The Effect of Religious Affiliation and Gender on Spiritual Intelligence: A Comparative Study

Description

Page: 1813-1818

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17829324

Deepak Kumar Rai¹ and Santosh Kumar² (Department of Psychology, V.K.S. University Ara -Cum-Department of Psychology, Sri Shankar College, Takia Sasaram (VKSU, Ara), Bihar¹ and Department of Psychology, Patna University, Patna, Bihar, Department of Psychology, A. S. College, Bikramganj (VKSU, Ara), Bihar²)

In this research article, a comparative and regression analysis was conducted to examine the effects of religious affiliation, gender, and their interaction on Spiritual Intelligence. For this purpose, King’s (2008) Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI-24) was administered to male and female participants belonging to Hindu and Muslim groups. The significance of differences in overall Spiritual Intelligence and its four dimensions across the four groups was assessed using responses from a total sample of 400 participants (100 per group). The findings indicate significant differences between the religious groups in overall Spiritual Intelligence and all four of its dimensions. Among the gender groups, significant differences were observed on all dimensions except Critical Existential Thinking. The interaction effect of religion and gender on this scale was not significant for any dimension. The regression results of this study further show that religion has a significant predictive effect on Spiritual Intelligence (R = 0.225, R² = 0.051, Adjusted R² = 0.048, F (1, 397) = 21.19, p < .01). However, neither gender nor the interaction term (religion × gender) was a significant predictor in the regression model. Based on these results and hypothesis testing (Null Hypothesis), religious affiliation emerges as a significant predictor of Spiritual Intelligence, while gender also shows a meaningful effect. The non-significant interaction effect (Gender & Religion) on this scale indicates that the response patterns of males and females across both religious groups are not divergent but generally follow the same direction.