Abstract:

The region of North Caucasus in Russia is a territory where many different ethnic groups live in close proximity. For example, in the city of Rostov-on-Don, the most numerous ethnic groups are Russians and Armenians. As a rule, mutual understanding arises in the course of various social interactions between the representatives of the Russian and Armenian ethnic groups. An important role in this process belongs to the emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence includes the ability to perceive, understand, regulate, and use the emotions in an adaptive way.

Of special importance is the ability to correctly understand the expression of emotions in representatives of another ethnic group in the course of learning process, since possible errors will contribute to the emergence of barriers to learning and reduce the students’ motivation for learning.

A low level of emotional intelligence is a risk factor for mood disorders. For example, it has been established that patients with depression have low rates of emotional intelligence, and teachers who have a low level of emotional intelligence show higher rates of professional burnout.

Inter-ethnic differences in emotional intelligence were found in a number of works (Z. Dewi, 2017, F. Kong, 2017).
Research goal: to study the differences in understanding emotional expression in ethnic Armenians and Russians, identify barriers in learning that may be associated with them, and explore ways to overcome them.

Participants:
Representatives of Russian and Armenian ethnic groups, students of the Southern Federal University and the Don State Technical University (Rostov-on-Don): 70 Russians, 40 Armenians. The average age of participants is 20.2 years.

Methods:
Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test adapted by E.A. Sergiyenko. Emotional Intelligence Self-Evaluation Test (D.V. Lusin, H. Hall). Original method of recognizing emotions on the faces of actors as one of the components of emotional intelligence (V. Kosonogov & A. Titova, in print). Actors of two ethnic groups - Russian and Armenian - were selected.

Results:
Differences were obtained in the perception and understanding of the expression of basic emotions (anger, joy, sadness, disgust, surprise, fear) among ethnic Armenians and ethnic Russians due to differences in the rate of recognition of positive and negative emotions and a greater predisposition to detect manifestations of certain emotions in the cases where they were not expressed at all (errors in the recognition of emotions).

The relevance of the work carried out is due to the need to ensure inter-ethnic and inter-confessional interaction, as well as to form socially demanded cognitive and social models among representatives of different ethnic groups and to increase the effectiveness of inter-ethnic communication.

The barriers against learning which are rooted in different understanding of the emotional expression in people of Russian and Armenian ethnic identities may appear due to the misguided perception, understanding, regulation and use of emotional expression. To overcome such barriers one may need to employ special training programs aimed at the development of emotional intelligence designed with taking into account ethnic specificity.

Acknowledgements:
The present work was supported by Russian Fund for Basic Research (RFBR) No 18-013-01019.

Keywords:

Understanding of the emotional expression, ethnic groups, people of Russian and Armenian ethnic identities, barriers against learning.