Spiritual Intelligence as a Moderating Variable of the Relationship between Smiling Depression and Neurotic Perfectionism in a Sample of Faculty Members

Mohamed, Fatma Sayed Abdel Latif

doi:10.21608/jsrep.2025.450770

Spiritual Intelligence as a Moderating Variable of the Relationship between Smiling Depression and Neurotic Perfectionism in a Sample of Faculty Members

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Fatma Sayed Abdel Latif Mohamed

Ass. Professor, Department of Psychology Faculty of Humanities (Girls' Branch) Al-Azhar University - Cairo

10.21608/jsrep.2025.450770

Abstract

Depression is considered one of the most common mental and psychological disorders; it arises from a combination of factors (psychological, genetic, environmental, and biological). The term is usually used to describe short-term feelings of sadness that last for more than two weeks. The National Institute for Mental Health has identified another type of depression known as "Smiling Depression", which is "A depression accompanied by atypical illnesses, as it involves appearing happy to others despite suffering and internal pain". The previous studies have indicated that faculty members suffer from both types of perfectionism (self-induced and socially oriented). It also indicated the presence of a positive correlation between depression and neurotic perfectionism, and a negative correlation between spiritual intelligence and depression, and between spiritual intelligence and neurotic perfectionism. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the variable of spiritual intelligence as a moderating variable of the relationship between smiling depression and neurotic perfectionism in a sample of faculty members. The study sample was selected from faculty members at Egyptian universities (Al-Azhar - Helwan - Ain Shams) in Cairo Governorate, and consisted of (150) individuals (70 males and 80 females), from the rank of teaching assistant to the rank of professor, in the age group of (25-70) years. The following tools were applied: The Smiling Depression Disorder List (prepared by: the researcher), the Spiritual Intelligence Scale (King, 2008, translated by: Iman Abbas and Ashwaq Nasr, 2012), and the Perfectionism Levels Scale (prepared by: Sara Riyad, 2012). The results of the study showed that: 1) There is a statistically significant positive correlation between smiling the depression and the neurotic perfectionism at a significance level of (0.01). 2) There is a statistically significant negative correlation between the spiritual intelligence and the smiling depression at a significance level of (0.01). 3) There is a statistically significant negative correlation between the spiritual intelligence and the neurotic perfectionism at a significance level of (0.01). 4) The spiritual intelligence moderates the relationship between the variables of perfectionism and smiling depression, as shown by the significance of the interaction between the independent and dependent variables, which means that the relationship between perfectionism and smiling depression is a positive relationship, which means that the interaction is negative, and this explains that the higher the rate of perfectionism, the higher the rate of smiling depression in the presence of a low rate of spiritual intelligence. 5) There are differences between the males and females in the study sample in the spiritual intelligence in the direction of males, and in both smiling depression and neurotic perfectionism in the direction of females with due to the total score and sub-dimensions of the three variables.

Keywords

References

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