Relationships between Student Personality Traits, Mobbing, and Depression within the Context of Sustainable Tourism Education: The Case of a Faculty of Tourism

Sustainable education has the target of improving skills that encourage students or life-long learners to reflect on actions realized by themselves. Its main concern is considering their actual and future cultural, socio-economic, and environmental impacts. Such a paradigm to evaluate these impacts is to bring about a local and a global perspective. Sustainability, as a means of qualified education, is a consequence of lifelong learning philosophy. All levels and all kinds of education should deal with the issues of sustainability and create holistic and transformational skills in this topic. In this context, pedagogy and learning environment is of great importance. Concerning learning environment, mobbing cases have frequently coincided in educational organizations. Mobbing has been regarded as an important business disease of contemporary work-life. Besides, mobbing might be coincided not only in the businesses but also in the organizations providing educational services. In schools and universities, mobbing leads to physiological, sociological, and psychological harms for the students. Recent studies have shown that in the school environment, students are exposed to a possible mobbing behavior and that their academic performance and achievement, as well as their mental and physical health, are negatively influenced. In addition, many academic studies indicate that the personality traits students have are an important predictor of exposure to mobbing and depression. This study aimed to determine the levels of mobbing and depression perceptions of students (type A, type B) who are studying tourism education at undergraduate level. In this context, within the groups of personality traits, the levels of depression in the process of mobbing were examined. Research data were collected from 524 students surveyed in a tourism faculty of a state university. In order to realize the data collection, Personality Traits, Mobbing, and Depression scales were used. Correlation, t-test, and regression analysis were performed as well as descriptive statistics (frequencies, mean, and standard deviation) in the process of data analysis. As a consequence of the research, it was determined that mobbing influenced psychological conditions of all students showing the features of A and B type as personality traits. Nevertheless, mobbing and depression perceptions differ upon their personality groups. It was found that the mean scores of mobbing and depression perceptions of students’ having A type personality traits were comparatively higher than the ones having B type personality traits. In addition, it has been revealed that there is a positive relationship between mobbing and depression perceptions of students. Mobbing explained 14% of the change in the depression levels of the students. As a result of the findings, it was determined that personality trait is an important and significant factor in the impact levels of students from mobbing and depression. Incorporation of personality traits into the transformational learning process in the education system as well as teaching and supporting of students with applied social education can be an effective element of sustainable education.