Predictors of Socio-Religious Harmony: Examining the Role of Spiritual Intelligence and Religious Attitude Across Religious and Gender Groups

Abstract

The present study aims to examine the multidimensional characteristics of social-religious harmony and identify the factors influencing it through regression analysis. To investigate the predictive effects of religious attitude and spiritual intelligence on social-religious harmony, college students were selected as the study sample. Data were collected using the Social-Religious Harmony Questionnaire, the Religious Attitude Scale, and the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory to test the research hypotheses. The results of the statistical analysis revealed that the combined effect of spiritual intelligence and religious attitude on social-religious harmony and its dimensions was statistically significant (R = 0.80, R² = 0.64, Adjusted R² = 0.64, F (2,397) = 359.94, p < .01). However, spiritual intelligence emerged as a much stronger predictor, accounting for approximately (B = 1.50) units of quantitative change in social-religious harmony, whereas the Religious Attitude Scale explained only about (β = .15) units of quantitative change. The hierarchical regression analysis further indicated that the addition of the predictor variables in Model 2 produced a significant increase in explained variance (ΔR² = .028, F change (2,395) = 5.60, p < .001). In contrast, the interaction effect examined in Model 3 was not statistically significant (ΔR² = .002, F change (1,395) = .92, p > .05). These findings suggest that although religious affiliation and gender independently influence the predictive relationship between religious attitude, spiritual intelligence, and social-religious harmony, their interaction does not produce a significant change in social-religious harmony. Overall, the findings indicate that spiritual intelligence is a strong and significant predictor of social-religious harmony, whereas religious attitude (or non-religious attitude, as measured by the scale) is a relatively weak predictor. Furthermore, religious affiliation emerged as an important factor influencing all three major variables included in the study.