THE MEDIATING ROLE OF MARITAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE AND SOCIAL UPBRINGING PATTERNS OF CHILDREN AMONG OMANI SPOUSES

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research aimed to study the impact of Spiritual Intelligence on Socialization Patterns of children among Omani spouses, and to verify the role of Marital Communication Skills as a mediator. It also aimed to measure: the level of spiritual intelligence, the quality of marital communication skills and the level of using socialization patterns with children. It also aimed to reveal the impact of spiritual intelligence on marital communication skills, and the impact of spiritual intelligence and marital communication skills on the patterns of socialization of children. A scale consisting of three variables was applied: spiritual intelligence as an independent variable and consisting of four dimensions: (spiritual practice, transcendence, balance, and self-awareness), marital communication skills as a mediating variable, and consisting of five skills: (ability to dialogue, ability to listen, ability to understand, solving marital problems, emotional expression), and socialization patterns as a dependent variable, and consisting of ten patterns: (accepting children, cooperation between family members, taking into consideration the inclinations of children, dialogue with children, children bearing responsibility, caring for children, equality between children, protection for children, consistency in treating children, moderation in treatment of children). The scale was applied to a random sample of (397) spouses Omani. SPSS program was used to find descriptive statistics. The Amos program was also used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and path analysis. The results indicated that the structural model achieved the fit indices. It also proved the composite reliability, and both convergent and discriminant validity. The results also revealed that marital communication skills play role of a partial mediator in the relationship between spiritual intelligence and socialization patterns. Results showed that the level of spiritual intelligence was very high, the level of quality of marital communication skills was high, and the level of practicing socialization patterns with children was very high. The results also indicated a strong, direct, significant positive impact (0.655) of spiritual intelligence on marital communication skills, and a weak, direct, significant positive impact (0.314) of spiritual intelligence on socialization patterns. The results also showed a weak, direct, significant positive impact (0.371) of marital communication skills on socialization patterns. The research presented a set of recommendations to entities concerned with family development.