Relationship between the Spiritual Intelligence , Self-Control , and Life Satisfaction in High School Teachers of Mahshahr City

This study aims to investigate the relationship between the spiritual intelligence, self-control, and life satisfaction in high school teachers of Mahshahr city. To this end, 253 people of all high school teachers in Mahshahr city were selected as the sample using the multistage cluster sampling method. For data collection, King’s (2008) spiritual intelligence questionnaire, Schneider’s self-control questionnaire and Diener et al. (1985) life satisfaction questionnaire were used. For data analysis, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used. Results showed that there is a positive and meaningful relationship between the self-control and life satisfaction. However, there is no a meaningful relationship between the spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction. Results also showed that spiritual intelligence and self-control can predict the life satisfaction.


Introduction
Human beings and their life styles are of great importance.Everybody seeks to achieve the happiness and satisfaction in his or her life in order to obtain great successes.Therefore, satisfaction is the core of the success (Abdollahzadeh et al., 2009).The importance of human spirituality and spiritual growth has been increasingly considered by the psychologists and mental health professionals in the past few decades.Development of the psychological science, on the one hand, and the dynamic and complex nature of modern societies, on the other hand, has led to the higher importance of the human spiritual needs compared to the material needs.Spiritual intelligence is one of the concepts that are discussed by the psychologists in the light of their interest in religion and spirituality (Hosseindokht et al., 2003).Spiritual intelligence integrates spirituality and intelligence into a new construct (Emmons, 2000).King (2008) defines spiritual Intelligence as a set of spiritual capabilities and resources that their application in everyday life can increase a person's adaptability.Elkins (2004) believes that spiritual intelligence increases individual reflexivity towards the problems, and helps people to find new solutions, endure the hardships of life, and have a dynamic life.According to the theoretical concept of the spiritual intelligence, the low or dormant (Bowell, 2004) spiritual intelligence may be regarded as an undeveloped personality that lead to the inefficiency, and life dissatisfaction, deviation from the true goals, and health criteria (Marashi et al., 2014).Ebrahimi et al. (2012) studied the relationship between intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence, and life satisfaction and showed that there is a significant relationship between spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction.Hosseindokht et al. (2013) investigated the relationship between spiritual intelligence, spiritual well-being, quality of life, and marital satisfaction of the hospital staff of Maragheh city.The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between spiritual intelligence, spiritual well-being, quality of life and marital satisfaction has.Rahimipour (2013) showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between the psychological well-being and spiritual intelligence and between the spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction.Critical existential thinking in spiritual intelligence is also a strong predictor of life satisfaction.The results show that spiritual intelligence can be used as an intermediary factor between psychological well-being and life satisfaction.Ghodratollahi (2013) showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction and emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence predict the life satisfaction.
Another concept that may affect people's life satisfaction is the major differences between individual and measurable behavioral characteristics and is called self-control.Self-control shows the adaptation between the behavioral characteristics with the existing conditions (Kritner & Kiniky, 2005).It also reflects the individual different tendencies that in management of emotions (Schneider, 1974;quoted by Tate, 2008).Kaushal and Kwantesants (2006) define self-control as reflexivity or the stability of a person in his position.Schneider (1974, quoted by Nodehi et al., 2014) believes that people are generally divided into two categories: those with high self-control and low self-control with their certain characteristics.Some people are sensitive to the social situations and adapt themselves to the current situations; these are called people with high self-control.In contrast, people with low self-control tend to think and express their feelings, so that they can adapt to the new situations (Nodehi et al., 2014).Swendeman et al. (2014) believe that people with high self-control benefit from high life quality and behavioral health and are more satisfied with their lives.Staudinger et al. (1999) having a sense of control over events (from documentary dimensions) results in higher levels of life satisfaction (quoted by Burke, 2004).Sadaat (2011) investigated the effectiveness of self-control training on improving life satisfaction and improvement of self-concept.The results showed that self-control training improves the self-concept with the confidence more than 99% and self-control training increase the life satisfaction with the confidence more than 95%.Bahrami (2004) studied the relationship between self-control and quality of life of the students and concluded that there is a relationship between self-control and quality of life of the students so that higher self-control increases the life quality.
Therefore, with regard to the importance of spiritual intelligence and self-control and their effects on all aspects of human life, their relationship is of particular importance and for this reason, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the spiritual intelligence and self-control with the life satisfaction.

Hypothesis 1: There Is a Relationship between the Spiritual Intelligence and Life Satisfaction of High School Teachers of Mahshahr City
Hypothesis 1: there is a relationship between critical existential thinking and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city.
Hypothesis 2: there is a relationship between personal meaning production and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city.
Hypothesis 3: there is a relationship between transcendental awareness and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city.
Hypothesis 4: there is a relationship between the development of consciousness level and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city.
Hypothesis 2: there is a relationship between self-control and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city.
Hypothesis 3: there is a relationship between spiritual intelligence and self-control and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city.

Method
For calculating the sample size, Krejcie and Morgan's (1970) table was used and the sample size was 242 people.By considering the loss possibility, 270 questionnaires were distributed, of which, 260 were responded.Seven questionnaires were distorted and therefore were excluded of the analysis.Other 253 questionnaires were considered as the sample size and analyzed.

Statistical Population
Statistical Population consists of all 626 high school teachers of Mahshahr city (cited by Education Department of Mahshahr city).

King's (2008) Spiritual Intelligence Questionnaire
This 24-item questionnaire was developed by King (2008) and was based on five point Likert scale.High scores show the high spiritual intelligence.Four components were introduced in this questionnaire including critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, and development of the consciousness level.The reliability coefficient of total test and subscales was based on Cronbach's alpha coefficient, 0.95, 0.8, 0.87, 0.89, and 0.94, respectively.Using the exploratory factor analysis on a sample of 619 students from Trent University, Canada in 2007, the Cronbach's alpha was 0.95 and split-half reliability was 0.84.In another study using factor analysis, confirmatory and standardized Cronbach's alpha were 0.92 and 0.92, respectively.Raghibi and Ghareh (2013) in a study on 50 compatible couples and 45 incompatible couples reported the reliability coefficient of the questionnaire using Cronbach's alpha coefficient as 0.87.In the present study, reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was calculated using the Cronbach's alpha that was 0.85 for spiritual intelligence, 0.85 for critical existential thinking, and 0.87 for personal meaning production, 0.80 for transcendental awareness, and 0.83 for development of the consciousness level.
2.2.2 Schneider's Self-Control Questionnaire This questionnaire was designed by Schneider (1974).Its original form consisted of 25 items that were later shortened to 18 items with true (4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 17 and 18) and false choices (1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15 and  16).Each answer will be scored 1, otherwise, it is not scored.Scores of 0-9 show people with low self-control and scores of 10-18 show people with high self-control (quoted by Etebarian & Poorvali, 2008).Etebarian and Poorvali (2008) obtained the measure of confidence as 0.84.In the present study, coefficient of reliability of the questionnaire was calculated using the Cronbach alpha and measure of confidence was obtained 0.73.Diener et al. (1985) Life Satisfaction Questionnaire This five-item scale was developed by Diener et al. (1985) for measuring the general life satisfaction.They reported desirable validity (convergent and divergent) and reliability (Cronbach alpha as 0.85) of this scale.There are choices for each item ranging from completely satisfied to completely dissatisfied (quoted by Askari et al., 2013).Khayer and Samani (2004) localized this scale for Iranian users.Jokar (2007) reported its acceptable reliability and validity.Jokar and Nasiri (2007) reported Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the scale as 0.80.Bayani et al. (2007) reported the validity of this scale using Cronbach's alpha as 0.83 and test-retest as 0.69.Askari et al. (2013) reported the test reliability using Cronbach's alpha as 0.83.In the present study, reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was calculated using the Cronbach's alpha and the measure of confidence for life satisfaction was 0.79.

Finding
Table 1 shows the central indicators (mean and mode) and distribution (minimum and maximum, SD) of the variables of spiritual intelligence, self-control and life satisfaction based on the gender.Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regressions were used for investigating the relationships between variables and testing the research hypotheses.

Testing the First Hypothesis and Its Sub-Hypotheses
Main first hypothesis and its sub-hypotheses were tested using the simple correlation coefficient.Table 2 shows the results of correlation coefficient between spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction.As shown in Table 2, there is a positive and weak relationship between the spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city that is not significant in the confidence level of 95% (r = 0.003, P > 0.05).Therefore, the first hypothesis is not confirmed.There is a positive relationship between the critical existential thinking and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city that is not significant in the confidence level of 95% (r = 0.038, P > 0.05).
There is a positive relationship between the personal meaning production and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city that is not significant in the confidence level of 95% (r = 0.08, P > 0.05).There is a positive relationship between the transcendental awareness of spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city that is not significant in the confidence level of 95% (r = 0.038, P > 0.05).Therefore, none of hypotheses 1 to 4 is confirmed.

Testing the Second Hypothesis and Its Sub-Hypotheses
Table 3 shows the results of correlation coefficient between self-control and life satisfaction.As shown in Table 3, there is a positive and significant relationship between self-control and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city in the confidence level of 99% (r = 0.165, P < 0.01).

Testing the Third Hypothesis
Table 4 shows the results of multiple regressions (simultaneous and stepwise) between the criterion variable (life satisfaction) and predictor variable (spiritual intelligence attitude and self-control).As shown in Table 4, predictor regression of the life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city is significant based on the variables of the spiritual intelligence and self-control (F = 6.524,P = 0.01).There is a positive and significant relationship between the spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city (β= 0.178, t = 2.518, P < 0.01).
There is a positive and significant relationship between the self-control and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city (β= 0.214, t = 2.163, P < 0.01).The value of indicates that the predictor variables show 8.9% of the changes of the criterion variable (life satisfaction of Mahshahr city).Additionally, results of the stepwise regression shows that predictor variables of the self-control and spiritual intelligence are predictors of the variable life satisfaction of the high school teachers of Mahshahr city.

Discussion and Conclusion
This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the spiritual intelligence and self-control with life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city.
Therefore, it can be said that intelligence is merely a concept that denotes the hypothetical mental processes or set of intelligent behaviors (Naderi et al., 2010).One of the fundamental features of the intelligence is the ability to solve the problems in a realistic and practical manner.Spiritual intelligence as a kind of ultimate intelligence shows the values and includes the psychological adjustment capacities.It focuses on the immaterial and transcendental aspects and includes spiritual resources, values, and features that increase performance and daily wellbeing.People with high spiritual intelligence scores consider beyond the material aspects of life, experience peak consciousness states and use the spiritual resources to solve their problems.They are characterized by features such as humility, forgiveness, gratitude and compassion or forgiveness (ibid.).These features help them to develop a positive viewpoint and life satisfaction.As mentioned before, hypothesis and satisfaction are the main goals of human beings that affect the mental health of the people.Therefore, it seems that spiritual intelligence helps people to cope with the problems and feel more satisfied with their lives.
Concerning the second hypothesis, it can be said that the results of the present study are consistent with those by Swendeman et al. (2014), Staudinger et al. (1999, quoted by Burke, 2004), Sadaat (2011), and Bahrami (2004).All of these studies showed the positive and significant relationship educational the self-control and life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city at the confidence level of 99% (r = 0.165, P < 0.01).
Results show that lack of self-control can decrease the level of life satisfaction.Self-control in psychology is explained by concepts such as personal control, internal control locus, conscience, and self-control.Thus, people with low level of self-control are stuck in depression and hopelessness.Whereas people with high level of self-control can cope with the problems in short run and use their logic to enjoy the life and achieve life satisfaction.Bahrami (2014) concluded that there is a relationship between the self-control and life satisfaction of the students.It means that when there is a high level of self-control, life quality is increased; therefore, self-control can improve the personal management skills and lead to life satisfaction.The results of the third hypothesis showed that spiritual intelligence and self-control are the predictors of life satisfaction.Spiritual intelligence is composed of the spirituality and intelligence.Emmons (2000) states that spiritual intelligence is a framework for identifying and organizing the skills and capabilities and can increase the personal adaptability.Clearly, personal adaptability helps people to cope with a variety of problems and achieve life satisfaction and welfare.Moreover, self-control means the ability to control the pulse states by decreasing the short run desires.Self-control means to manage the temporary motivations and emotions.It helps people to control their improper behaviors consciously (Soleimani et al., 2012).Therefore, it can be said that self-control leads to life satisfaction.
The results of the present study showed that there is no significant relationship between the spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction of high school teachers.This is inconsistent with the results of the previous studies due o the limited sample size or the lack of understanding the questions by the teachers that are of the limitations of the present study.Moreover, this is may be attributed to the lack of high levels of spiritual intelligence of the teachers that necessitates conducting the further studies.The limited sample of high school teachers of Mahshahr city is of other limitations of this study that show the generalizations should be cautiously stated.High number of questions in some questionnaires took long time that might affect the precise answers of the respondents.
Finally, with regard to the weak positive but not significant relationship between the spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction, the importance and effectiveness of the spiritual intelligence and spirituality in research literature, and the effect of the transcendental intelligence in the material and spiritual development of the people, it is recommended that all high school teachers, managers, and consultors focus on increasing the their knowledge and awareness on spirituality and transfer it to their students in order to develop the spiritual intelligence.Moreover, with respect to the role of the self-control on predicting the life satisfaction of high school teachers and the positive and significant relationship between these two components, it is recommended to provide new training programs for self-control for the teachers in Mahshahr city in order to increase their life satisfaction and teaching quality.

Table 1 .
Central indicators and distribution of the variables of spiritual intelligence, self-control, and life satisfaction based on the gender

Table 2 .
The results of simple correlation coefficient between spiritual intelligence and life satisfaction

Table 3 .
The results of simple correlation coefficient between self-control and life satisfaction

Table 4 .
Results of regression (multiple correlation coefficients) of the predictor variables (spiritual intelligence and self-control) and variable of life satisfaction of high school teachers of Mahshahr city