Social Support as a Mediator Variable of Burnout among Married and Unmarried Teacher

Social support is the degree to which individuals have access to social resources, in the form of relationships, on which they can rely. Social network is meaningful social contact, availability of social confidants and human companionship. Social Support is an enduring pattern of continuous or intermittent ties that play a significant part in the individual's life over time. He further states that emotional support consists of enduring interpersonal ties to a group of people who can be called upon to provide emotional sustenance, assistance and resources in time of need, who provide feedback and who share standards and values. The aim of the present study is to find out the social support as a mediator variable of burnout an organizational role stress among married and unmarried women teachers. The investigators used the questionnaire of Sarason, Levme Bashan and Sarason (1983) to measure social support, Maslach's Inventory (1981) to measure burnout and ORS to measure organizational role stress. The results revealed that due to social support these teachers neither exhausted emotionally nor feel lack of personal accomplishment therefore treated their pupils as humans not as an object. The significant mediating effects of social support showed for unmarried teachers when the criterion variable emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, dimensions of burnout. While for married teachers social support was the predator variable for personal accomplishment a third dimension of burnout.