Elham Behpour; Ali Shirazi; hamed mohammadi shahroodi
Abstract
1- INTRODUCTION
With the advancement of new technology and industry and their related problems, disorders and mental illnesses such as physical problems have increased dramatically, and since the mental health of students is very important, it is essential that the psychological issues of this massive ...
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1- INTRODUCTION
With the advancement of new technology and industry and their related problems, disorders and mental illnesses such as physical problems have increased dramatically, and since the mental health of students is very important, it is essential that the psychological issues of this massive group be addressed. In this regard, psychologists in recent years have attached great importance to the strategic roles that people’s coping styles play in the physical and mental health. Coping styles are the cognitive and behavioral skills that a person employs in order to control overwhelming internal and external welfare needs. One of the styles that have been extended recently is the spiritual and religious coping styles. Spiritual intelligence is one of the concepts that has been proposed and developed in the light of the interest of psychologists in the field of spirituality, and incorporates the spirituality and intelligence structures into a new structure.
Conscious use of spiritual intelligence in a person's life can lead to increased relationship with self, others and the bigger world. Spiritual intelligence is the foundation of individual’s beliefs that affects his/her performance and increases his/her flexibility in the face of problems. In order to fertilize the students’ intelligence, the examination of the relationship between positive thinking and intelligence can be critical, and the spiritual intelligence is not an exception because the spiritual intelligence has the ability to modulate and even remove the effects of mental stresses and feelings of emptiness in students. Hence, with regard to the expanded role of spiritual intelligence in human life and according to the fact that students in each nation construct and develop their future and that their mental health is important, this study aimed to investigate the impacts of spiritual intelligence on positive thinking among the students in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM).
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Spiritual intelligence consists of two components: understanding and communicating with the origin of the universe and spiritual life (existence). Understanding and communicating with the origin of the universe means believing in the fact that we human beings are spiritual entities and that the physical life in this world is temporary. Thus, such people understand and believe the superior spiritual being (i.e., the God) and recognize their place in the presence of the God. Spiritual life, as the other component of spiritual intelligence, means that people with high spiritual intelligence have the capacity to devote a part of their daily activities to spiritual practices, which helps understanding ethic issues in their lives. Positive thinking refers to the positive orientation (desired outcome) in interpretations of past and current events and positive expectations of the future in the fields of individual assessment of their abilities to communicate with others, with the God (superior) and with the entire universe (nature). Positive thinking causes people to better develop their skills and to establish constructive interactions with their environment. Considering the purposes of this study, assumptions are as follows:
The primary hypothesis: Spiritual intelligence has impact on the positive thinking of FUM students.
The secondary hypothesis 1: Understanding and communicating with the origin of the universe has impact on the positive thinking of FUM students.
The secondary hypothesis 2: The spiritual life has impact on the positive thinking of FUM students.
3- METHODOLOGY
This study is a descriptive-survey study and was done in 2015 in the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. The study population included all students (i.e., 1965 individuals) in this faculty who had been studying political sciences, law, accounting, management and economics, in all the three bachelor, master and doctoral programs (in the second semester of 2015-2016).
4- RESULTS and DISCUSSION
In order to examine the research hypotheses, the results of the multiple regression analysis showed that positive thinking affects the spiritual intelligence, thus, the main hypothesis of this study was confirmed. Additionally, the hypothesis of the impacts of the spiritual life on the positive thinking was confirmed, but the impacts of the understanding and communicating with the origin of the universe (as the other component of spiritual intelligence) on the students’ positive thinking was not confirmed. Although in this study there is a significant relationship between the component of communication with the origin of the universe and positive thinking (according to Pearson’s correlation coefficient), this hypothesis has not been confirmed. These findings clearly indicate that the intervention of the spiritual intelligence increases the positive thinking.
5- CONCLUSIONS and SUGGESTIONS
In general, according to the results obtained in this study, spiritual intelligence is a good predictor for positive thinking among students of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, and according to these results, we can conclude that people will interpret the life events optimistically based on the spiritual life and enjoyment of spiritual communication and learning the religious teachings. In addition, taking advantage of human virtues and interpretive experiences that reinforce positive emotions, they will become more patient about unpleasant events and deal with problems more logically, resulting in a deep feeling of relaxation.
One of the limitations of this study is that the samples (students) are cross-sectional and specific. Therefore, the results of the study are generalizable only to this population. Hence, more research in this area and in other samples from different classes of the society is recommended. It also recommended that researchers who are interested in the subject of this research study the impacts of spiritual intelligence and positive thinking in other areas such as prevention of depression, anxiety, mental health improvement, academic achievement and coping with stress in students. It is also recommended that training the positive thinking skills and optimism as well as spirituality be done as a regular and compiled program in the form of workshops and training courses for students in order to strengthen and promote feelings of happiness, self-esteem, and enabling people.
abbasali rastgar; banafsheh fotovat; soheila bourghani farahani; pedram abdarzadeh
Abstract
1- INTRODUCTION
This research investigates the impact of variables such as happiness and spiritual and emotional intelligences on resilience among journalists. The research is conducted in the context of positive psychology and positive organizational behavior, which seek to explore positive psychological ...
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1- INTRODUCTION
This research investigates the impact of variables such as happiness and spiritual and emotional intelligences on resilience among journalists. The research is conducted in the context of positive psychology and positive organizational behavior, which seek to explore positive psychological potentials. Waller defines resilience as a person's positive adaptation in response to adverse conditions (traumas and threats) (Waller, 2001, p. 299). Resilience promotes adaptive behavior in problem-solving contexts. It involves various cognitive, ethical, emotional, and interpersonal dimensions. It helps the individual adapt to surrounding conditions and achieve internal and external integrity (Mashaekhi Dolat Abadi & Mohamadi, 2014, p. 207). Therefore, this study aims to determine the effect of happiness on resilience in journalists considering the mediating role of spiritual and emotional intelligences.
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The conceptual model of the research regards happiness as an independent and resilience as a dependent variable while emotional and spiritual intelligences are considered as mediator variables. According to this conceptual model, the variable of happiness includes five components of satisfaction, self-esteem, subjective well-being, satisfaction, and positive mood. Emotional intelligence includes five components of self-awareness, self-control, self-motivation, social awareness, and social skills. Spiritual intelligence includes four components of critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental consciousness, and expansion of self-awareness. Resilience includes five components of individual merit, tolerance of negative emotions and trust in individual instincts, positive acceptance of change and secure relationships, control, and spirituality.
3- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research is an applied study and employs the descriptive-correlational research method. The statistical population of this research includes all reporters in Tehran's most popular newspapers, which is an infinite population. A total of 384 individuals were selected as the statistical sample according to Cochran's sample size formula. A questionnaire was distributed using the stratified combined sampling method. A total of 250 questionnaires were returned as a result. Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ), Schering Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, King Spiritual Intelligence Questionnaire (KSI Q), and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) were the standard questionnaires used to collect research data.
4- RESEARCH FINDINGS
The content validity method and expert opinions were used to ensure questionnaire validity. In addition, the validity of the research construct was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis as well as convergent and divergent validity indices. Then, the reliability of the questionnaires was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, which was more than 0.7 for all four questionnaires, implying that the questionnaires were sufficiently reliable.
A review of the structural equation modeling of the research showed the direct effect of happiness on resilience was equal to 0.83 and its significance coefficient was equal to 12.31. The effect of happiness on emotional intelligence was equal to 0.66 and its significance coefficient was equal to 9.21. The effect of happiness on spiritual intelligence was equal to 0.72 and its significance coefficient was equal to 10.52. The effect of emotional intelligence on resilience was equal to 0.78 and its significance coefficient was equal to 11.41. The effect of spiritual intelligence on resilience was equal to 0.59 and its coefficient of significance was equal to 8.66. In addition, the indirect effect of happiness on resilience was estimated through the intermediate variables of emotional intelligence (0.78 × 0.66= 0.51) and spiritual intelligence (0.59 × 0.72=0.42), which confirmed the mediating role of emotional and spiritual intelligences. The results of data analysis using structural equation modeling by LISREL software show that the happiness of journalists in Tehran's popular newspapers has a positive effect on their resilience directly and through mediating emotional and spiritual intelligence variables. Therefore, all the research hypotheses are confirmed and the final research model can be generalized to the statistical society.
5- DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The results of examining research hypotheses showed that happiness and emotional and spiritual intelligences have a positive and significant effect on resilience. Happiness plays an important role in improving physical and mental health. It also promotes participation in social activities and leads to a sense of security and satisfaction. Therefore, to deal with stressful situations common in their jobs, journalists should increase their happiness and resilience. Since it is possible for humans to live a life of delight, creativity, and satisfaction by training and regulating their own thoughts, journalists should attempt to identify and question their own assumptions and misconceptions.
In addition, emotional intelligence is a learned characteristic and individuals with high emotional intelligence are more resilient in difficult circumstances. Therefore it is recommended that managers of printed media organizations increase the emotional intelligence skills of journalists, including self-control and the appropriate treatment of audiences, colleagues, superiors and other individuals in the community. This improvement can be achieved through holding training courses on personality, listening skills, nonverbal messages, as well as courses on anger and stress control. Ultimately, because spiritual intelligence has a positive and significant effect on resilience, it is recommended that managers increase the spiritual intelligence of journalists through reflective exercises such as meditation, conscious awareness and self-awareness, increased openness, high sensitivity to experiences and realities such as the state of transcendence and spiritual issues, the improvement of ethical behavior, the search for the real meaning of events and an explanatio
for problems, and efforts to connect seemingly unrelated events.