(2025) Science and education, 4, 49-59. Odessa.
Iryna Melnychuk
Candidate of Psychological Sciences,
Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, Medical and Special Psychology,
The state institution "South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushynsky",
26, Staroportofrankivska Str., Odesa, Ukraine,
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1982-7393
A SYSTEMIC AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF EMOTIONAL STABILITY OF PERSONALITY
SUMMARY:
The article presents a theoretical and empirical substantiation of a systemic model of emotional stability as an integral personality trait that ensures successful performance of activity under conditions of increased emotion-generating load. The relevance of the study is determined by the growing frequency of unpredictable, competitive, and crisis situations in the contemporary social environment, as well as by the limited explanatory capacity of traditional descriptions for capturing the procedural dynamics of emotional responding and behavioral indicators of emotional stability. The aim of the study is to conceptualize emotional stability, operationalize its key components, and conduct a pilot psychometric validation of the author’s questionnaire. The methodological framework is based on systemic, subject-activity, and resource approaches, which allow emotional stability to be viewed as a phenomenon of a purely emotional order, possessing a hierarchically organized, self-regulating system aimed at aligning relevant processes with external demands and the goals of the subject. As a result, five leading regulatory emotional properties that specify the content of emotional stability have been identified, namely: emotional sensitivity, emotional lability, emotional gnosis, emotional dominance, and emotional stoicism. It is shown that these properties are integrated into the response process from the perception of an emotion-generating stimulus and the evaluation of its significance to the activation of a dominant response, adaptive adjustment, goal-directed action, and outcome effectiveness with feedback. At the same time, their manifestation is contextually variable. An original emotional stability questionnaire has been developed, which models the regulatory specificity of the five emotional properties through a system of behavioral indicators across nine spheres of life activity (educational, professional, family, social-domestic, interpersonal, competitive, crisis, extreme-threatening, and health-maintenance spheres). Its psychometric validation demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (α=0,783) and high test–retest reliability (r=0,723). Significant correlations with external criteria were established: positive correlations with a descriptive emotional stability scale, resilience, self-esteem, and internal locus of control, and negative correlations with difficulties in emotional regulation, confirming the criterion and construct validity of the instrument. Based on percentile analysis, interpretative thresholds for low, medium, and high levels of emotional stability and its components are proposed. It is demonstrated that emotional stability is structurally invariant but variable in its sphere of realization, and that the developed questionnaire can be used for its diagnosis.
KEYWORDS:
emotional sphere, regulatory capacity, emotional properties, sensitivity, lability, gnosis, dominance, stoicism, spheres of life activity, psychometric validation
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