EMPATHY AS A BASIC COMPONENT OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

The paper is devoted to one of the most important problems of modern pedagogy. It deals with emotional intelligence and empathy as its major component. As the ability to perceive and express emotion, to assimilate emotion in thought, to understand and reason with emotion, and to regulate emotion in the self and others emotional intelligence (EI) plays a crucial role in our life. It affects our performance at work, our physical and mental health as well as our relationships. A detailed study of EI nature, functions and structure shows that empathy is a key aspect of emotional intelligence. Seeing empathy as the ability of a person to understand others, to see with the eyes of others and to feel with the heart of others the authors analyze the essence of the phenomenon, its basic components, types and forms. A person with well developed empathic characteristics possesses positive thinking capabilities, strong social emotions and highly developed communicative skills. He or she is tolerant to other people and emotionally stable. Besides, the study shows why it is particularly important to develop the empathic culture of future teachers. Several surveys and tests were conducted to investigate the status of the problem in Russian pedagogical theory and practice. Their results are presented and discussed in the article.