Die verband tussen humorsin en psigologiese welstand by adolessente

[摘要] English: The aim of this study was to examine the nature of humour and sense of humour,the dynamics of psychological wellbeing as well as adolescence as a critical phaseof life, and to determine whether there is an empirical relationship between senseof humour and psychological wellbeing among adolescents. Various theoriesinvolving humour and sense of humour were described and a model of humour andsense of humour was developed. In the discussion of psychological wellbeing therelationship with sense of humour was indicated.During the empirical study a cross-sectional survey was held among 884 Grade 12learners at ten schools in the Pretoria area (Gauteng) and the East London area(Eastern Cape) in respect of sense of coherence, satisfaction with life, fortology/fortitude, and sense of humour. Sense of coherence was measured by means ofAntonovsky's Sense of Coherence questionnaire (SOC: 1987), while satisfactionwith life was assessed using the Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (SWLS) of Diener,Emmans, Larson and Griffen (1985), fortology by means of the FortologyQuestionnaire (FORQ) developed by Pretorius (1997), and sense of humour wasmeasured by means of the Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale (MSHS) ofThorson and Powell (1993). Biographical information was obtained by means of ashort biographical questionnaire.In this study relatively favourable reliability indicators were obtained for almost allscales and subscales of the measuring instruments used in the research.The current research found that four subscales of humour yielded a statisticallysignificant contribution in the explanation of fortology among adolescents, whereasthree of the four subscales, creation of humour, social use of humour and attitudetowards humour, yielded a statistically significant contribution in explaining thevariance in sense of coherence among adolescents.It would appear from the results that boys show higher levels of sense of humourin terms of the creation of humour and the social use of humour than girls.Considering the interaction between gender and school placement, it is evident thatthe boys in mixed-gender schools and girls in mixed-gender schools achieved asignificantly higher score on the creation of humour as well as the social use ofhumour than boys in single-gender schools. As far as attitude to humour isconcerned, the boys in the single-gender schools returned a significantly lowerscore than boys in mixed-gender schools and girls in single-gender schools.These findings are related to findings discussed in the literature study.In conclusion proposals are made regarding the use of humour and sense of humourin practice as well as the promotion of psychological wellbeing among adolescents .

[发布机构] University of the Free State