Burnout and humor relationship among university lecturers

Abstract

This research is aimed to identify the relationship between burnout and the variables of lecturers' humor styles, demographic information, occupational conditions, and ability to cope with humor in general. The effects of these variables in relation to burnout prediction were also investigated. Two hundred eighty-three full-time lecturers working at Çukurova University, Turkey, participated in this study. Data was collected through the “Maslach Burnout Inventory,” “Humor Styles Questionnaire,” “Coping Humor Scale” and “Demographic Information and Occupational Conditions Questionnaire.” The results revealed that in terms of age, younger lecturers experience much more burnout, and female lecturers experience more emotional exhaustion than do males. In addition, a significantly negative or low relationship was found between the dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment, coping humor scale, affiliative humor, and self-enhancing humor, while there existed a positive but low relationship between the three dimensions of burnout, aggressive humor, and self-defeating humor. Thus, the results suggest that academic status may account for a considerable difference between the dimension scores of emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. Furthermore, the regression analysis indicates that occupational variables and humor are important predictors of the dimensions of burnout.