Relationship between Dark Triad, Humor Styles and Burnout among School Teachers

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between Dark Triad (Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy), Humor styles (Affiliative, Self-enhancing, Aggressive and Self defeating) with Burnout among school teachers of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. It was hypothesized that Dark Triad, and humor styles will have positive correlation with burnout. With both the Independent Variables predicting burnout. Along with differences in burnout based on workload pressure, mental stress, relation with coworkers were studied. A correlational research was used with a sample size of 233, school teachers (210 females, 23 males), aged range 19-65, ( M= 2.30, SD= .90), recruited through convenient sampling technique from different private, public and semi-government schools. Instruments measuring constructs were the Short Dark Triad Scale (SD3), Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) and Friedman Teacher Burnout Scale (FTBS) and demographic data. Correlation analysis revealed that Machiavellianism positively correlates with burnout, and with narcissism, no significant relation with psychopathy, narcissism had no significant relation with burnout yet with had significant relation with affiliative, self-enhancing and aggressive humor, psychopathy had significant relation with burnout and with aggressive and self-defeating humor, however, no relation with Machiavellianism. For affiliative, self-enhancing humor no such significance was found with burnout. In Multiple regression analysis, Machiavellianism and psychopathy had significant prediction for burnout, narcissism had no prediction either. With Humor styles only self-defeating humor style had significance with burnout, other humor styles had no significant prediction with burnout. The overall variance of the regression analyses explained is 62%. Furthermore, conclusion, limitations, future recommendations, study implications of the study are addressed.