Intrapersonal Emotional Competence and Empathy: Factors and Connection Profiles in a Multicultural Sample

Abstract

Relevance. Intrapersonal emotional competence - the ability to recognize, understand and regulate one's own emotional states - is traditionally considered as a factor in both the ontogenetic development of empathy and its situational manifestation. However, there is a question of different levels and nature of the sources of emotional competence and empathy deficits and, accordingly, different ways to compensate for them, which is of particular importance for the practice of developing empathy, including the professional context of psychological counseling and psychotherapy. Goal. The purpose of this study was to analyze the diversity of connections between empathy, alexithymia as an indicator of the deficit of emotional competence in relation to one's own feelings and psychological mindedness as an indicator of intentionality in relation to feelings and experiences. Materials and methods. On a combined sample of 1,123 people, including representatives of three cultures - Russia, Belarus, Armenia - data from the IRI questionnaire (empathy), TAS–20 (alexithymia) and «The psychological mindedness scale» were collected and analyzed. Results. The absence of significant negative connections of empathy with difficulties of awareness and identification of feelings, a stable significant positive connection with them of empathic personal distress, as well as externally oriented thinking with low empathy were found. 5 clusters have been identified, reflecting different variants of the connection between emotional competence and empathy. Conclusions. The conclusion is made about the relative independence of the influence of intentionality and competence/lack of emotional competence on empathy, as well as the need for further analysis of intentionality in the field of experiences and emotions.