Studying Spiritual Intelligence As a Predictor on Meaningfulness and Life Satisfaction

Abstract

Spiritual intelligence, one of the several types of intelligence, is defined as an individual’s ability to find meaning in life. The aim of the current study is to investigate the effect of spiritual intelligence on meaningfulness and life satisfaction. Being a descriptive study, we followed a relational screening model while collecting research data. The study group consisted of 388 undergraduate students and adults with a bachelor’s degree living in the cities of Istanbul, Kocaeli, and Zonguldak. Spiritual intelligence, meaningfulness, and life satisfaction scales were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics as well as both correlational and regression analyses were used to analyze the data obtained by the research. The analyses demonstrated that spiritual intelligence has a positive and significant relationship with meaningfulness (.365) and life satisfaction (.219). In the regression analysis, we observed that spiritual intelligence influenced both meaningfulness (R2=0.133) and life satisfaction (R2=.048). We expect that this study will contribute to intelligence and spirituality-oriented disciplines, like psychological counselling and the psychology of religion.

Keywords

• Intelligence
• spirituality
• spiritual intelligence
• meaningfulness
• life satisfaction