Role of Spiritual Intelligence and Personal Beliefs in Social Anxiety among University

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Social anxiety disorder is one of the most important psychological disorders that has appeared concurrently with social changes. The present study aimed at evaluating the role of spiritual intelligence and personal beliefs in social anxiety among students at Azad University, Ferdows Branch, South Khorasan Province, Iran. Methods: The study population of this analytical cross-sectional study was all students at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences affiliated to Azad University, Ferdows Branch, South Khorasan, Iran. In total, 300 students were selected through stratified random sampling in the 2017-2018 academic year. Data were collected using the social anxiety scale by Connor et al. (2000), King's spiritual intelligence scale (2008), and personal beliefs questionnaire by Ellis (1978). Moreover, data analysis was performed utilizing inferential statistics (Pearson correlation and multiple regression). The significance level was considered 0.01 in this study. Results: The results showed that spiritual intelligence correlated significantly with social anxiety (r=-0.651, P<0.001), and there was a remarkable association between personal beliefs and social anxiety (r=0.335, P<0.001). Moreover, according to the obtained results, spiritual intelligence (42.9) and irrational personal beliefs (11.2) predicted social anxiety (P<0.01). Conclusion: According to the role of spiritual intelligence and personal beliefs in reducing social anxiety, it can be concluded that strengthening the components of these two factors can be effective in reducing the social anxiety among students which improve their mental health.

Keywords

• attitude
• anxiety
• spirituality
• intelligence
• universities
• students