STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS FOR THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE INDIVIDUAL
- Authors
-
-
Mirxoliqova Charos Xabibullaevna
Associate Professor, PhD Institute for the Study of Youth Problems and the Training of Future Personnel
Author
-
- Keywords:
- Digital spiritual intelligence, spiritual intelligence, digital literacy, media psychology, meaning-making, digital ethics, digital well-being, conceptual model, education, digital society.
- Abstract
-
The accelerating digitalization of social life has generated unprecedented demands on the psychological and moral capacities of individuals. While constructs such as digital literacy, media literacy, and digital ethics have addressed the competence and behavioral dimensions of digital engagement, they have largely neglected the deeper existential, meaning-making, and transcendent faculties that individuals deploy when navigating digital environments. This theoretical-conceptual article introduces and systematically develops the construct of digital spiritual intelligence (DSI)—defined as the individual’s capacity to apply meaning-oriented, self-transcendent, and ethically reflective cognitive-affective processes to digital experience. Drawing on interdisciplinary synthesis from psychology, education, media psychology, and digital sociology, the article delineates DSI from adjacent constructs including spiritual intelligence, moral intelligence, digital literacy, media literacy, digital ethics, and psychological resilience. The socio-psychological mechanisms underlying the formation of DSI are analyzed through the lenses of self-determination theory, sociocultural theory, and moral identity theory. The article proposes an original multi-level conceptual model—the Integrative Ecological Model of Digital Spiritual Intelligence (IEM-DSI)—that identifies strategic directions for DSI development across personal, familial, educational, social, and institutional levels. The scientific novelty lies in the systematic conceptualization of a hitherto unarticulated construct at the intersection of spirituality and digitality, and in the provision of a theoretically grounded framework for empirical research and educational intervention. The practical significance extends to curriculum development, digital well-being policy, parenting guidance, and institutional design in an increasingly algorithmically mediated society.
- References
-
1.Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.
2.Blasi, A. (1984). Moral identity: Its role in moral functioning. In W. M. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Morality, moral behavior, and moral development (pp. 128–139). Wiley.
3.Borba, M. (2001). Building moral intelligence: The seven essential virtues that teach kids to do the right thing. Jossey-Bass.
4.Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press.
5.Brown, K. W., Ryan, R. M., & Creswell, J. D. (2007). Mindfulness: Theoretical foundations and evidence for its salutary effects. Psychological Inquiry, 18(4), 211–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/10478400701598298
6.Carretero, S., Vuorikari, R., & Punie, Y. (2017). DigComp 2.1: The digital competence framework for citizens. Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2760/38842
7.Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2017). The mediated construction of reality. Polity Press.
8.Damon, W., & Hart, D. (1988). Self-understanding in childhood and adolescence. Cambridge University Press.
9.Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01
10.Emmons, R. A. (2000). Is spirituality an intelligence? Motivation, cognition, and the psychology of ultimate concern. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10(1), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327582IJPR1001_2
11.Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. Norton.
12.Eshet-Alkalai, Y. (2004). Digital literacy: A conceptual framework for survival skills in the digital era. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 13(1), 93–106.
13.Floridi, L. (2013). The ethics of information. Oxford University Press.
14.Floridi, L. (2014). The fourth revolution: How the infosphere is reshaping human reality. Oxford University Press.
15.Frankl, V. E. (1985). Man’s search for meaning (Revised ed.). Washington Square Press.
16.Fry, L. W. (2003). Toward a theory of spiritual leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 14(6), 693–727. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2003.09.001
17.Gilster, P. (1997). Digital literacy. Wiley.
- Downloads
- Published
- 2026-04-15
- Issue
- Vol. 2 No. 4 (2026)
- Section
- Articles
- License
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
