The relationship between teacher stress and burnout in Hong Kong: positive humour and gender as moderators

ABSTRACT

In this study, we report on the relationship between positive humour and burnout among 379 secondary school teachers in Hong Kong, and explore whether the relationship varies according to gender. The moderating effects of both affiliative and self-enhancing humour on each burnout component were then examined. High affiliative and self-enhancing humour were found to be associated with lower emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation but higher personal accomplishment. Further, the results indicated that low levels of affiliative and self-enhancing humour were related to more depersonalisation among females than among males. The results also partially supported the stress-moderating hypothesis, as affiliative humour was found to buffer the stress–depersonalisation relationship in this sample. These findings suggest that schools can design continuing education programmes based on the use of positive humour in helping teachers to cope with burnout.

Keywords:

• Teacher stress
• positive humour
• burnout
• stress-moderating hypothesis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Martin et al. (2003) emphasises that ‘self-deprecating’ humour is conceptually distinct from the negative style of ‘self-defeating’ humour in that the former involves not taking oneself seriously and being able to make light of one’s faults and mistakes in a self-acceptable way. Self-defeating humour, on the other hand, refers to a tendency to use excessive self-disparaging and ingratiating humour in an inappropriate manner to gain the approval of others. Self-deprecating humour is thus a healthier form of humour.