Relationship between Psychological Empowerment and Spiritual Intelligence with Marital Satisfaction in Female and Male Teachers in Ahvaz

The present study was aimed to examine the relationship between psychological empowerment and spiritual intelligence with marital satisfaction in male and female teachers in Ahvaz from 2014 to 2015. Hence, 350 teachers were selected using random-stratified sampling method. Research tools were Spriters' psychological empowerment questionnaire (1995), Badie's et al. spiritual intelligence questionnaire (2010), Enrich's marital satisfaction questionnaire (1997); in order to do analysis, a Pearson Correlation Coefficient method and a regression method was used. Results showed that there is a relationship between psychological empowerment and spiritual intelligence with marital satisfaction in male and female teachers in Ahvaz. The results obtained from multi-fold regression analysis, using step-by-step method, showed that effectiveness, spiritual intelligence, and significance are able to predict marital satisfaction significantly. In addition, psychological empowerment has a closer relationship with spiritual intelligence, and spiritual intelligence has a closer relationship with marital satisfaction.


Introduction
Marital satisfaction is a general assessment of marital satisfaction status or one's romantic relationships.Marital satisfaction can be a reflection of peoples' level of happiness in their marital relationships or a combination of intermediary satisfaction can be factors of marital relationships.We can consider marital satisfaction as a psychological status which is not formed automatically.But it requires efforts from both spouses.Particularly, in early years of marriage, marital satisfaction is very inconsistent, and relationships are at risk (Shamloo, 2012).
Empowerment, as a psychological state, is not only controlled completely by management.Feeling of being empowered is intensely influenced by conditions in which individuals find themselves to be capable.Since a big part of the resources of an organization is composed of human resources, and because optimal use of human resources is a natural act, it is important to empowerment provide favorable atmosphere for training and also provide strategies in order to achieve empowerment.Undoubtedly, the prosperity of any society is rooted in improving human resources; hence, organizational officials pay special attention to training employees.Evidence has shown that empowered employees are more productive, happier, and more innovative, leading to the production products and services with higher quality (Whetten & Cameron, 1998, Translated by Orie Yazdani, 2004).Empowerment is the process of presenting individuals with power.Within this process, individuals are helped to feel more confident and overcome their feeling of inability, which refers to improving inner motivations.Empowerment is also the process of encouraging individuals to engage more in making decisions which affect their activities.Hence, certain opportunities to implement ideas are provided.Empowerment means that individuals must be simply encouraged to play a more active role in their activities, and take responsibility for improving their activities, leading to an ability to make decisions without the help of superiors (Abdollahi, Bijan, & Naveh Ebrahim, 2006).
Spirituality is a dimension of humanity, consisting of self-awareness and self-analysis.Billota believes that spirituality is the need to go beyond oneself in daily lives and be integrated with someone except ourselves.This awareness may lead to an experience which is beyond us (Johnson, 2001).Spirituality is a public thing, and it has different manifestations like emotions.It may be conscious or unconscious, developed or under-developed, healthy or unhealthy, simple or complex, useful or dangerous (Vegan, 2002).Emmons (2001), according to Gardner's definition of intelligence, tried to refer to spirituality in the framework of intelligence.He believes that spirituality can be a form of intelligence, because it predicts individuals' performance and adaptation, and it introduces capabilities which enable individuals to solve problems and reach their goals.He criticizes Gardner Emmons and believes that certain aspects of reality relating to phenomenological experiences must be differentiated from aspects such as wisdom, problem-solving, and information processing.
Marital satisfaction is an important determinant of healthy performance in families (Greef, 2000).Elis (1989) defines "Marital satisfaction" as happiness, satisfaction, and enjoyment in all relationships.Various factors can influence marital satisfaction, of which we can refer to satisfaction with spouse's behavior (Blum, 1999), trust, loyalty, andlove (Rozblat, 1999), and income and employment (Vijinitymala & Kumar Panda, 2004).Systemic approach looks at "family" as a system with constant interactions between individual sub-systems, and at the same time as a sub-set in its environment.In fact, in this approach, a normal family is a family with a coherent structure which tries to provide growth and welfare, being able to dynamically interact with environmental factors and adapt itself to them, without falling into trouble; in this process, family members manifest disease signs.The key characteristic of this interpretation is that a normal family is a system with certain features, and any human system is expected to have these features (Musavi, 2011).
In their study called "Relationship between psychological empowerment and nurses' marital satisfaction in Mashhad and its comparison in normal and special sections", Kawsi Kusha et al. (2014) concluded that there is a significant relationship between psychological empowerment and marital satisfaction.In his study called "Examination of the relationship between love-affair styles and marital satisfaction with self-esteem in 120 students in Azad University in Ahvaz", Nisi (2014) concluded that there is a relationship between love-affair styles and marital satisfaction, with self-esteem.In a study called "Relationship between psychological empowerment and marital satisfaction", Adelinasab concluded that there is a relationship between psychological empowerment and marital satisfaction.In their study on the relationship between spiritual intelligence and marital satisfaction, Marten & Celigmen (2011) state that teachers with low spiritual intelligence are very much prone to being influenced by emotions in their workplaces.Examinations showed that there is a relationship between spiritual intelligence and marital satisfaction.In their study called "Relationship between psychological empowerment and spiritual intelligence in work environment", Julia K. Boehm and Sonja Lyubomirsky (2011) concluded that there is a significant relationship between these two variables, and that employees' success in their workplaces is affected by their spiritual intelligence to a great degree.James B. Avey, Rebecca J. Reichard, Fred Luthans, and Ketan H. Mhatre (2011) examined the relationship between psychological empowerment and marital satisfaction, and concluded that there is a positive significant relationship between these two variables in American employees.The present study was aimed to examine the relationship between psychological empowerment and spiritual intelligence with marital satisfaction in male and female teachers in Ahvaz.

Methodology
The statistical population of the present study consisted of 4200 male and female teachers in Ahvaz.Based on the proportion of men to women, 350 teachers (217 female teachers and 133 male teachers) were selected as main sample.

Research Studies
In the present study, in order to examine psychological empowerment, Spriters' questionnaire (1995) was used.This questionnaire had four sub-scales: significance, competence, autonomy, effectiveness, including 12 questions, i.e. three questions for each sub-scale.This questionnaire has been used in many studies, and it is a useful tool for measuring psychological empowerment.Respondents select their remarks based on five-point Likert scale (from "totally agree" to "totally disagree").The lowest and the highest mark that each respondent might receive for each sub-scale ranges from 1 to 3; and the total lowest and highest score that respondents can receive for all 12 questions range from 12 to 60. Hacholder and Brakforce (2005) calculated Cronbach's Alpha coefficient to be (0.82) for significance, (0.87) for competence, (0.85) for autonomy, and (0.88) for effectiveness.Arjneli, Eri, and Matin (2007) reported the following Cronbach's Alpha coefficients: (0.90) for total empowerment, (0.83) for significance, (0.78) for competence, (0.84) autonomy, (0.88) for effectiveness.
In Saee's study (2009), the reliability of the questionnaire was calculated, using Cronbach's Alpha method, to be (0.86) for total psychological empowerment, (0.83) for significance, (0.79) for competence, (0.88) for autonomy, (0.88) for effectiveness.In the present study, the reliability of the questionnaire was calculated using Cronbach's Alpha method, to be (0.84) for significance, (0.82) for competence, (0.86) for autonomy, and (0.85) for effectiveness; and the reliability of psychological empowerment was 0.88.

Badie's et al. Spiritual Intelligence Questionnaire
Spiritual Intelligence questionnaire was designed by Badie et al. (2010); in order to determine its validity, a factorial analysis was used using the method of analyzing main hypotheses with varimax rotation.The questionnaire form initially consisted of 72 questions, and after factorial analysis, 30 questions were irrelevant to " general thinking and dimension belief", "self-awareness, love, and interest", "ethics ", and "ability to confront problems", so they were removed.In general, this questionnaire had 42 questions, aiming to assess individuals' citizenship behavior (humanism, dutifulness, courtesy and kindness, utopianism).In the present study, in order to determine the reliability of spiritual intelligence questionnaire, using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, was calculated to be 0.80 which shows the questionnaire's acceptable reliability coefficients.

Enrich's Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire
In order to determine the level of marital satisfaction, Enrich's (1990) questionnaire was used.In this study, Enrich's 47-item questionnaire was used.Elson, Forinero & Drakman (1998, according to Eqbal, 2010) calculated the reliability of the questionnaire to be 0.92, using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient.In our country, for the first time, Soleimanian (1994) calculated and reported the correlation of the test to be 0.93 for the long form, and 0.95 for the short form.And the Alpha coefficient of the 47-item form of Soleimanian's study (1994) was calculated to be 0.95.
In order to measure the validity of the marital satisfaction questionnaire, Heidari Arjloo (2008) correlated it with stress scores.He concluded that there is a negative significant relationship (0.30) in a level of 0.00, which shows the favorability of this questionnaire's correlation.In addition, in order to determine the reliability of the marital satisfaction questionnaire, two methods were used: Cronbach's Alpha method and bi-section method; the calculated reliability of the whole questionnaire was 0.95, which shows the favorability of the questionnaire's reliability coefficients.As it can be seen in Table 4, according to the results obtained from multifold regression with entrance method, multifold correlation coefficient was 0.523 (MR=0.523)for psychological empowerment (spiritual intelligence, significance, competence, autonomy, and effectiveness), spiritual intelligence, and marital satisfaction in teachers of Ahvaz; and coefficient of determination was calculated to be 0.274 (RS=0.274)which is significant in P=0.000.Therefore, there is a significant relationship between psychological empowerment (spiritual intelligence, significance, competence, autonomy, and effectiveness), spiritual intelligence, and marital satisfaction.According to the obtained coefficient of determination, it has become obvious that about 27.4 percent of the variance of marital satisfaction has been expressed by variables such as psychological empowerment (spiritual intelligence, significance, competence, autonomy, and effectiveness) and spiritual intelligence.
When expressing this finding, it can be said that psychological empowerment has an important effect on spiritual intelligence and marital satisfaction.Findings showed that individuals with high intelligence and marital satisfaction can make it possible to experience greater psychological power.Psychological empowerment is a theoretical concept which has a big impact on individuals' spiritual intelligence and their marital satisfaction n life and at work.Competent and intelligent employees are more flexible when controlling and doing tasks.
As it can be seen in table 7-4, there is a significant relationship between psychological empowerment and spiritual intelligence in teachers of Ahvaz.These findings were in congruence with findings obtained from studies conducted by Anasori (2013), Behtarinejad (2013), Nazem et al. (2005), Julia K. Boehm and Sonja Lyubomirsky (2011), Shawn (2010).
When expressing this finding, it can be said that without individuals with high spiritual intelligence, it is impossible to achieve psychological power.Hence, human resources play a crucial role in the growth, dynamism, success, and failure of organizations.Today, the gap between nations and societies is knowledge and lack of knowledge.Therefore, the main challenge is a challenge among knowledgeable and competent human forces.Human forces are considered to be the most important, the most expensive, and the most valuable organizational resources.Empowering employees as a theoretical concept has a big impact on effectiveness, management, and innovation in organizations.Thomas and Lethus (1990) believe that intelligent and competent employees are more flexible when controlling and doing tasks.When responding to problems and opportunities, they start doing new tasks and they solve problems; as a result, when facing problems, they become more motivated.
As it can be seen in table 8-4, there is a significant relationship between psychological empowerment and marital satisfaction in teachers of Ahvaz.These findings were in lie with findings obtained from studies conducted by Kawsi andKusha et al. (2014), Adeli Nasab (2013), Azzazi (2012), James B. Avey , Rebecca J. Reichard, Fred Luthans, Ketan H. Mhatre (2011), Charles Dickens (2008), Thomas Write and Rachel Cropanzanv (2009).When expressing this finding, it can be said that psychological empowerment is the process of giving power to individuals.In this process, individuals are helped to feel more confident and become able to overcome hardships, which mean that inner motives rise.Empowerment is the process of encouraging people to get more involved in making decisions affecting their activities.Hence, they are provided with certain opportunities in order to implement their ideas.Empowerment means that individuals must be encouraged in a simple way in order for them to play a more effective role in their work, to take responsibility for improving their activities, and to make decisions without the help of their superiors.Bazam Liden et al. (2000) believe that competent individuals are manifest high levels of marital satisfaction, organizational commitment, and occupational performance.

Table 1 .
Mean and standard deviation of respondents' scores in psychological empowerment and its components

Table 3 .
Results of step-by-step regression analysis of psychological empowerment and spiritual intelligence for predicting marital satisfactionIn order to determine the role of psychological empowerment and spiritual intelligence in marital satisfaction, step-by-step regression analysis was used' hence, psychological empowerment and spiritual intelligence were used in order to recognize variables that have the biggest share in expressing marital satisfaction.According to table 7-4, in the first step, psychological empowerment could express 12.5 percent of marital satisfaction variance, and in the second step, with spiritual intelligence, coefficient of determination reached 0.174.Therefore, psychological empowerment and spiritual intelligence can express 17.4 percent of marital satisfaction variance.The results of step-by-step multifold regression analysis showed that in the second model, psychological empowerment components and spiritual intelligence can significantly predict marital satisfaction, whose equation is as follows.

Table 4 .
Results of multifold regression analysis, relating to psychological empowerment components (significance, competence, autonomy, effectiveness), spiritual, marital satisfaction in teachers of Ahvaz, using entrance method