Spiritual Intelligence and Personality Traits in Relation to Job Satisfaction of Secondary School Teachers: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Job satisfaction — a teacher's affective evaluation of, and contentment with, the teaching profession — is a long-studied outcome in educational psychology with implications for retention, wellbeing, and performance. This narrative review synthesises the literature linking two psychological predictors, spiritual intelligence (SI) and Big Five personality traits, to the job satisfaction of secondary school teachers. Following a structured, PRISMA-informed search and screening process, six studies were retained for synthesis. Personality has been linked to job satisfaction since the dispositional turn of the 1980s, culminating in large meta-analyses reporting a reliable, moderate association. Spiritual intelligence has more recently been linked to teacher job satisfaction through both direct associations and mediation pathways involving sanctification of work and job performance. The review finds the two evidence bases positive in direction but uneven in maturity, and identifies the absence of studies modelling SI and personality jointly as predictors of secondary teacher job satisfaction as the field's central unresolved gap.