EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS A MENTAL BASIS OF UNIVERSITY TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL SELF-DEVELOPMENT

If a teacher has highly developed emotional intelligence and conscious need for professional self-development he/she can perform the tasks of constant professional perfection, effectively communicate with other cultures' representatives, etc. which is considered to be an extremely significant quality. The paper aims to reveal the essence of emotional intelligence as a mental basis of professional self-development of teachers working for higher educational institutions, to examine the components of emotional intelligence in the personality structure of modern teachers of humanities, as well as to study their axiological attitude towards professional development and emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence of humanities teachers is considered as an integral component of professional self-development, synthesis of the intellectual and spiritual, rational and irrational, harmonious combination of affection, intelligence, and will. University teachers' emotional intelligence consists of the following interdependent structural components: personal (self-cognition on the basis of self-respect and self-acceptance), social (sociability, emotional regulation), facilitative (optimistic perception of life). The respondents (n=750) were divided into two groups depending on their age and working experience. The experimental testing has shown that the respondents of the 1st group are more flexible, mobile, capable of professional self-development as they have pragmatic motives; they understand the significance of emotional intelligence development. The respondents of the 2nd group agree on the necessity of professional self-improvement and development of emotional intelligence noting that they have already reached its high level. They are characterized by conservatism, inflated self-esteem, and at the same time highly developed moral and spiritual sphere, altruistic desires, and slow development of emotional intelligence. As a result of the experiment there has been found significant difference in the indicators of emotional intelligence as a mental base of professional self-development which corresponds to the level statistical significance.