Abstract

The study examined humour as a mediating factor in social interaction, well-being and job performance among bank employees in Ibadan, Nigeria. A descriptive survey research design was adopted while 215 bank workers were randomly selected. A self-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) and regression analysis were used to analyse the data. The correlation matrix revealed that humour is mostly correlated with job performance with a correlation coefficient of (r = 0.786), social interaction (r= .747) and employee well-being (r = 0.673) were also significant and positively correlated with job performance. It was also revealed that there is joint effect between the three related independent variables (humour, social interaction, employees’ well-being) and job performance among bank employees (F (3,211) = 44.78; R = 0.822, R2 = 0.676; Adjusted R2= .645, p < .05). Relative contributions of independent variables revealed humour as the most significant predictor of job performance (β =0.677, t = 9.281, p < 0.05), followed by social interaction (β =0.328, t = 5.594, p < 0.05) and employee well-being (β = 0.109, t = 1.201, p < 0.05) respectively with a coefficient of determination of R2 = 0.676. Based on these findings, the study recommended that managers should employ affiliative and self-enhancing humour styles as management tools to achieve organizational goals.