Job burnout is a three-dimensional syndrome in response to chronic work-related stressors, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. It is clear that a good understanding of the developmental process of burnout could facilitate its early recognition and intervention. Several models have been proposed for the development of burnout, among which the Leiter’s model (1988), Golembiewski’s model (1996), Lee’s model (1993), van Dierendonck’s model (2001), and Taris’ model (2005) are most influential. However, there is a conceptual reason for not accepting these models, as it is remarkable that none of the these models so far explicitly treats depersonalization as a coping strategy. We argue that depersonalization is a dysfunctional coping strategy, thereby leading to an increased emotional exhaustion and decreased personal accomplishment. Thus it seems that the developmental models for the causal effects among the three burnout dimensions should be extended to include the effects of depersonalization on the emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment. Based on the theoretical and empirical evidence, we propose a new developmental model of burnout that explicitly includes the path from depersonalization to emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment. 　　The primary purpose of this study is to compare the six developmental models of burnout, including the Leiter’s model, Golembiewski’s model, Lee’s model, van Dierendonck’s model and Taris’ model and the model proposed in this study. In this study, we conducted a full panel design with three waves in 263 participants, and burnout was measured by means of the Chinese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The final sample consists of 263 participants with an average age of 34.67 years, including 44% males and 56% females. The preliminary analysis shows that the attrition of participants is at random, thus it will not affect the validity of the results. Structural equation modeling analysis shows that T1 emotional exhaustion affects T2 depersonalization (=0.12); T2 depersonalization affects T3 emotional exhaustion (=0.11); depersonalization affects reduced personal accomplishment at both T2 (=0.17) and T3 (=0.20). The present longitudinal study confirms that depersonalization plays an important role in the development of burnout. To our knowledge, the present research is the first to provide reliable longitudinal evidence for the conceptualization of burnout as a developmental process in Chinese participants. It has been suggested that the psychological withdrawal in the form of depersonalization is a dysfunctional coping strategy. This study extends and enhances current knowledge about the development of burnout in several respects, and we also believe that the findings have important implications for the preventive interventions with regard to burnout.