Playful Minds Under Pressure? Exploring Links Between Playfulness, Stress, and Satisfaction in Employees and Students

Background/Objectives: University students and working professionals, especially those preparing for or employed in healthcare, face substantial psychological demands. Identifying low-cost, easily deployable personal resources to buffer stress and enhance satisfaction is therefore a priority for positive-psychology research and practice. Adult playfulness, the disposition to (re)frame everyday situations in an entertaining, interesting, or meaningful way, may represent such a resource, but evidence from applied settings remains scarce. We investigated how four facets of playfulness relate to perceived stress and job/academic satisfaction across study and work contexts, as well as whether these associations differ by healthcare affiliation. Methods: We analyzed two samples comprising 499 employed adults from diverse occupational backgrounds and 635 university students (Ntotal = 1134). Participants completed measures of playfulness, perceived stress, and job/academic satisfaction. Results: Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses supported scalar measurement invariance across occupational status and healthcare affiliation. Structural equation models indicated that lighthearted playfulness was associated with lower perceived stress. Associations between playfulness facets and satisfaction were weak overall and were primarily observed among working adults. We found no evidence for moderation by healthcare affiliation. Conclusions: Given that playfulness is a relatively stable disposition whereas stress and satisfaction. These findings underscore the importance of a differentiated conceptualization of playfulness and point to the potential value for future research examining facet-specific, context-sensitive applications in education and practice.