مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد هوش معنوی و تعصب مذهبی و رضایت از زندگی در مسلمانان – اسپرینگر 2017

It is generally believed in most of the religious societies that spiritual and religious beliefs strengthen people and help them against adverse circumstances and despair. Spiritual and religious beliefs give hope to people and inculcate a thought in them that ultimately, they will have a peaceful eternal life (Friedli 2009; Zahedi 2011). These beliefs help people by making them lead a happier and peaceful life with a sense of perfection. Of course, this sense of perfection in life will lead them to satisfaction (Inglehart 1990). Highly spiritual people have different dimensions of spirituality such as self-regard, spiritual practices, forgiveness, self-actualization, gratitude and self-control (Krauss 2005). Life satisfaction means happiness for most of the people. They derive happiness from fulfillment of desires, needs and feelings of bliss. They believe that happiness is a condition of well-being coupled with enjoyable contentment (Oishi et al. 2004). Subjective wellbeing comprises two important components: feelings and emotions. These feelings and emotions are linked with happiness and satisfaction (Oishi et al. 2004). The judgmental components of happiness include emotional and cognitive components (Diener et al. 1999). The emotional component of happiness can be inferred from an individual’s frequency of expressing positive or negative emotions. Researchers distinguish between life-domain satisfaction and global life satisfaction. Satisfaction associated with life-domain means satisfaction derived out of practical factors including employment, relationships and income. However, decisions of global life satisfaction are relatively wider and they comprise an individual’s overall life analysis (Ali et al. 2010). Life satisfaction comprises satisfaction obtained during stable, trait-like, variable or state-like parts of life. Trait-like components mean the effect of personality predisposition, while state-like parts mean the influences of environmental factors (Burns 2010). But, it may be impractical to completely categorize an individual’s life in these categories because personality of a person can affect his/her life events. For instance, an extrovert person can start socializing with other people, initiate discussions with them, and consequently become a highly social person (Burns 2010). In Pakistan, the individuals, whose ages are above 60 years, are called elderly (Jalal and Younis 2012). Sabzwari and Azhar (2010) showed that approximately 6% population of Pakistan was elderly and it was expected to double by next 15 years. According to the authors, Pakistan is in need of such a national health policy, which provides health care and improved social security to elderly people. Many studies found negative relationship between age and satisfaction. For instance, it was found that life satisfaction reduced as midlife approached but increased after retirement (Gwozdz and Sousa-Poza 2010). No age differences were found in the number of participants, who reported that they were ‘‘very happy.’’ Life satisfaction was found as stable in people with ages between 45 and 89 years (Hamarat et al. 2002; Suh et al. 1998). Since spiritual life is believed to provide sense of virtue, pleasure and satisfaction, psychology of religion and spirituality is a rich ground for much-needed research and scientific work (Koenig 2008; Hill and Pargament 2008).