Spiritual Quotient (S.Q.
): An Assessment tool
Nira Manghrani
ABSTRACT
Spiritual Intelligence (S.Q) is a mysterious concept. Psychologists including
Howard Gardener avoided the topic for almost about a century. Only recently,
scholars from different walks of sciences and psychology world over started
realizing the importance of spiritual aspects of human development, intelligence
and behavior.
Here, the psychometric properties and steps of a tool designed to measure Spiritual
Intelligence is described. The construction of this test was undertaken as a challenge
to Zohars assertion that SQ can not be measured (Zohar, 2000).
This test comprises a total of 11 and 75 items. The dimensions are: 1) Belief in God
and religiosity, 2) Belief in the existence of Soul, 3) Self awareness, 4) Practicing
spiritual exercises, 5) Life style values, 6) Belief in Fate and Karma, 7) Practicing
good social relations, 8) Ability to see divinity in love, 9) Practicing spirituality in
leadership, 10) Having a sense of gender equality, and 11) Helping attitude.
The reliability of the test was assessed twice on two different types of samples and
it yielded an overall reliability for the tool approached .91.
Further authors operational definition of Spiritual Intelligence and applications of the
Spiritual intelligence to enhance quality of life and work have been delineated upon.
Keywords: Spiritual Quotient, Spiritual Intelligence, Spirituality in Management,
and Psychological Test for spirituality, Spirituality.
INTRODUCTION
At the beginning of the twentieth century, as psychologists discovered ways and means
to measure intelligence, Aristotles definition of a man as a rational animal developed
into an obsession with IQ among psychologists as well as common people. This obsession
continued till the mid-1990s when Daniel Goleman popularized the term emotional
intelligence, E.Q., pointing out that EQ is a basic requirement for the appropriate use of
IQ. This gave rise of the possibility of the roles of some other kinds of intelligence, other
than just IQ, By the end of the twentieth century, there was enough collective evidence
J. Psychosoc. Res. Vol. 6 No. 1 (2011) p. 41-51
Corresponding Author Email: [email protected]
42
Nira Manghrani
from psychology, neurology, anthropology and cognitive sciences to show existence of a
third Q, SQ, or Spiritual Intelligence (Howard, G, 1993; and Zohar & Marshall-2002).
Spiritual Intelligence S.Q.: The Ultimate Intelligence
Spiritual intelligence is defined in many different ways by many scholars. For example,
Wikipedia defined SQ as a measure that looks at a persons spiritual intelligence in the
same way as intelligence quotient (IQ) looks at cognitive intelligence. It is the study in
which there are 6 types of personalities: social, investigative, artistic, realist, contractor
and conventional converge.
Zohar & Marshal (2002) treated Spiritual Intelligence (SI) as the ultimate intelligence
with which we address and solve the problems of meaning and value of life, the
intelligence with which we can place our actions and our lives in a wider, richer,
meaning-giving context. It is the intelligence with which we can assess that one course
of action or one life path as more meaningful than another. On the other hand, Emmons
considered SI as a framework for identifying and organizing the skills and abilities
needed for the adaptive use of spirituality. For him it is the capacity to transcendence;
heightened consciousness, capacity to endow everyday activity with a sense of the
sacred; use of spiritual resources for solving practical problems and involvement in
virtuous behavior e.g. forgiveness, gratitude, humility, compassion and wisdom
(Emmons, 2003). He defines spiritual intelligence as the adaptive use of spiritual
information to facilitate everyday problem solving and goal attainment (Emmons,
2000). He originally proposed 5 components of spiritual intelligence: viz; 1. The capacity
to transcend the physical and material, 2. The ability to experience heightened states
of consciousness, 3. The ability to sanctify everyday experience, 4. The ability to utilize
spiritual resources to solve problems, and 5. The capacity to be virtuous. The fifth
capacity was later removed due to its focus on human behaviour rather than ability,
thereby not meeting previously established scientific criteria for intelligence.
David B King (2007) of Trent University defines spiritual intelligence as a set of
mental capacities which contribute to the awareness, integration, and adaptive
application of the nonmaterial and transcendent aspects of ones existence, leading to
such outcomes as deep existential reflection, enhancement of meaning, recognition of a
transcendent self, and mastery of spiritual states.
The present author agree more to Emmons and consider SI as referring to the skills,
abilities and behaviors required to develop and maintain a relationship to the Ultimate
Source of all Being, succeed in the search for meaning in life, find a moral and ethical path
which guide us through life, and act out our sense of meaning and values in our personal
life and in our interpersonal relationships to handle our day to day problems of life. In
other words, SI or SQ is ones ability to use spirituality for personal wisdom and for
personal and social effectiveness (Manghrani, 2001). SQ works with our inner flame and
J. Psychosoc. Res.
Spiritual Quotient (S.Q.): An Assessment Tool
43
makes choices that are in line with our deepest desires. This is uniquely human (as far as
we can claim to know today) and allows us to change the rules and alter situations. S.Q. is
the key to life-long self-control, putting yourself in charge of how you think, how you feel
and how you behave (Roder, 2004). The present author tends to believe that in absence of
SQ, neither I.Q. nor E.Q. can give optimal result. It is a holistic concept incorporating mind,
body and spirit. Spirituality has no necessary connection to religion and, hence, if a person
is religious it doesnt necessarily guarantee high SQ or vice-versa.
Some Scientific Evidences for the Existence of Spiritual Intelligence
In the early 1990s, a neurologist at the University of California scientifically demonstrated
that there was a spiritual center in the temporal lobe of the human brain. The temporal
lobes lit up whenever research subjects were asked questions on spiritual subjects. This
spot has been called The God Spot. This part of the brain gives us the capacity and the
sensitivity to question the meaning and value of specific aspects of our life. Human beings
are essentially spiritual in nature because we are driven to ask existential questions about
life, for example: Why has this happened to me? What is my purpose here on earth? What
is the meaning of life? Who am I? etc. Every culture on earth has developed some form of
spirituality to deal with these bigger questions of life. That leads us to assume that we are
naturally spiritual, even if we choose to deny its existence (Roder, 2004).
Unlike I.Q., which computers have, and E.Q., which exists in higher mammals
and some other living beings like ants and honey bees, S.Q. is uniquely human and
perhaps the most fundamental of the three. It is linked to humanitys need for meaning,
an issue very much at the forefront of peoples minds.
Purpose and rationale of the present research
All human beings have spiritual inclination in their behavior. Some are highly spiritual
and some are less. As intelligent testing predicts Human Intelligence (I.Q.) and a
psychometric test can predict Emotional Intelligence (E.Q.). The present researcher was
interested to develop a tool to assess and predict Spiritual Intelligence (S.Q.).
Aim of the Research
As indicated above the aim of the present research was to construct an assessment tool
to measure Spiritual Intelligence (S.Q).
Method
All the steps of tool construction were followed. They are described below.
Phase 1:
1. Item construction
The initial set of ten dimensions and 110 items were identified by an extensive library
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Nira Manghrani
search for literature and references including scientific journals, books, dissertations
and theses. The list of 10 dimensions and 110 items were given to 15 Experts from
psychology, philosophy, sociology, social works, and other relevant field of social
sciences and humanities for evaluation, comment and edit. These experts were asked
to evaluate the items and dimensions on the following two criteria:
a) The appropriateness of the items with their factors/dimensions and
b) Clarity of language
The ten dimensions thus identified were:
1.
Self-awareness: This dimension measures ones understanding and insight about the self.
2.
Interpersonal relations: This dimension focuses upon the importance one gives
and has clarity about interpersonal relations in life.
3.
Spiritual exercises: Here researcher wanted to explore and thus assess respodents
practice as well as importance that he/she gives to the spiritual exercises in daily
schedule for healthy living.
4.
Religiosity: Importance and faith for religion as well as attitude towards religious
practices is the focus of this factor.
5.
Helping behavior: This factor measures ones inclinations for helping behavior
(inclination to help others) in daily practical lives.
6.
Love: How much love emotion is valuable in ones life for seeking a contented
life?
7.
Personal power: This factor assesses individuals control on his /her self, her
actions, emotions etc.
8.
Values: Kinds of values and importance of different values in
governing ones daily life.
9.
Health: Importance to health, fitness, daily religious and such other exercise and
practices (like yogic exercises) for keeping good health, and
10.
Integrity: This dimension focused upon the importance of Integrity as an important
part of the day to day personal and social activities.
leading /
Those items which were rated as non-relevant or were not clear in language and
expression by the experts were modified or dropped altogether. Experts/Scholars also
suggested renaming few dimensions titles from validity point of view.
J. Psychosoc. Res.
Spiritual Quotient (S.Q.): An Assessment Tool
45
These suggestions and recommendations of the experts led to addition of 4 new
dimensions the tool. Hence, the modified tool based on the experts opinions and
suggestions comprised of 103 items and 14 dimensions.
Four new dimensions thus recommended were:
Gender and caste equality: This factor estimates ones belief
not be any discrimination on the basis of caste and gender.
Equality and justice: Ones faith and belief in the equality for every one in the
society. How much he value justice in every act.
Truthfulness and honesty: Ones value and faith in following completely honest
and truthful approach in personal life and dealing with society. Also, how far he/
she is aware for consequences and challenges in walking on this road of honesty
and truthfulness.
Trustworthy and moral relationship: Importance of trust and morality as an
important predominant factor in healthy relationship.
that there should
2. Item Analysis
Sample: As described above 103 items were administered on another set of a sample
of 75 managers and 100 supervisors as detailed below for item analysis phase.
Numbers of the respondents with their age, levels and experience range have
been given in Table 1
Table 1
Showing the Levels, Numbers, Age and Experience Range of the
Respondents
Ranks
Number
Age range
Experience range in years
Managers
75
30-40
5-20
Supervisors
100
20-40
2-11
Site: The research site was a chemical manufacturing organization under public sector
in central Gujarat, India.
Item rating: Respondents were asked to rate their opinion on each statement on a
four-point scale ranging from Very Well Agree (4) Moderately Agree (3) Little Agree
(2) Not At all Agree (1). There were some negatively worded items as well. Ratings
for all such items were reversed.
J. Psychosoc. Res.
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Nira Manghrani
Procedure: Forms were given to the respondents to fill in their spare times (i.e., nonduty hours). The filled in questionnaire forms were collected back on the following
day as per mutual convenience. Collected data were subjected to item analysis method
through SPSS programming.
Phase 2
In phase two, the researcher went to factor analyse the test data to generate the right
mix of cluster of items into different factors.
3. Factor analysis
Factor analysis was done on a set of data collected from another sample of 175
respondents. Inter-item consistency and significant differences between the dimensions
and items were also worked out.
Procedure: The procedure for the factor analysis was the same as explained above for
the purpose of item analysis. SPSS package was used for calculating factor analysis by
the method of Component Analysis and Varimax Rotation.
The results of Factor Analysis have been summarized in the Table 2
Table 2
Showing the Result of the Factor Analysis
(11 factors as shown below emerged)
No.
Factors
Eigen Values
% of variance
Self awareness
10.875
10.559
Interpersonal relations
7.982
7.749
Spiritual exercises
6.350
6.165
Religiosity
5.320
5.165
Helping Behavior
4.920
4.777
Love
4.652
4.516
Personal Power
4.551
4.419
Values
3.956
3.841
Health
3.651
3.545
10
Integrity
3.499
3.397
11
Gender and caste equality
3.339
3.242
12
Equality and justice
3.077
2.987
13
Value for truthfulness and honesty
2.918
2.833
14
Trustworthy and moral leadership
2.807
2.725
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Spiritual Quotient (S.Q.): An Assessment Tool
47
Some sample items from each factor have been cited in the Table 3
Table 3
Showing Some Sample Items for Each of the 14 Factors
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
Items
Factor Name
Existence of God is a myth
Religion leads to self- realization.
A man can be good or spiritual without being religious.
Faith in god is necessary to achieve success in life.
Soul survives even after physical death.Belief in the existence of soul
Truthfulness brings personal loss.
An antisocial or immoral action should be condoned even if
committed by mistake or under some kinds of pressure.
Fearlessness makes one strong and powerful.
Prayer gives power to endure sorrow.
Life without moral and ethics is meaningless.
Self discipline is important for orderly life.
Equality of status is not possible at all.
Everybody should be treated equally in the eyes of law.
Harijans and the backward caste must be treated on the basis of
their merit and not on their caste basis.
Spiritual exercises give wisdom to a person.
Holy person lead their lives towards inner happiness
and satisfaction.
Spiritual exercises help to live a relaxed and satisfied.
Peace of mind is the ultimate goal of life.
I feel inferior in presence of others.
I can name my emotion easily.
My life is full of tensions and problems.
Man and women must be equal partners in family
decision making process.
Both men and women should be given equal rights and
status in the society.
Both men and women are equal partners in the
development of the nation.
karma decides the course of life.
Physical as well as mental health is important for spiritual goals.
Good health is basic need for spiritual living.
One should bother about the acceptance and rejection by the society.
Ethical living style helps to maintain relationships.
Leaders with high morality are trusted most by their followers.
Religiosity
Religiosity
Religiosity
Religiosity
Managers/leaders with spiritual inclination are trusted by
subordinates/followers.
God is nothing but true love.
True love is energy to lead us to the path of success and happiness.
Truthfulness and honesty
Truthfulness and honesty
Personal
Personal
Values
Health
Equality
Equality
Equality
Spiritual
Spiritual
power
power
and justice
and justice
and justice
Exercises
Exercises
Spiritual Exercises
Self Awareness
Self Awareness
Self Awareness
Self Awareness
Gender & Caste Equality
Gender & Caste Equality
Gender & Caste Equality
Fate & Karma
Spiritual Exercises
Spiritual Exercises
Social Relations
Values
Trustworthy and moral
leadership
Trustworthy and
moral leadership
Love
Love
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Nira Manghrani
Results
Factor analysis yielded inter-item consistency. Non-significant items were dropped out.
The new final combinations of 75 items belonging to the 11 dimensions emerged, and
were selected for further steps of tool construction. These 75 items with 11 dimensions
were retained as the final instrument for the measurement of Spirituality.
The names of dimensions and their respective item numbers of the final
questionnaire with their possible score range have been given in the Table 4.
Table 4
Shows the names 11 dimensions and item numbers of the original set
of the final questionnaire with their possible score ranges.
Dimensions
Dimension
Titles
Items in the Dimensions
Max-Min
Score
God & Religiosity
1,13* , 25, 37, 47, 56, 64, 68, 70, 72*, 74, 75*
48-12
Soul
2, 73
08-2
Self Awareness
14*, 26, 38*, 48, 57, 65, 69*, 71,
32-8
Spiritual Exercises
3, 15, 27, 39, 49, 58, 66
28-7
Life Style Values
4, 12, 16, 24, 28, 36, 40, 50*, 59*, 67
40-10
Fate & Karma
6, 18, 30, 42, 52, 61
24-6
Social Relations
8, 20, 32, 44, 54*, 63
24-6
Divinity in Love
9, 21, 33, 45, 55
20-5
Spirituality in Leadership
10, 22, 34, 46
16-4
10
Gender & Caste Equality
5,7*, 17, 19*, 29, 31*, 41, 43, 51, 53, 60*, 62
48-12
11
Helping Behavior
11, 23, 35*
12-3
(*) Indicates negatively worded items and are to be negatively scored.
The names of 11 dimensions (factors) which emerged in final factor analysis with
slightly altered meanings (definitions) of each factor have been given below.
1.
God & Religiosity: This dimension measures ones belief and attitude towards
God and religion. That means higher value on this dimension will indicate greater
faith in the existence of God and power of religion in ones life.
2.
Soul: Here researcher wanted to measure the ability of an individual to cognitively
understand the separate entity of soul and the body. That means, score on this
dimension should tell whether the respondent believes in the existence of soul
independent of his body or not
J. Psychosoc. Res.
Spiritual Quotient (S.Q.): An Assessment Tool
49
3.
Self awareness: It means how much an individual is aware about his/her own
personality, various activities and insight related to his/her life. High score on
this dimension indicates high level of self awareness.
4.
Spiritual practices: It measures the importance or belief in the benefits of spiritual
practices for successful & happy living. High scores denote that respondent
considered relaxation exercises as an important pathway for peaceful and healthy
living.
5.
Life style values: Ones belief in value based lifestyle, e.g. fearlessness, courage,
peace of mind, forgiveness etc.
6.
Gender & caste equality: This factor measured the views a person hold about
and gives importance to the concept and value of equality among genders &
castes in ones daily life. High scores indicate that the person believe in the equality
for women and men as well as there is no differences in opinion for the rights for
different caste people.
7.
Fate & Karma: This dimension indicated ones beliefs in fate & karma in the
conduct of ones life activities and actions. High score denoted that person give
importance to destiny and karma in success for any act in life.
8.
Social relations: The dimension meant the importance of social relations in ones
life. High score indicates that person wants to give high importance to healthy
interpersonal and social relationship in life.
9.
Divinity in love: This dimension focuses on how far the person agrees with the
notion that love is divine. Divinity in love has been considered an important
factor of spirituality by many philosophers and saints.
10.
Spirituality in leadership: This dimension measures the belief of an individual
about the use of spirituality in leadership styles and behaviour. High score on
this dimension indicated that person believes that managing the people or leading
a group of people demands humane touch in his personality. A leader should be
humane, kind and empathetic.
11.
Helping behavior: This dimension tries to assess the helping behavior of the
respondent. High score signifies respondents high value for helping the needy
person as a grace fro divine life.
In this way final tool consists of 11 dimensions and 75 items. As a whole higher
score on the full scale indicates high Spiritual Intelligence (SQ).
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Nira Manghrani
Phase 3: Reliability and validity
Sample
To test the reliability of the scale, the final questionnaire consisting of 75 items and 11
dimensions was again administered on 50-post graduate students of different faculties
of The M.S.University of Baroda-a mixed population of students belonging to different
cities of various states of India.
Procedure
The data were collected individually from all the respondents i.e. respondents were
given the test individually to fill at their leisure and were asked to return the filled in
form the next day.
Analysis
The collected data were subjected to Chronbach alpha to work out the reliability values
for each dimension separately as well as for the total scale as a whole. The reliability
for the total scale was found to be 0.91. The reliability values for individual dimensions
ranged from .46 to .99. According to Guilford method validity values for different
dimensions ranged from .68 to .99. This value range for both the reliability and validity
can be treated as fairly good indices of reliability and validity of the test for our
purpose. The results have been summarized in Table 5
Table 5
Showing the Reliability and Validity Indices for Each Dimension S.Q.
Test (SQit)
Dimensions
Dimension Titles
Reliability value
Validity value
God & Religiosity
.70
.84
Soul
.99
.86
Spiritual Awareness
.74
.82
Spiritual Practices
.68
.97
Life Style Values
.95
.68
Fate & Karma
.46
.79
Gender & Caste Equality
.77
.88
Social Relations
.83
.91
Divinity in Love
.88
.94
10
Spirituality in leadership
.62
.85
11
Helping Behavior
.72
.99
J. Psychosoc. Res.
Spiritual Quotient (S.Q.): An Assessment Tool
51
A Stenine and Percentile norm table was also prepared on the basis of data collected
on a set of 100 students and 100 mangers and executive respondents. These results
have been reported in the SQit Manual (The researcher has got the test registered for
its copyright and Trade-mark in the name of SQit which when expanded meant Spiritual
Quotient (intelligence Test.).
Applications of the SQit
Spirituality is recognized as a pillar for success by many leading management gurus.
Not only thinkers in Eastern countries but also in the Western countries have started
accepting the importance of spirituality for successful as well as a contended personal
and managerial lives. Trends seem to be changing very fast in the twenty first century.
Looking at this demand as well as realization for the same this tool (SQit) can be useful
for trainers working in the areas of Psychology and Human Resource Development
and many other fields of life and profession as well as in the academic world.
Such professionals can use the tool to assess spiritual intelligence of the participants
and use the information thus collected for training and to analyze their spiritual level
and than sensitize for the effective use of spirituality to overcome life challenges and
achieving desired goals. The instrument can also be used to understand themselves
and others in deeper (such as existential) manner. It can also can be used in Spiritual
therapy to deal with psychological problems and for other uses in the area of mental
health.
Conclusion
From the above results, it can be concluded that developed tool is valid enough to
measure ones spiritual intelligence. Still, further researches in the area may help to
understand role of spirituality in achieving goals of life. More direct situational questions
still can enhance validity and usefulness of the test.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nira Manghrani HR Consultant Salahkaar Consultants, Pune, India.
She is highly grateful to her guide Prof. C. N. Daftuar for his supervision and guidance for this work.
J. Psychosoc. Res.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
