Comparing Self-efficiency, Sense of Safety and Humor among Male and Female Teachers in Tehran

This study was carried out to compare self-efficiency, sense of safety and humor among male and female teachers in Tehran. In this study 200 teachers in Tehran were chosen using two First, 100 male teachers were selected from accessible community of selected schools; second, 100 female teachers were chosen by a purposeful sampling which was homogenized with the male samples. The questionnaires of Caprara and Esteka’s self-efficacy (2007), Aminpour and Zare’s sense of safety (1390) and Thorson and Powell’s humor scale (1997) were used in data collection process. Data were analyzed by means of Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) tests and Independent-T test. There was significant differences in terms of perceived self-efficacy between male and female teachers (P =0.05). When comparing averages, men got a higher average in controlling negative emotions whereas women got a higher average in expressing positive emotions and perceived empathy. In social self-efficacy though, no significant difference was found. When comparing the two groups, there was also a significant difference in terms of sense of safety and humor (P = 0.05) and in both of the above mentioned variables, men got a better score. The results of this study show that female teachers experience lower positive emotions in educational environments than men.