Emotional intelligence as a psychological resource and the features of its development in intellectually gifted school students

¹ Moscow City University, Institute of Pedagogics and Psychology of Education, Department of Psychology, Moscow, Russia
² Irkutsk State University, Pedagogical Institute, Department of Psychodiagnostics and Practical Psychology, Irkutsk, Russia
³ Moscow City University, Institute of Natural Sciences and Sports Technologies, Department of Physical Education and Life Safety, Moscow, Russia
⁴ Academy of Music, Dance, Fine Arts of the Republic of Bulgaria, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

^* Corresponding author: polina_frolova@hotmail.com

Abstract

The article touches upon the relevant problems of modern psychological and pedagogical science: support for and development of gifted school students, psychological resources of personality, and emotional intelligence. At present, the problem of the features of emotional intelligence development in gifted students is theoretically and empirically underexplored within the framework of the resource approach. The goal of the study is to research the features of the development of emotional intelligence as a psychological resource in gifted adolescent school students. The following methods were used: emotional intelligence questionnaire, resilience test, D. Raven’s Progressive Matrix Scale; methods of mathematical statistics (analysis of variation, correlation analysis, etc.). The first part of the article presents an overview of studies on the problem of psychological resources and emotional intelligence, the current state of research in these fields is outlined, and the understudies issues and prospects for further studies are indicated. The empirical part presents the study results, the analysis of which reveals the specific features of emotional intelligence development in gifted adolescents compared to regular students. The obtained data indicate certain problems associated with the underdevelopment of emotional intelligence and its components in gifted adolescents which calls for further research and consideration in practical work with gifted students. The provided results of correlation analysis demonstrate a statistically significant association between the indicators of emotional intelligence and resilience. The obtained results point to the need for further study of the specifics of emotional intelligence and the opportunities for its development in gifted and non-gifted school students.