Sense of Humor and Emotional Intelligence as Predictors of Stress among EFL Teachers

Abstract

This study investigated the association of teacher stress with sense of humor and emotional intelligence (EI) among 108 EFL teachers from 5 private language institutes in Tehran. It was also checked that whether sense of humor and EI could predict teacher stress. The participants were administered Fimian’s (1984) Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI), Thorson and Powell’s (1993) Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS), and Bar-On’s (1997) EI test. A series of Pearson Product Moment Correlations and a 2-step Hierarchical Regression Analysis were run. The findings revealed that EFL teachers’ sense of humor and EI were reversely correlated with their stress level. It was also found that, after accounting for the contribution of demographic variables, sense of humor and EI could collectively add to the prediction of teacher stress, however, only EI could separately predict teacher stress. Implications of the study are discussed, and suggestions for future research are made.