Gender differences in spirituality among college students

Pages:450-452
Faizi Agha and Shahina Maqbool (Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh)
Sarah Javed (Department of Psychiatry, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh)

The relation between gender and spirituality is of great interest hence our study aimed to examine the gender differences in college students through the lens of spirituality. 60 students (30 males & 30 females) were chosen from arts faculty with age range of (18 & older). They were requested to fill Expressions of Spirituality Inventory (Mac Donald 2009) which consist of 30 items with five dimensions i.e. cognitive, experiential, existential, paranormal, and religiousness. Independent sample t test was administered for obtaining mean difference between both the genders on spirituality. Significant difference was found on two domains of spirituality i.e. Cognitive and Experiential dimension. In cognitive domain males scores higher (M=18.30, SD=2.91) as compared to females (M=13.60, SD=4.23) with t value as 5.01 which was significant at 0.05 level. Other domain in which significant difference was found was Experiential domain, here females scored higher (M=17.40, SD=5.21) as compared to males (M=13.23, SD=4.43) with t value as 3.33 which was significant at 0.05 level. No significant difference was found in the remaining three dimensions i.e. Existential, Paranormal and Religious domains, having t value as 1.02, .861 and 1.55 respectively at 0.05 levels. This study contributes a great understanding of spirituality and the effects of gender on spirituality.