Dispositional Optimism, Psychological Well-being and Perceived Social Support among College Teachers

A teacher is someone who assists students in gaining knowledge and skills, putting in a great deal of effort to teach and advance their students’ careers. The foundation of any effort to achieve quality education is centered on the employment and working conditions of teachers. The objective of this study was to study the difference and relationship between dispositional optimistic attribution, perception of social support and psychological well-being of contractual teachers in aided and self-financing colleges. To conduct the study, a purposive sampling method was used to select 30 teachers from aided colleges and 30 teachers from self-financing colleges as the sample. The researchers used the Ryff psychological well-being scale, Multidimensional scale for perceived social support (MSPSS), and (LOT-R) Life orientation test revised to assess the levels of optimism, perceived social support, and psychological well-being among the teachers. The result shows that optimism, perceived social support, and psychological well-being are significant positive correlation among college teachers and found a statistically significant difference in optimism, psychological well-being and perceived social support among aided and self-financing teachers. This study gives the implication that the management of optimism and perceived social support predicts the psychological well-being of teachers and that will improve the quality of performance and the commitment towards the profession.