Students’ Perception of Teachers’ Humor Predicts Their Mental Health

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to determine whether two types of teacher humor (Aggressive Humor and Affinity Humor) are predictors of students’ mental health. A self-report scale was administered to 500 elementary and junior high school students in grades 4 to 9 (mean age 12.04, SD = 1.76) asking questions about perceived teacher humor, stress response, emotional well-being, and self-esteem. Aggressive humor was a significant positive predictor of stress response and a significant negative predictor of emotional well-being. Affinity humor was a significant positive predictor of emotional well-being and self-esteem. These results suggest that the teacher’s humor is related to students’ mental health. We conclude that teachers should refrain from using aggressive humor as much as possible in favor of affinity humor.

Keywords

Teacher’s humor mental health stress response emotional well-being self-esteem

Introduction

It has been documented that some types of humor used by teachers in a classroom setting—such as humor related to the course content, humor directed at oneself, and humor not involving aggression against others—has social functions. These functions include the building of good relationships with students and creating a positive climate (e.g., Aylor & Oppliger, 2003; Claus et al., 2012; Sidelinger, 2014; Tsukawaki et al., 2020), in addition to educational functions, such as increasing the motivation for learning and promoting the understanding of class content (e.g., Bieg et al., 2017, 2019; Bieg & Dresel, 2018; Tsukawaki & Imura, 2020). Teachers’ adaptive humor is also thought to improve students’ mental health (Lei et al., 2010; Ziyaeemehr et al., 2011). Positive emotions, as encouraged by their teacher’s humor, may promote the mental health of students by helping to ease their tension and anxiety (Banas et al., 2011). Teslow (1995) has also noted that “humor has long been recognized as a beneficial strategy in education as a tension reliever” (p. 9). Therefore, in the present study, we examine whether a teacher’s humor is a predictor of students’ mental health.

Teacher’s humor and student affect

Several experimental studies have examined the effects of humorous task materials in the educational setting on student’s affect (Ford et al., 2012; Matarazzo et al., 2010). Matarazzo et al. (2010) found that humorous mathematical teaching materials reduced the anger of students who were less interested in the task at hand. Ford et al. (2012) reported that exposure to humorous materials before difficult mathematical tests alleviated anxiety felt by students during testing itself. However, these experimental studies focused on humor presented via the task material, and did not examine the influence of teachers’ humor in the classroom on students.

Bieg et al. (2017, 2019) conducted a large study on German secondary school students (grades 5 to 10) in order to examine the relationship between the types of humor used by a teacher—as perceived by the students—and its effects in a classroom setting. Bieg et al. (2017), using a cross-sectional study design, reported that humor related to course content positively predicted students’ enjoyment and negatively predicted their boredom, anxiety, and anger; humor unrelated to course content, or aggressive humor that made fun of students, was demonstrated to have the opposite set of effects. They further showed that self-deprecating humor, in which teachers laugh at themselves, is positively associated with a student’s enjoyment of the class. These results were largely reproduced in a subsequent longitudinal study (Bieg et al., 2019), in which it was also observed that content-related humor increased enjoyment, and decreased boredom and anger, whereas aggressive humor had the opposite effect. Taken together, these studies provide empirical evidence that a teacher’s humor in a particular class influences the students’ affect within that class. However, it has not been examined whether teachers’ humor not only influences the affect, but also the mental health status, of a student on a daily basis. In modern society, many children are faced with mental health problems (World Health Organization, 2004), and there is growing need for school-based preventive practices to reduce these problems (Hoagwood et al., 2007). Teachers are the experts most likely to be able to influence children's behavior and mental health on a daily basis, but may not have the resources or knowledge to do so (Kratochwill & Shernoff, 2004). Therefore, the findings of this study may help provide teachers with useful information for improving the mental health of students.

Types of teacher humor

It has been pointed out that the educational effect had by a teacher’s humor is dependent on its type (Jeder, 2015), and several studies have gone on to classify the types of teacher humor by investigating how students perceive the humor of a teacher. A study of university students (Frymier et al., 2008; Wanzer et al., 2006) identified five types of humor: related humor, unrelated humor, other-disparaging humor, self-disparaging humor, and offensive humor. Based on the findings of these studies, Bieg and Dresel (2016) investigated the types of humor among teachers; conducting a survey of ninth and tenth grade secondary school students, Bieg and Dresel (2016) found that teacher humor can be classified into four categories: humor unrelated to course content, with no thematic connection to the current topic; self-disparaging humor, in which the teacher does or says amusing things about him/herself; humor related to course content, in which humor is connected to current topics; and aggressive humor, which teases or ridicules students.

Tsukawaki et al. (2020), who conducted a survey of elementary and junior high school students in grades four through nine, revealed that there are two types of teachers’ humor: affinity humor, which is characterized by jokes that do not convey aggression and humor that promotes laughing at oneself; and aggressive humor, which is characterized by the use of humor related to the control and blame of others, such as sarcasm and teasing. It was also demonstrated that the factor structures of these two types of teacher humor apply regardless of a students’ school-going age. Aggressive humor as identified by Tsukawaki et al. (2020) and Bieg and Dresel (2016) includes the similar elements of teasing and satirizing students. Meanwhile, affinity humor as presented by Tsukawaki et al. (2020) and self-disparaging humor by Bieg and Dresel (2016) share a common element in that teachers tease themselves.

As made evident by these findings, teachers’ humor can be classified into various types according to its content, form, and relevance to the class content; therefore, its relationship with mental health may differ accordingly.

The current study

As discussed above, the studies by Bieg et al. (2017, 2019) examined the relationship between teacher humor type and student affects. However, not only can a teacher’s humor influence the situational affect—such as enjoyment and boredom—but it can also influence more general mental health conditions, such as stress response and self-esteem. So far, and as far as we are aware, there are no studies that have examined whether a teacher’s humor is related to the state of mental health beyond the level of student affect. The current study builds upon the efforts of previous studies (Bieg et al., 2017, 2019) by employing stress responses (physical state, a depressive-anxious feeling, an irritated-angry feeling, and helplessness), emotional well-being, and self-esteem as indicators of mental health. The World Health Organization (2018) broadly defines mental health as a “state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” Therefore, the indices of mental health (stress response, emotional well-being, and self-esteem) which have been adopted in this study are appropriate, although not comprehensive.

As mentioned earlier, Bieg and Dresel (2016) proposed four types of teacher humor (humor unrelated to course content, self-disparaging humor, humor related to course content, and aggressive humor), and Tsukawaki et al. (2020) identified two types (affinity humor and aggressive humor); each study developed an instrument to measure the type of teacher humor as perceived by students. Bieg and Dresel (2016) study was conducted in Germany, Tsukawaki et al.’s (2020) study was conducted in Japan. Since our study targeted Japanese elementary and junior high school students, we considered the two types of teacher humor identified by Tsukawaki et al. (2020).

Based on the findings of previous studies (Bieg et al., 2017, 2019) which note that aggressive humor has a negative association with mental health, we hypothesized that aggressive humor is a negative predictor of adaptive indicators of mental health (emotional well-being and self-esteem) and a positive predictor of maladaptive indicators (physical state, a depressive-anxious feelings, irritated-angry feelings, and helplessness). It was assumed that affinity humor shows an inverse pattern to aggressive humor, based on the findings of previous studies conducted by Bieg et al. (2017) in which a teacher’s self-disparaging humor was shown to be a positive predictor of student enjoyment.

Method

Data

We used data from the Survey on Classroom Humor and Children’s Adaptation, which was conducted by Tsukawaki (2018). The data were collected online by Cross Marketing Co., Ltd (https://www.cross-m.co.jp)—a major online research service in Japan—using stratified random sampling. Elementary and junior high school students living in the Kanto region were stratified along lines of sex and grade (fourth to ninth grade), and random sampling was conducted from each stratum. The content of the study was explained to the parents and children. The questionnaire targeted cases in which both the child and parent(s) agreed to participate. The sample group included 500 participants—250 boys and 250 girls—between the ages of nine and 15 years (M = 12.04, SD = 1.76).

Although a large amount of data was collected, which not only includes perceived teacher humor and mental health, but other variables such as a sense of humor, the perceived class climate, the motivation for learning, relationships with teachers, and relationships with friends; only the variables used in this study are considered in the following analysis. Other studies using this dataset include Tsukawaki (2018); Tsukawaki et al. (2019)—in which the relationship between children’s sense of humor and school adaptability is examined—and Tsukawaki et al. (2020), which examined the relationship between students’ perception of teacher humor and the class’ climate. This paper has different aims than the aforementioned set of studies, and student perceptions of the teacher’s humor, along with their mental health, are reported here for the first time.

Measures

Teachers’ humor

The scale developed by Tsukawaki et al. (2020), consisting of 10 items used to measure students’ perceptions of the two types of humor (aggressive and affinity), was used to evaluate teachers’ humor.¹ Sample items include: “Sometimes my homeroom teacher makes my classmates laugh by ridiculing someone” (aggressive) and “Sometimes my homeroom teacher makes my classmates laugh by talking about some failure he/she had had in the past” (affinity). The instrument employs a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from not applicable (1) to strongly agree (4). Internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alpha) is 0.91 for aggressive humor and 0.88 for affinity humor.

Stress responses

The Stress Response Scale for Children (SRS-C; Shimada et al., 1994) was used for evaluation purposes. This instrument consists of 20 items that measure four stress responses: physical states (e.g., feeling sluggish), depressive-anxious feelings (e.g., feeling depressed), irritated-angry feelings (e.g., feeling irritable), and helplessness (e.g., not feeling motivated). The instrument employs a 4-point Likert scale ranging from not at all (1) to very true (4). Internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alpha) are 0.88 for physical states, 0.93 for depressive-anxious feelings, 0.92 for irritated/angry feelings, and 0.92 for helplessness.

Emotional well-being and self-esteem

Two subscales from the Children’s Quality of Life Questionnaire (KINDL; Ravens-Sieberer & Bullinger, 1998; Japanese version by Shibata et al., 2003 ), each consisting of four items, were used to measure emotional well-being and self-esteem among the surveyed participants. Sample items include: “It was fun, and I talked a lot” (emotional well-being) and “I felt like I could do anything” (self-esteem). The instrument employs a 4-point Likert scale ranging from not at all (1) to very true (4). Internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alpha) are 0.61 for emotional well-being and 0.86 for self-esteem. Although the alpha coefficient of the emotional well-being is slightly lower, it has been influenced by the number of items constituting the scale; Cronbach’s alpha for the scale tends to be low when the number of items is also small (Takamoto & Hattori, 2015). We concluded that emotional well-being is an acceptable value because it consists of four small items.

Results

Means, standard deviations (SDs), and intercorrelations among the study variables are presented in Table 1. The correlation between teacher's aggressive humor and self-disparaging humor is reported to range between 0.14 and 0.36 in previous studies (Bieg et al., 2017, 2019; Frymier et al., 2008). The correlation observed in these two humor types is shown in this study to be somewhat higher than in previous investigations (r = 0.46). Therefore, the scale used in the previous study (Bieg & Dresel, 2016; Frymier et al., 2008) may be more successful in discriminating between the two types of humor than the scale adopted in this study (Tsukawaki et al., 2020). As mirrored in other results, aggressive humor shows a significant positive correlation with stress responses (physical state, depressive-anxious feelings, irritated-angry feelings, and helplessness) and a significant negative correlation with emotional well-being. Affinity humor, conversely, shows a significant positive correlation with self-esteem.

Table 1.

Means, SDs, and intercorrelations among study variables.

	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.	8.
1. AggH	–	.46***	.14**	.23***	.18***	.16***	−.24***	.00
2. AffH		–	.00	.05	.07	.03	.01	.13**
3. PS			–	.68***	.68***	.62***	−.50***	.14**
4. DAF				–	.73***	.69***	−.69***	.10*
5. IAF					–	.74***	−.58***	.07
6. He						–	−.63***	−.01
7. EWB							–	.10*
8. SE								–
M	1.68	2.23	1.68	1.53	1.76	1.78	3.25	2.03
SD	0.66	0.70	0.66	0.63	0.76	0.75	0.52	0.67

Note. N = 500. AggH, aggressive humor; AffH, affinity humor; PS, physical state; DAF, depressive-anxious feeling; IAF, irritated-angry feeling; He, helplessness; EWB, emotional well-being; SE, self-esteem.

*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Next, in order to determine how well students’ perceptions of their teacher’s humor could predict their mental health, multiple regression analysis was performed. The analysis treated the six mental health scores as dependent variables, and the two teachers’ humor scores as independent variables (Table 2). Aggressive humor is a significant positive predictor of all stress responses and a significant negative predictor of emotional well-being. Affinity humor is a significant positive predictor of emotional well-being and self-esteem. In addition, the two types of teacher humor accounts for the 2–8% variance observed in students’ mental health.

Table 2.

Multiple regression analysis with two types of teacher humor as independent variables and six variables of mental health as dependent variables.

	PS	DAF	IAF	He	EWB	SE
AggH	.17**	.26***	.19***	.18***	−.31***	−.07
AffH	−.07	−.07	−.02	−.05	.16**	.16**
R ²	.02**	.06***	.03***	.03**	.08***	.02**

**p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discussion

The present study has aimed to examine the association between two different types of teacher humor (aggressive humor and affinity humor) and students’ mental health.

Aggressive humor by teachers is a positive predictor of four stress responses (physical state, depression-anxious feelings, irritation-angry feelings, and helplessness) and a negative predictor of emotional well-being. Thus, our hypothesis regarding aggressive humor is generally supported. This finding provides further empirical support for Bieg et al. (2017, 2019), in which aggressive humor is positively associated with enjoyment and negatively associated with boredom, anxiety, and anger. Furthermore, the results of this study extend the work conducted by Bieg et al. (2017, 2019), suggesting that adverse effects of aggressive humor may extend beyond the level of a student’s affect to more general health conditions.

Affinity humor is a positive predictor of emotional well-being and self-esteem, but does not significantly predict the four stress responses, thereby partly supporting our hypothesis. Affinity humor is characterized by teachers laughing at themselves and corresponds to the self-disparaging humor identified by Bieg and Dresel (2016). Bieg et al. (2017) report a positive association between self-disparaging humor and enjoyment, suggesting that humor in which teachers laugh at themselves is positively associated with adaptive indicators of students’ mental health. Wanzer et al. (2006) conducted an open-ended survey of teachers' appropriate and inappropriate humor among university students and conducted a qualitative analysis. As a result, they found that the majority of teachers' self-disparaging humor (e.g., teasing oneself or talking about your embarrassing experiences) are recognized by students as appropriate humor. Wanzer et al. (2006) point out that self-disparaging humor is effective in creating a positive classroom environment and reducing student anxiety; the results of the present study are consistent with this claim. Perhaps students perceive this form of teacher humor to be appropriate, and—as Banas et al. (2011) note—may promote better mental health by producing a positive affect in the recipient. Lei et al. (2010) also state that, when teachers laugh at themselves, students become more tolerant and confident about making mistakes and failing, which the results of this study support through the positive association found between affinity humor and self-esteem.

One of the limitations of this study was the weakness of the associations of the two types of teacher humor (Tsukawaki et al., 2020) with mental health (R² = 0.02 to 0.08). Tsukawaki et al. (2020) classifies humor into two categories according to the form of humor used by teachers. However, recent studies have shown that the relationship between teacher humor and student affect not only depends on the form it takes, but also on whether the humor is related to the course content (Bieg et al., 2017, 2019). Therefore, in future studies, it is necessary to analyze the degree to which humor used by teachers is related to the course content, and how it contributes to the mental health of students. At that time, the relation with the course content can be treated as a variable. Specifically, by combining the form of humor and the relation with the class content, two patterns of humor (related to the class content or unrelated to the class content) can be assumed as aggressive forms. These two patterns are equally applicable to self-disparaging forms of humor. In addition, aggressive humor may or may not include respondents as targets. For example, when a teacher makes fun of a student's religion, race, or gender, the respondent may or may not belong to that religion, race, or gender; it is, thus, useful to examine the relationship between these variables and mental health by separating them. In future studies, it will be necessary to create a more detailed list of types of teachers' humor and examine the extent to which they contribute to the students' mental health. The second limitation of this study is that causality cannot be determined, as this study uses a cross-sectional design. Future studies should clearly determine causality by using a longitudinal design—as was employed by Bieg et al. (2019)—or by conducting experimental studies.

The current study provides empirical evidence that teacher humor and student mental health are associated, corroborating the findings of previous studies (Bieg et al., 2017, 2019). Teachers with aggressive humor—namely, humor that targets students as groups or individuals and teases or condemns their opinions or mistakes—is a predictor of maladaptive indicators of mental health (physical state, depression-anxious feelings, irritation-angry feelings, and helplessness). The negative effects of aggressive humor may not only extend to a student’s affect, but also to somatization. Teachers’ use of affinity humor—such as laughing at and pointing out their own mistakes and failures, making fun of their own weaknesses, and telling nonaggressive jokes that make everyone happy—is a predictor of emotional well-being and self-esteem. The influence of such humor may, thus, extend beyond a student’s affect to the development of self-esteem, and a positive evaluation of themselves. In addition, appropriate humor generates positive emotions (Banas et al., 2011), and the accumulation of these emotions may improve students’ emotional well-being. Therefore, it is recommended that teachers refrain from using aggressive humor and, instead, make use of affinity humor in the classroom in order to maintain or improve students’ health.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-prx-10.1177_0033294120972631 - Supplemental material for Students’ Perception of Teachers’ Humor Predicts Their Mental Health

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-prx-10.1177_0033294120972631 for Students’ Perception of Teachers’ Humor Predicts Their Mental Health by Ryota Tsukawaki and Tomoya Imura in Psychological Reports

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Ryota Tsukawaki

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Note

The English and Japanese versions of all scales used in this study are available as Supplementary Material.

Author Biographies

Ryota Tsukawaki is an assistant professor at Hijiyama University, Japan, where he teaches social psychology, and research methods in psychology and social surveying. He holds a PhD in psychology from Hiroshima University, Japan. His works focus on the social functions of humor.

Tomoya Imura is a lecturer in the Graduate School of Teacher Education at Saga University in Japan, where he teaches educational psychology. He holds a PhD in psychology from Hiroshima University, Japan. Imura’s work has focused on the character strengths of children.

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