Formation of Emotional Culture among University Students

Gelman Viktor Doctor of Technical Science Professor, Department of Medical Informatics and Physics, North-Western State Medical University named after I. I. Mechnikov 191015, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Kirochnaya str., 41 vyagelman@hotmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

Emotional culture is an integral dynamic personal education that has its own structure, represented by a system of knowledge about the development of emotions, skills and methods of analyzing emotions, managing them, aimed at adequate response, which contributes to the verbalization of human emotions, his emotional openness, emotional empathy and providing emotional support to others ^[1].

More specifically, emotional culture is a culture of feelings and emotions, a way of expressing feelings externally. It consists in the ability of a person to be aware of his feelings, control emotional manifestations, calmly and optimistically assess difficult situations, and respond adequately emotionally to the surrounding reality. Emotional culture manifests itself in interpersonal relationships, in speech etiquette, and in communication skills. A person with a high level of emotional culture is more likely to be in a state of emotional stability, emotional autonomy, i.e. less dependent on the mood of other people. Emotional culture regulates the emotional life of a person and largely regulates the life of modern society. The highest manifestation of emotional culture is emotional maturity, which presupposes a sense of responsibility for one's experiences to oneself, and thereby to other people.

 It has to be stated that in modern society, the level of development of emotional culture is often insufficient for effective communication, interaction and vital activity. Research shows ^{[2, 3]} that schoolchildren and students have vague ideas about the world of emotions; often include in the emotional sphere what does not relate to it; have difficulty understanding emotions from their descriptions, facial expression and intonation of speech; often ineffectively express their own emotional states or find it difficult to do so; have difficulties self-regulation; rarely think about the need to improve emotional culture. All this, of course, hinders productive communication and personal growth. Moreover, it should be noted that emotional bad manners are much more common than general bad manners. Mental callousness, aggressive reactions to conflict situations, short temper and a desire to solve problems by force – all this indicates that a person does not have the ability to keep emotions under control.

One of the first to pay close attention to the phenomenon of emotional culture was P. M. Jacobson. According to his definition, emotional culture is a complex of phenomena representing the development and improvement of certain qualities of emotional life ^[4]. According to the researcher, emotional culture includes such features as: emotional responsiveness, a developed ability to understand, respect and appreciate the feelings of other people, as well as "enter" into the world of experiences of heroes of works of literature and art; the ability to share their experiences with others.

Researchers note ^{[3, 5]} that emotional culture has an early social origin and its formation is carried out in the process of socialization and learning.

The phenomenon of emotional culture can be considered both from the standpoint of a personal approach — as a property of personality ^[6], and within the framework of an activity approach — as a person's willingness to recognize emotions and manage emotional states in activities, in particular professional activities ^[7]. Emotional culture can be considered as one of the types of culture in general, as well as a component of certain types of culture: psychological, professional and others.

Currently, there is no well-established understanding of the structure of emotional culture. At least three components are distinguished ^{[5, 8]}, but a more detailed structuring is also used ^{[9, 10]}.  The three-component model of emotional culture usually includes such components as personal-cognitive, socio-practical and value-semantic.

The content of the first component — the personal-cognitive component — includes ideas about the world of emotions; perception of one's own and others' emotions; recognition of experienced emotional states; understanding the meaning of situations in which various emotions are actualized and manifested; forecasting emotional reactions; designing reasonable ways of behavior in accordance with the characteristics of the emotional sphere of personality (assertiveness).

The content of the second component — socio-practical — is represented by a set of emotional practices; possible scenarios of emotional reactions to various challenges; skills to adequately and effectively express one's own emotions; emotional self-regulation; ways to adequately influence the emotions and feelings of others, as well as skills of psychological protection from manipulation (emotional autonomy).

The content of the value-semantic component of emotional culture includes: a person's attitude to their emotional world and the world of other people; social expectations regarding emotional experiences and their expression; striving to develop and improve their own emotional culture and helping other people develop and improve their emotional culture.

Different peoples have slightly different ideas about the norms of emotional culture. Ethnic groups can differ significantly in their ways of expressing feelings externally, for example, the peoples of Northern and Southern Europe. Moreover, as noted by B.Rosenwein ^[11], there are emotional communities united by the group characteristics of the norms of emotional culture. Basically, these are the same communities as social ones: families, schools, professional associations, etc., It is important that these groups identify certain feeling systems as significant for themselves, with their own assessments of the experiences of others and modes of expression of emotions. This emotional regime, a system of norms for the manifestation of feelings and their management, is called the feeling rules. In such a group system, some emotions are encouraged, while others, on the contrary, are repressed as unacceptable. These norms are translated in the course of socialization — education and upbringing.

Accordingly, it can be assumed that in relation to professional groups, emotional culture is an important component of professional culture ^[12].

It is only in recent decades that the phenomenon of emotional culture as the most important personal characteristic of a subject has become the subject of scientific research. In this regard, it has not yet been poorly studied; separate methods aimed at its diagnosis have not been developed; the question of methods for the formation and development of emotional culture has not been sufficiently studied. In addition, the modern system of education and upbringing does not provide for the purposeful formation of emotional culture among the younger generation as an important personal construct.

Therefore, in modern conditions, the search for effective ways to form an emotional culture is an urgent task of professional training focused on a humanely culturological, personality–oriented paradigm of the educational process.

The purpose of the work is to identify possible ways to form and develop emotional culture among university students, taking into account the assessment of the initial level of their emotional culture.

The methodological basis of the research was the analysis of scientific publications and generalized practical experience in identifying the main trends and problems in the formation of professional emotional culture in the learning process.

Results and discussion

The role of emotional culture in professional activity. As noted above, emotional culture is an important component of professional culture. Moreover, in each professional group, emotional culture has its own characteristics, for example, in medicine.

Recently, there has been an increasing assessment of the importance of emotional culture and, in particular, the emotional intelligence of employees of various organizations to achieve high professional results. If earlier the IQ coefficient was considered the measure of a person's ability to achieve professional success, recently it has begun to yield to the emotional coefficient — EQ. "With a good IQ, you will be hired, and with a good emotional IQ, you will be promoted" — these are the conclusions reached by foreign psychologists studying successful specialists in various fields ^[13].

Developed personal emotional skills: conscious management of one's own emotions, control of positive and negative emotional impulses are a prerequisite for successful professional activity. At the same time, for professional activity, the most important components of EI are the management of one's own, others' emotions and the control of one's own emotions. Naturally, this requires an understanding of emotions.

These emotional skills are the foundation and necessary condition for the development of social skills. Social skills determine the development of the ability to manage relationships with people. So social sensitivity is the ability to understand people and events, to be listening, listening and helpful. The basic skills of social sensitivity include: understanding people's positions and showing empathy towards them and their problems. Social sensitivity will allow you to manage the emotional state of employees and clients, which in turn will make it possible to manage relationships, i.e. have the ability to involve people in their interests, their fascination with them and the direction of their activity. Relationship management includes skills such as the ability to lead, mastery of persuasion, conflict resolution and disagreement ^[14].

Diagnosis of the level of emotional culture. To quantify the level of emotional culture, it is necessary to use certain measurable indicators reflecting its state. Many researchers associate human emotional culture with the concept of emotional intelligence ^[15], which was introduced by P. Saloway and D. Meyer in 1990 ^[16]. Therefore, recently, the indicator of emotional intelligence (EQ, EI) and its components have been used in many cases to assess the level of emotional culture ^[17].

Usually, when measuring EI, five subscales are distinguished, which make up four scales of a more general order (intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage one's own and others' emotions).

Previously, in psychological studies of EI related to learning, its relationship with academic performance was studied ^[18]. The data obtained in studies on the relationship between academic performance and EI, although not unambiguous, but in most recent works correlations have been found between academic performance and general EI, or with one component of EI ^[19]. The relationship of learning success with the ability to distinguish emotional information, as one of the components of emotional intelligence, was also studied using psychophysiological techniques ^[20].  It was found that academic performance in secondary schools and in high school students is associated with the ability to distinguish emotions.

Students' perception of emotions, understanding of their content, and the ability to manage them are important for the formation of an emotional culture. We are talking about both the perception of visual emotional information and emotional information of speech ^{[21, 22, 23]}. The perception of emotional information is the basis of most components of EI and there is a certain correlation between them ^[24]. Therefore, it is important to take into account the relationship between the characteristics of the emotional culture of students and their perception of emotional information.

Ways of forming an emotional culture.  The traditional way of forming an emotional culture is social education. Group norms of professional emotional behavior are usually translated during socialization — training and upbringing.

The purposeful formation of a professional emotional culture at a university is the development of very subtle, almost imperceptible skills that decisively affect the success of interaction, understanding of a colleague, employee, client. The process of forming an emotional culture is considered as a dynamic process that involves the implementation of a system of special pedagogical tools.

Emotional stimulation, encouraging students to focus on emotional manifestations and drawing their attention to cases of correct and incorrect emotional behavior can be considered as the main means. Emotional stimulation is the use of stimuli that affect mainly the emotional sphere of a person, causing him to respond with feelings: emotional response, empathy.

Methods of forming an emotional culture can be carried out both when working with the entire study group and in the process of an individual approach.

The formation of emotional culture in the entire study group is the theoretical study of proper professional emotional behavior, the value-semantic component of emotional culture, which includes an understanding of professional norms and rules regarding emotional experiences and their expression. In addition, the formation process includes the management of group emotions during training sessions (e.g. with the help of humor ^[25]), the creation of situations aimed at actualizing emotional phenomena and their discussion.

Teaching by the teacher's personal example is important. At the same time, the emotional competence of the teacher greatly contributes to the formation of the student's emotional culture. Considering that the perception of emotional information outstrips the perception of semantic, verbal and logical information and affects its understanding, strengthening or weakening it, the teacher can change the ratio of the components of speech information. For example, to attract the student's attention to the emotional component of a speech message, you can use a technique when the emotional component is opposed (opposite) to the semantic content of the message.

In addition, it is necessary to develop students' emotional reflection, their ability to self-observe, self-analyze the process of emotion and the way of emotional response. Emotional reflection is a special principle of thinking aimed at realizing the perception of one's own manifestations of emotions, which at the same time act as a means of self–expression and self-realization. Therefore, in particular, it is useful to encourage students to evaluate their mood during classes, the peculiarities of the emotional perception of educational material.

Individual approach. Naturally, all trainees differ in their level of emotional intelligence and perceive emotional influences differently.  Therefore, in order to individualize the formation of emotional culture, it is advisable to conduct a preliminary assessment of the state of students' EI and take it into account during communication.

Such an assessment of the components of emotional intelligence can be carried out using psychological testing, for example, using the EmIn test ^[26]. This test is one of the representative self-reporting methods used in Russia. It is based on a set of essential constructs underlying emotional intelligence.

The EmIn test consists of 46 statements, in relation to which the subject must express the degree of his consent using a 4-point score. These statements are grouped into four scales (intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage emotions). Individual components of EI are also evaluated: – interpersonal EI (MEI), – intrapersonal EI (WEI), – understanding emotions (PE), – emotion management (EE), – understanding other people's emotions (MP), – managing other people's emotions (MU), – understanding one's emotions (VP), – management with their emotions (WU), – expression control (VE), – general EI (OEI).

Taking into account the EI testing data of a particular student allows, during practical classes and seminars on this basis: to create special professional emotional situations, use emotional stimuli that cause students to respond: emotional response, empathy; carry out discussions, solve cases – with subsequent analysis of the emotional behavior of student participants and its correction by the teacher, along with correction of meaningful errors. It is advisable to use the same approach in individual communication with the student during the current control.

It is important to identify the manifestation of individual components of students' EI during communication with the appropriate correction by the teacher. Thus, an individual approach should take into account the peculiarities of students' emotional perception and its connection with various components of EI.

It was shown ^[27] that students with a high level of interpersonal emotional intelligence, with a high level of understanding of emotions, especially other people's emotions, and who manage other people's emotions well, most of all take into account and positively evaluate the emotional atmosphere in the classroom and the emotionally expressed behavior of the teacher.

On the other hand, students with a more developed intrapersonal EI, who better understand and control their emotions, are more sensitive to intonation stresses and interrogative intonations. Students with weaker expression control are more susceptible to the intonation of doubt.

Thus, the use of the proposed approaches will increase the level of emotional culture of university students and achieve the formation of a professionally valuable and personally significant set of rules for emotional behavior.

Conclusion

This paper examines the approach to emotional culture as a component of a specialist's professional culture, and outlines possible ways to form an emotional culture among university students. The article examines the features of diagnosing the level of human emotional culture, its role in professional activity and possible ways of forming emotional culture in group and individual communication with students. The proposed approaches will make it possible to achieve the formation of a professionally valuable and personally significant set of rules for emotional behavior.

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