often achieve higher sales performance. McFarland and Dixon wanted to know whether these same skills could also protect salespeople from the emotional toll of their jobs.
Two studies, two groups of salespeople
The researchers conducted two separate studies. The first involved 149 business-to-business salespeople at a U.S.-based Fortune 500 transportation company. These salespeople were surveyed during an economic downturn, meaning job stressors were likely elevated and opportunities to escape to a less stressful job were limited. The company also provided manager-rated sales performance data, giving the researchers an objective measure of how well each salesperson was doing.
The second study broadened the scope, surveying 215 business-to-business salespeople across roughly 30 different industries, from financial services and health care to manufacturing and telecommunications. This broader sample was designed to test whether the findings from the first study held up across different types of selling environments.
In both studies, salespeople completed questionnaires measuring their interpersonal mentalizing skills, their use of different coping strategies, and their levels of burnout, which the researchers defined as emotional exhaustion. The interpersonal mentalizing measure, known as the Salesperson Theory of Mind (SToM) scale, assessed three abilities: detecting nonverbal cues, taking a broad perspective during conversations, and positively shaping interactions.
The two ways people cope with stress
To understand the results, it helps to know how researchers typically categorize coping strategies. “Active coping” means confronting the problem head-on: analyzing a stressful situation, making a plan, and taking steps to resolve it. It is generally considered the healthier, more adaptive approach.
“Avoidance coping” is the opposite. It means stepping away from the problem, distracting yourself, or trying not to think about it. Watching TV, playing a game, or simply refusing to dwell on a stressful situation are all forms of avoidance coping. This approach is typically viewed as less effective because the underlying problem remains unresolved and can even get worse over time.
What the first study revealed
In Study 1, the results showed that salespeople with stronger interpersonal mentalizing skills reported lower levels of burnout. This was a direct relationship: the better the skill, the lower the exhaustion. The data also showed that interpersonal mentalizing was linked to greater use of active coping, and active coping was in turn linked to lower burnout. In other words, the skill appeared to help salespeople engage more with problem-solving strategies, which then helped keep burnout at bay.
The study also confirmed a well-established finding: burnout was linked to lower sales performance as rated by managers.
But one result caught the researchers off guard. They had predicted that salespeople with stronger interpersonal mentalizing skills would use less avoidance coping. Instead, the data showed the opposite. These salespeople actually used more avoidance coping. And avoidance coping, which is usually associated with negative outcomes, had no significant link to burnout in this sample.
A surprise finding leads to a new idea
This unexpected result prompted the researchers to reconsider their assumptions. Drawing on emerging research in management psychology, they developed a new idea: perhaps skilled salespeople are not simply choosing one coping strategy over another. Instead, they may be oscillating between the two.
Oscillation, in this context, means switching back and forth between active and avoidance coping depending on the moment. When you are overwhelmed by negative emotions, you step back, distract yourself, and give your mind a break. Once you have recovered some emotional energy, you re-engage with the problem and work on solving it. Then, if things become overwhelming again, you step back once more. It is a kind of pulsating rhythm between confronting stress and temporarily retreating from it.
The logic is straightforward. Active coping is effective, but it requires mental energy. Trying to analyze and solve problems when you are already emotionally overwhelmed can make things worse, leading to rumination and escalating distress. Avoidance coping, on the other hand, can provide a short-term emotional buffer. But if used exclusively and over a long period, it allows problems to pile up. By alternating between the two, a salesperson could potentially get the benefits of both while avoiding the drawbacks of relying on either one alone.
Testing the oscillation idea in Study 2
To test this theory, the researchers added a measure of oscillation to the second study. Salespeople were asked whether they recognized the need to switch between thinking about work problems and giving their minds a rest, and whether they confronted negative work-related feelings after taking a break from them.
The results supported the oscillation idea. Interpersonal mentalizing was linked to a greater tendency to oscillate between active and avoidance coping. In turn, oscillation was linked to increased use of both active coping and avoidance coping. Active coping was linked to lower burnout, while avoidance coping was linked to higher burnout, consistent with traditional expectations. But the key finding was this: the connection between interpersonal mentalizing skills and avoidance coping was entirely explained by oscillation. Salespeople with stronger mentalizing skills were not simply avoiding problems. They were strategically stepping away and then re-engaging.
Interestingly, in Study 2, the direct link between interpersonal mentalizing and burnout that appeared in Study 1 was no longer significant. Instead, the effect on burnout appeared to flow entirely through the coping strategies salespeople used, including the oscillation process.
What this could mean for sales managers and organizations
These findings carry several potential implications for businesses. First, the validated SToM scale used in this research is freely available, which means companies could incorporate it into their hiring processes to assess candidates’ interpersonal mentalizing skills. This could be especially relevant for high-stress sales positions where burnout and turnover are persistent problems.
Second, while interpersonal mentalizing has trait-like stability, meaning some people are naturally better at it than others, research suggests it can also be improved through training. If confirmed in future studies, training programs designed to strengthen these skills could yield a dual benefit: better performance in customer interactions and better stress management.
Third, the oscillation finding has a practical takeaway for sales leaders. When salespeople are dealing with particularly stressful customer situations or internal pressures, managers might consider encouraging them to temporarily step away rather than pushing them to power through. Break rooms with recreational activities, flexible scheduling, or even informal permission to disengage for short periods could help salespeople recharge their emotional and cognitive resources before returning to tackle the problem.
Important caveats to keep in mind
Both studies relied on cross-sectional data, meaning all measurements were taken at a single point in time. This makes it difficult to establish cause and effect. For example, while the data showed that interpersonal mentalizing was associated with lower burnout, it is possible that salespeople experiencing less burnout simply have more capacity to exercise their mentalizing skills. Longitudinal studies, which track the same people over time, would be needed to sort out the direction of these relationships.
All salespeople in both studies were based in the United States, so the findings may not apply in the same way across different national cultures. The researchers also noted that they intentionally aimed for a higher proportion of female respondents in Study 2, which may affect how representative the sample is of the broader sales population.
Finally, while the oscillation concept is intriguing, it is still relatively new in the coping literature. The idea that strategically alternating between engaging with problems and stepping away from them leads to better outcomes needs further testing across different populations and over longer time periods before it can be considered well established.
