Spiritual intelligence

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Spiritual intelligence is a term used to indicate a spiritual correlate to IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient). Like EQ, SQ is becoming more mainstream in scientific inquiry and philosophical/psychological discussion.[1] It refers to a suite or set of propensities comprising: perceptions, intuitions, cognitions, etc., related to spirituality and/or religiosity, especially spiritual capital. It has been discredited by its detractors as pseudoscientific[citation needed][2] due to its employment in popular psychology and New Age discourse. As the term and phenomenon of spirituality and the anthropological and sociological dimension of this human endeavor is challenging to define—a persistent incorrigible intangible—it poses a significant challenge for scientific methodology and analyses, which, for veracity, requires categorical criteria to model, chart, and compare.[citation needed] In spite of both its popular currency and its protracted retraction, spiritual intelligence as an emergent, viable construct within psychology, bolstered particularly by Transpersonal Psychology, is receiving considerable scholarship.[citation needed]

Models for developing and measuring spiritual intelligence are also increasingly used in corporate settings, by companies such as Nokia, Unilever, McKinsey, Shell, Coca-Cola, Hewlett Packard, Merck Pharmaceuticals, Starbucks and the Co-operative Bank.[3] It has been identified as a key component of Leadership by bestselling business author Stephen Covey, who observes that "Spiritual intelligence is the central and most fundamental of all the intelligences, because it becomes the source of guidance for the other[s]..."[1]

Howard Gardner, the originator of the theory of multiple intelligences, chose not to include spiritual intelligence amongst his "intelligences" due to the challenge of codifying quantifiable scientific criteria.[4] Instead, Gardner suggested an "existential intelligence" as viable.[5] Gardner's peers have responded with research that charts existential thinking as fundamental to spirituality.[citation needed] Notwithstanding, Gardner established the scientific foundation within the discipline of education theory and its interdisciplinarity, that has yielded the emergence of spiritual intelligence discourse.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] Modelling spiritual intelligence

Many models and definitions[citation needed] have been proposed by researchers, theorists, and spiritual advocates. The models and definitions of spiritual intelligence identify specific propensities, qualities and capacities of human perceptions, intuitions and cognitions.

[edit] Zohar and Marshall (1997)

Danah Zohar coined the term "spiritual intelligence" and introduced the idea in her book ReWiring the Corporate Brain: Using the New Science to Rethink How We Structure and Lead Organizations (ISBN 9971512149) in 1997. Later, together with Ian Marshall, she developed the concept, which was introduced in 1999 at The Masters Forum.[6] In the year 2000, Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall published a book, SQ: Ultimate intelligence. In 2004, the authors upgraded the concept with notion of "spiritual capital" and demonstrated the crucial link between SQ, SC, and sustainability.[citation needed] By their definition spiritual intelligence is the intelligence with which we access our deepest meanings, purposes, and highest motivations.[7]

It is the intelligence that makes us whole, that gives us our integrity. It is the soul's intelligence, the intelligence of the deep self. It is the intelligence with which we ask fundamental questions and with which we reframe our answers.[6]

The word "spiritual" in relation to the intelligence has no necessary connection with organized religion. A person may be high in SQ but have no religious faith or belief of any kind.[citation needed] Equally, a person may be very religious but low in SQ (SC).[citation needed] The word spiritual in the Zohar/Marshal concept comes from the Latin word spiritus, which means, "that which gives life or vitality to a system".[8]

Zohar and Marshall introduced 12 qualities of SQ. They derive these principles from the qualities that define complex adaptive systems. In biology, complex adaptive systems are living systems that create order out of chaos, they create order and information and defy the law of entropy.[9]

Those principles are:

[edit] Robert Emmons (2000)

Robert Emmons (2000) defines spiritual intelligence as "the adaptive use of spiritual information to facilitate everyday problem solving and goal attainment."[10] He originally proposed 5 components of spiritual intelligence:

  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.
  5. The capacity to be virtuous.

The fifth capacity was later removed due to its focus on human behavior rather than ability, thereby not meeting previously established scientific criteria for intelligence.

Singh G. (2008) defined spiritual intelligence as "an innate ability of thinking and understanding of spiritual phenomenon and to guide the everyday behaviour by spiritual ideology".[citation needed]

[edit] Tony Buzan (2001)

Spiritual intelligence is described in Tony Buzan's (2001) book The Power of Spiritual intelligence as 'Awareness of the world and your place in it'. Spiritual intelligence is supposed to be one of the 10 intelligences described by Tony Buzan. Robert Emmons (2000) defines spiritual intelligence as "the adaptive use of spiritual information to facilitate everyday problem solving and goal attainment." Kathleen Noble (2000/2001) agrees with Emmons' (2000) definition and adds that spiritual intelligence is an inherent ability. Zohar & Marshall (2003) define spiritual intelligence as "the intelligence with which we can place our actions and our lives in a wider, richer, meaning-giving context; the intelligence with which we can assess that one course of action or one life-path is more meaningful than another."

[edit] Kathleen Noble (2000/2001)

Kathleen Noble (2000/2001) identifies spiritual intelligence as an innate human potential. She agrees with Emmons' (2000) core abilities and adds two others:

  1. The conscious recognition that physical reality is embedded within a larger, multidimensional reality with which we interact, consciously and unconsciously, on a moment to moment basis.
  2. The conscious pursuit of psychological health, not only for ourselves but also for the sake of the global community.

[edit] Frances Vaughan (2002)

Frances Vaughan (2002) offers the following description:

"Spiritual intelligence is concerned with the inner life of mind and spirit and its relationship to being in the world. Spiritual intelligence implies a capacity for a deep understanding of existential questions and insight into multiple levels of consciousness. Spiritual intelligence also implies awareness of spirit as the ground of being or as the creative life force of evolution. If the evolution of life from stardust to mineral, vegetable, animal, and human existence implies some form of intelligence rather than being a purely random process, it might be called spiritual. Spiritual intelligence emerges as consciousness evolves into an ever-deepening awareness of matter, life, body, mind, soul, and spirit. Spiritual intelligence, then, is more than individual mental ability. It appears to connect the personal to the transpersonal and the self to spirit. Spiritual intelligence goes beyond conventional psychological development. In addition to self-awareness, it implies awareness of our relationship to the transcendent, to each other, to the earth and all beings. Working as a psychotherapist, my impression is that spiritual intelligence opens the heart, illuminates the mind, and inspires the soul, connecting the individual human psyche to the underlying ground of being. Spiritual intelligence can be developed with practice and can help a person distinguish reality from illusion. It may be expressed in and culture as love, wisdom, and service."[11]

[edit] Cindy Wigglesworth (2004/2008)

Cindy Wigglesworth defines spiritual intelligence as "the ability to act with wisdom and compassion, while maintaining inner and outer peace, regardless of the circumstances."[12] She breaks down the competencies that comprise SQ into 21 skills, arranged into a four quadrant model similar to Daniel Goleman's widely used model of emotional intelligence or EQ. The four quadrants of spiritual intelligence are defined as:

  1. Higher Self / Ego self Awareness
  2. Universal Awareness
  3. Higher Self / Ego self Mastery
  4. Spiritual Presence / Social Mastery[12]

Wigglesworth's SQ model and assessment instrument have been successfully used in corporate settings.[13]

[edit] David B. King (2007)

David B. King (2007) has undertaken research on spiritual intelligence at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. King (2007) defines spiritual intelligence as a set of adaptive mental capacities based on non-material and transcendent aspects of reality, specifically those that:

"...contribute to the awareness, integration, and adaptive application of the nonmaterial and transcendent aspects of one's existence, leading to such outcomes as deep existential reflection, enhancement of meaning, recognition of a transcendent self, and mastery of spiritual states."[14]

King further proposes four core abilities or capacities of spiritual intelligence:

  1. Critical Existential Thinking: The capacity to critically contemplate the nature of existence, reality, the universe, space, time, and other existential/metaphysical issues; also the capacity to contemplate non-existential issues in relation to one's existence (i.e., from an existential perspective).
  2. Personal Meaning Production: The ability to derive personal meaning and purpose from all physical and mental experiences, including the capacity to create and master a life purpose.
  3. Transcendental Awareness: The capacity to identify transcendent dimensions/patterns of the self (i.e., a transpersonal or transcendent self), of others, and of the physical world (e.g., nonmaterialism) during normal states of consciousness, accompanied by the capacity to identify their relationship to one's self and to the physical.
  4. Conscious State Expansion: The ability to enter and exit higher states of consciousness (e.g. pure consciousness, cosmic consciousness, unity, oneness) and other states of trance at one's own discretion (as in deep contemplation, meditation, prayer, etc.).[15]

[edit] William Frank Diedrich

William Frank Diedrich offers the following definition of spiritual intelligence:

Most recently, it has been defined as "choosing between the ego and Spirit (Higher Self)". This definition is based upon the root words: spiritus, meaning breath. Spirit is the breath of life. Intelligentia, meaning "to choose between". There are three major aspects of spiritual intelligence. They are:

1. Identifying with one's Higher Self or Spirit rather than with the ego. That is, you are not your body, your problems, your past, your finances, your job, your gender, or your ethnicity. These are each roles you play. You are a spiritual being having a human experience.

2. Understanding Universal Law—Cause and Effect. Spiritual Intelligence means that you take 100 % responsibility for your life, your situation, and for yourself. You recognize that you are the creator of your life and that your thinking, your beliefs, and your assumptions create your world. This means no blaming!

3. Non-attachment. As a spiritual being you are unattached to outcomes, forms, or experiences. Your well-being comes from within you, by way of your spiritual identity.

[edit] Measuring spiritual intelligence

There is a great deal of disagreement over the measurement of spiritual intelligence. Many suggest that this ability set cannot be measured by traditional means, while others maintain that, like most psychological constructs, some degree of measurement is possible. Cindy Wigglesworth has developed the first competency-based Spiritual Intelligence Assessment Instrument, which measures 21 skills through a rigorously validated questionnaire, which has undergone statistical analysis of results to determine statistical significance and reliability, a construct validity analysis, and a correlation analysis with other highly respected, validated assessments of adult development.[12] David B. King of Trent University is currently developing a self-report measure of spiritual intelligence, called the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI).

Due to its varying definitions and models, a number of different indicators and measures of spiritual intelligence have been proposed. Many authors use the term spiritual quotient, following a trend that started with the intelligence quotient or IQ and later emotional intelligence or EQ. While some measures may be founded in science, others are geared more towards popular use by the public.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Covey, Stephen, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (Simon and Schuster, 2004, p.53)
  2. ^ Providing citations and notes throughout this article would be greatly appreciated!
  3. ^ Ian Wylie, "Hopelessly Devoted," The Guardian, Saturday 10 December 2005
  4. ^ Gardner, Howard, A Case Against Spiritual Intelligence, The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, Volume 10, Issue 1 January 2000, pp. 27-34
  5. ^ Gardner, Howard, Intelligence reframed: multiple intelligences for the 21st century (Basic Books, 1999) p.53
  6. ^ a b The Masters Forum
  7. ^ SQ: Spiritual Intelligence, the Ultimate Intelligence, 2000; ISBN 0747546762
  8. ^ Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live By, 2004; ISBN 1576751384
  9. ^ Leader to Leader
  10. ^ [Emmons]
  11. ^ Vaughan, F. What is Spiritual Intelligence? Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol 42, No. 2. Spring 2002, 16-33  2003 Sage Publications.
  12. ^ a b c Wigglesworth, Cindy, "Why Spiritual Intelligence is Essential to Mature Leadership", Integral Leadership Review Volume VI, No. 3, August 2006
  13. ^ Aburdene, Patricia, Megatrends 2010, (Hampton Roads, 2005) p. 127.
  14. ^ "A Viable Model and Self-Report Measure of Spiritual Intelligence," David B. King & Teresa L. DeCicco (2009) The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, Volume 28, pp. 68-85
  15. ^ "A Viable Model and Self-Report Measure of Spiritual Intelligence", David B. King & Teresa L. DeCicco (2009) The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, Volume 28, pp. 68-85

[edit] References

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