Personality cultivation through selected aspects of emotionality
The purpose of the study is to identify the essential connections of the contemporary person’s personality formation with an accent on the development of selected postulates of the social intelligence. The reader is within this processed text accompanied dominantly by the development of emotional intelligence in the context of the variability of relational interactions from the point of view of human practice. An important part of the consistent development of the topic in corelation with its name is development of the sharing of emotions and their authentic transmission within interpersonal relationships. An important prerequisite for personality cultivation is to make full use of the potential of ethical education and its complex value focus. However, the field of education is so complicated that we are unable to assume its value affinity. This issue is complexly discussed in publication devoted to human interaction with preference for identification of the origins of ethical education. “Our humanity, humanitas, is fueled by inspirations for good and unique exceptionality, which are implemented in our proceedings” (Rajský – Podmanický, 2016: 10). The problem of education in historical continuity lies within the discourse whether we will give preference to personality education with an orientation to the potential of a person so that he is satisfied and happy in life, or will we prefer pragmatism in education with an emphasis on its practical application in life. The model of ethical education, in point of view of its content constitution offers the first alternative. The nowadays imperative in context of prosocial behaviour is to prioritize education of one’s personality in social context on emotional and cognitive levels. Ethical education follows comprehensively communicated goal, in form of rooting a person in terms of his potential and at the same time to update and strengthen possibilities of his personal progress. That is how a person can become who he was meant to become: for himself and other people in terms of human practice and its relationships. Personal approach in education makes it easier to have a responsible approach to our own personality, deepening of identity, more complex understanding of ourselves and others and perception of our emotionality and rationality. It is connected to the question of self-respect and self-esteem, which includes conscious dispose of egoistic tendencies so we can implement morals and dignity in our life.
Human behaviour and proceedings are in an ethical point of view in great extent influenced by intellect and everyday emotions. Through the natural experience of emotions, we enable our own inner stability and harmony. Cultivated outward expression of emotions is also a positive tool for creating good and balanced interpersonal relationships. The study is not only about emotions and emotional intelligence, but also about the connection with the cognitive component. “Emotions activate a person, help him overcome obstacles, lead him to compassion and deep social relationships, but often cause irrational thinking and hasty thoughtless reactions” (Ruisel, 2008: 33). The emotional component and the intellect are manifested at the personal level of human consciousness, and their balance plays an important role in human life. Emotional intelligence is an irreplaceable component, because it ensures important social skills such as empathy, assertiveness, cooperative behaviour, but also helps to form personal prerequisites such as dealing with negative feelings, the ability to correct a mistake, not giving up. Rationality serves as a control mechanism and brings responsibility for thoughts, words, and actions carried out during emotional experiences. Rationality serves as a control mechanism and brings responsibility for thoughts, words, and actions carried out during emotional experiences. A person who can master the art of emotional intelligence is truly mature and wise. Thanks to this, he will use his rationality in favor of emotions so that he can find inner harmony in himself and in relationships.
Emotions and emotional intelligence in human practice. Emotions and human life are intertwined. Emotions accompany us and are part of our everyday life. In order to be able to work with our emotions and use them to our advantage and to the advantage of other people, we need to get to know them and understand their mechanism. This is enabled by our emotional intelligence, and its formation is an important part of ethical education. An important postulate is the basic idea that emotions are a complex psychological phenomenon, whose experiential core are emotions, and which also has a physiological component, manifested by motor reactions (Nakonečný, 2012: 13). From the point of view of the conscious integrity of the personality, we are responsible for the presentation of emotions as well as for our actions. Thus, our emotions and feelings are the core of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence from an ethical and educational point of view includes the ability to perceive one’s own emotions, to have the knowledge how to deal with these emotions, to use them for the benefit of personal cultivation, to motivate ourselves, but also the ability to empathize with other people and to properly handle relationships in a wide spectrum of interpersonality (Goleman, 2011). In the context of this line of thought, we can talk about emotional intelligence as the ability to self-control, manage one’s own feelings and emotions, which must be properly and effectively directed in order to cooperate with other members of the group to achieve a common goal. It is an important part of prosocial cultivation of a person across his development stages, what is significantly discussed in the concept of ethical education focused on prosocial abilities and their integration into practical life (Žilínek, 1997; Kudláčová, 2006; Lomnický, 2015). Understanding of our own motivations will allow us to think about their potentiality, humanly variable availability, originality, but also riskiness and destructiveness. From the point of view of the procedural side of personality cultivation, permanent monitoring and correction are necessary. It is the natural ability of a human being to reflect on his experience and thereby deepen and strengthen self-awareness in the lively and dynamically accelerated area of identifying and expressing emotions. If we are not able to realize authentic feelings, we will be socially and emotionally limited in achieving progress in interpersonal relationships in all spheres of life. Emotions express a person’s relationship in the whole range of social and professional interactivity. However, our emotional world is also affected by external, often diversified and complicatedly recognizable factors of the social environment. By gradually self-recognizing our emotions, we should distinguish which stimulus and in what intensity affects us and our emotionality. The depth of impact on our inner perception and subsequent reaction reflects the significance of the event or situation we are currently experiencing. This process is important, because it can increase the quality of our interpersonal relationships, our attitude to ourselves and our job. It also increases the happiness perceived from common daily activities and so it helps us to achieve our inner peace. If we are able to recognise the reason of our fear, nervousness and negative attitude, then we are able to work them out. We can handle tense situations and navigate our attitudes, and we can come to realization that in terms of hectic life, we cannot only deal with the consequences. Focusing only on the consequences of our actions would be unreasonable and ineffective. In order to achieve improvement, we must know the very reason and root of the problem and eliminate it. For example, if we know that presenting in front of people is problematic for us, it might help to realize that we are not the only one who experiences stage fright. We can try to get to know these people, who share the same problem and create friendly relations with them. They can lighten the situation and help us overcome the fear of performance. Consequently, this is how we can strengthen interpersonal relationships and strengthen the relationship with ourselves. There are many possibilities and ways how we can improve ourselves. There is no such thing as a universal guide on how to achieve a solution to a problem, but it is our responsibility to try to solve it for our own and others benefit. It also applies on the positive aspects of our life. If we find out through self-observation what brings us joy, inner peace, we can consciously strengthen these bonds. In these situations, we can recognize that emotional intelligence is being applied, which is, however, necessarily in coincidental relationship with our general intelligence. Emotional intelligence presupposes the involvement of a rational component, because if our feelings are to remain authentic, a certain reinforcing measure of rationality must be introduced. Otherwise, there is a danger that we will submit to our emotions too much and will not have them under control and our emotional component will remain unstable. In this case, the manifestations, but mainly the consequences of our experience, can have a negative impact on our intrapersonal, but also on interpersonal relationships. To be aware of our emotionality is necessary. The realization gives us moral obligation to experience emotions in such a way as not to harm ourselves or the environment. However, the opposite case can also occur when rationality prevails. It pushes our feelings to the background of our mind and the dominance of reason prevails. A danger occurs again, this time in the form of neglecting emotionality, which can result in a lack of empathy and sensitivity, which will result in the disruption of our social bonds. Thus, the destructive influence is reflected in social relations. A person should be able to identify with his own interior and the world of values. Both cases – the predominance of rationality or emotionality – are extreme, and therefore we should strive to balance in the middle position in the context of Aristotle’s practical philosophy. The currently implemented ethical-educational project for authentic prosociality reflects on the ideas of the philosophical and ethical tradition and at the same time accelerates the need for the complex development of social intelligence. A current part of the experts’ discourse is the saturation of mental health and this correlates with the search for internal balance, because only when we are internally balanced can we achieve a balance between our internal and external world of values.
Emotionality in context of social relationships. Emotions have an attractive added value for our lives. They signal a threat to an individual, influence the course of cognitive processes, help redirect our attention, are necessary for communication – verbal and non-verbal, regulate social interactions, activate our ability to act, help us protect the closest people, and also preserve social values and norms (Slaměník, 2011: 12). Emotional intelligence is also beneficial in achieving set goals and developing self-regulation. It contains components that help progress: self-awareness, self-control and self-motivation. Emotional intelligence can process these components only with the cooperation of the rational side. A person’s EQ and IQ can work well only if they complement each other. Not one component can be put aside, because emotions are controlled by our needs, interests and are subsequently modified by the cognitive component. As authors Varas-Julca et al. (2024) state, cognitive perspective and its multidimensionality coupled with coping strategies can help an individual in the processes of developing psychological ability and socio-emotional well-being. Self-awareness, self-control and self-motivation are not only basic elements of emotional intelligence but are also necessary prerequisites for an individual’s inner emotional maturity. Self-awareness, self-control and self-motivation are not only basic elements of emotional intelligence but are also necessary prerequisites for an individual’s inner emotional maturity. In the issue of emotionality, it is about the level of personal moral development. A mature and prosocial personality, which is also the goal of ethical education, must have sufficiently developed emotional maturity. Without this aspect, moral personality would not be complex. And when it comes to emotionality and emotional intelligence, it is a complex concept of dispositions to emotional response (Nakonečný, 2012: 276). Sensitivity and intellect are like mutually controlling mechanisms. If one fails, the task of the other is to replace it, or to awaken him to activity. Only through their mutual functioning we can achieve the desired state in the field of human behaviour. Feeling can correct the intellect’s tendencies towards cold calculations for its own personal benefit, prevent egoism that does not consider others, it can also intervene in the unhealthy elevation of man over nature, etc. On the other hand, people with a dominant emotional component may tend to wallow in their emotions, overthink them, and be unable to recognize their unconstructive behaviour. They succumb to emotional impulses at any time and do not want to submit their behaviour to the necessary logic. In this sense, the connection between controlling one’s experience on the basis of intellectual reasoning is essential (Mihulová – Svoboda, 2008: 83-84). This is also related to emotional regulation, with the help of which people can influence their experience, intensity of emotions and mood. In the given example, we can see how rationality and emotionality work together. Gross points out how emotional regulation can help redirect negative attention to a more pleasant situation or object. For example, it can help in managing negative emotions that accompany some activity of children. We can shift attention to something more pleasant by saying: It’s just a game. This redirection is intended to elicit a different, more favourable response (Slaměník, 2011: 51). Being aware of negative feelings is the first step in correcting them. By getting to know what we like and dislike, we can direct our emotions and attention in the right direction. As we mentioned, with the help of emotional regulation we can influence not only ourselves, but even others.
It is necessary to think about emotions and evaluate their impact on ourselves and our surroundings. There are four tasks in the process of interpersonal emotion regulation. Firstly, we must identify the emotional state of the target, secondly, we must set a regulatory goal, next we must generate and select the most appropriate strategy to achieve this goal and finally we must implement this chosen strategy. As a result, if the strategy and implementation were successful, we may observe the intended change (Wickett – Muhlert – Niven, 2023). Emotionality, as we have already indicated, has an important role in social relationships. Without emotionality, the important mechanism, which relationships are based on, would not take place. If we care about building quality relationships, we need to be aware of our emotions when interacting with others. And not only that. Also, it is equally important to notice emotional expressions such as reactions, tone of voice, facial expression and attitude of others. We can notice that emotionality does not only involve the inner side of the individual, but that it is also manifested externally. The inability to interpret these expressions creates obstacles for us in social relations. On the contrary, sensitivity to these manifestations opens the way for us to more permanent and valuable interactions. In addition to the basic emotions that we know, a wide spectrum of them takes place in every moment of human experience. Consciously or unconsciously, we show them to the world with our face and attitude. There are situations when we don’t want to present our real emotions, which we are aware of, so we try to control them. The reason is simple. We rationally evaluate how our physical displays of emotion might reveal our true feelings, our true joy or dislike, our fear and displeasure. That’s why we regulate emotions. Emotional self-regulation is conscious and occurs when we feel the difference between the actual feeling and the desired behaviour. It manifests itself by controlling our experience, our facial expression, our behaviour. The problem of honesty occurs both in relation to oneself and responsibility towards the environment. To what extent should emotions be expressed and to what extent controlled? The authors Mihulová and Svoboda (2008: 157) also deal with this issue of self-control and spontaneity. “Unless a person is able to establish an adequate level of self-control, he approaches the level of an animal with his life. However, if spontaneous manifestations are suppressed, there may be an increase in internal tension, spasms and other undesirable phenomena.” Two different poles, two extremes are shown. The truth is in the middle because it does not lead to the listed undesirable extremes. On the one hand, a person is directed to improving his character traits, to better self-control and self-mastery, and on the other hand, to naturalness and spontaneity.
Authenticity and emotionality in the sense of personality cultivation. Many people consciously control the expression and manifestations of their emotions in an attempt to cover up their true feelings and experiences. We should try, whenever possible, to express emotions authentically, and thus remain true to ourselves and in relation to others. If we are not yet able to do so, we should learn the art of assertiveness and empathy, because these important social skills provide a prerequisite for authentic living. Authenticity with oneself and with other people is liberating, because we cannot create relationships based on honesty from suppressing our true experience. Also, shapeshifting is very mentally draining. The solution is creativity. Without creativity, relationships become mundane and cease to fulfill their original function. The uniqueness of a creative personality “is mainly characterized by a unique composition and interplay of individual characteristics, forming an unrepeatable image of a creative personality. Self-regulation, self-management, own personal contribution plays a significant role in shaping the uniqueness of a creative personality. A unique personality is largely a product of self-development.” (Jurčová, 2009: 133)
Imagination helps us keep ourselves and others in anticipation of what mutual coexistence and cooperation will bring us. People do not desire a stereotype, but a pleasant feeling of excitement from the unknown. By experiencing common pleasant feelings, relationships are strengthened and deepened. Negative feelings that result from the relationship, e.g. disappointment, failure of support, lies, break these relationships. However, we draw these emotions from deeds when we did not act for the benefit of the other. Even the Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, says that “first of all, we must use human intelligence to get rid of negative emotions.” (Olejárová, 2016: 20) Negative feelings that we experience alone under the influence of various circumstances, which a partner, friend or parent will help us overcome, strengthen our relationships just as well as positive feelings that we experience together. Social interactions help us transform unpleasant emotions into pleasant or otherwise useful ones through the activity of emotional intelligence. The success of such a transformation depends only on our attitude and on the level of our emotional intelligence.
Through free experience and awareness of the need for emotionality and intellect, an authentic community is built. Thanks to emotional intelligence, those involved can create a good relationship with themselves and others, realize their own and other person’s value, strengthen positive behaviour, be balanced and find inner peace, and shape such areas of personality that lead to a complex prosocial personality. Creative communication, which includes active listening and feedback, is therefore essential in relationships set up in this way. These aspects are a prerequisite for responsible relationships and social bonds.
According to H. Urban, it is possible to reveal ethical truths about others through authentic lifestyle such as:
There is much more good than bad in people.
We shall get used to searching good in others.
Supporting people is more efficient than rejecting them.
Nothing is better than the sincere appreciation of others.
Everybody needs recognition and encouragement.
When a person pleases someone, he feels good himself (Urban, 2004: 88).
If a person internalizes doing good deeds, he realizes his own value and the value of the life we live together in society. In such an environment, an authentic human understanding has got its space, that cannot be truly experienced without emotionality. Experience and demonstrated authenticity are also a starting point for emotional intelligence, because demonstrated authenticity will help us find inner peace, understanding of ourselves and others, improve our relationship with the world around us, and thus non-violently lead us to greater responsibility for ourselves and others. A person who uses intellect and emotional intelligence without calculation, in favour of good, is a bearer of positive changes and at the same time a creative and prosocial personality.
Emotional transfer – transfer of emotions in relationships. A proper understanding of emotional intelligence will allow an individual to find a middle position. Through it, he does not have to control himself so much that he ceases to be himself, nor does it lead him to complete arbitrariness. It manifests itself through interiorization. If we take it as our own, we can control our emotions and their experience on the basis of reason, which is natural to us and we don’t have to force ourselves into it. Intelligent handling of one’s own emotionality and the emotions of other people creates a basic prerequisite for empathy, harmonious relationships and cooperative behaviour. Emotional contagion is a term that demonstrates the transmission of our emotions to another person, both positive and negative. Our facial expressions and gestures synchronize with our emotions and feelings. Emotional contagion occurs when the facial expression is distinct and clear (Slaměník, 2011: 121). If we feel the joy of meeting a close person, we often have a smile on our face before we say hello. Manifestations of facial expressions and attitude are visible manifestations of our experience. Such emotions and their manifestations strengthen mutual emotional closeness. This happens on the basis of the processes that we perceive and interpret when observing the faces of people. However, emotional contagion works equally well with negative emotions that can disrupt interpersonal relationships. Feelings are reflected not only by the facial expression and attitude, but also by the voice. All this gives us important information about the quality of social connections. Emotional expression serves to reward or reject each other depending on the polarity of the emotion. Because of the fact that our experience has a great influence on our non-verbal communication and social interaction, it is often suppressed or over-regulated. Conscious regulation of emotions occurs mainly in the presence of other people. Especially when we realize that our true emotions, once they are negative towards the other person, can offend, humiliate or otherwise negatively affect the other person. Responsibility for our actions stems from the consequences that occur. Just as we are careful about our choice of words because they can hurt, conscious negative emotional expressions can disrupt our social bonds. The perception and processing of emotions is different for each person. It depends on his character traits. We should handle emotions that could disrupt our functioning relationships with those around us with care. Impulsive action, which is accompanied by a great rush of emotions, is often not respected and in turn causes negative reactions from the environment. Therefore, people often hide their true emotions, which can disrupt social interactions, or they are afraid of not presenting themselves well in front of others. Such calculation suggests that emotionality is deliberately suppressed by reason in order to avoid problems with other people. Suppression of our emotions can cause problems with expressing our experience. Often suppressing your emotions can cause problems with expressing your experience. “The current relevance of emotional regulation lies in its significant impact on physical and mental health, as well as psychological wellbeing.” (Ríos-Rodriguez et al., 2024) Disguising and covering up authentic emotions contributes to emotional atrophy. Neglected emotionality can cause a person’s mental crisis and does not contribute to mental psychohygiene either.
Emotions as part of social interaction. Emotions are also carriers of information about the world and about oneself. They can tell us more about our attitudes or desires. For example, anxiety may stem from the judgment that something unwanted will happen. If someone acts dishonestly, against our will, we get angry. Reality and we ourselves influence our experience, and emotions affect our physical and mental state. With the help of emotional intelligence, we should try to spread positive thoughts and process negative ones so that they do not have a big impact on us and others. However, negative thoughts are not automatically useless. They also hold up a mirror and help us in self-discovery. Thanks to them, we have the opportunity to improve what we are inconsistent in. Every social interaction is a reflection of ourselves. If our interpersonal relationships are disturbed, our relationship with ourselves can also be distorted. People who treat us coldly and keep their distance often mirror something to us. Their feelings towards us speak volumes about ourselves. Therefore, we should perceive these signals and not be indifferent to them. If we want to change something, we have to admit that the fault can also be on our side and/or in our attitude. If people have trouble opening up and speaking openly in front of us, the problem may be within us, because we ourselves either cannot do it or we feel mistrust. In such a case, relationships are strained, inauthentic, social ties are broken, and cooperative behaviour is difficult to implement. At the same time, the existence of such relationships gives us a new chance and opportunity to change our behaviour and expressions. We should consider it as our responsibility for ourselves and for the relationships we have. We should not ignore the signals of mistrust in the relationship, which prevents us from living a contented and balanced life but take them as a challenge. It is a chance to change for the better. Only an emotionally mature person can understand the cause of negative feelings. An emotionally mature person takes their presence in his life as a resource for constant self-improvement. It is an endless process that is present in our life. If it weren’t for negative emotions and experiences, we wouldn’t be able to fully experience happy and pleasant feelings. We are unable to experience happiness without suffering. Presence of unpleasant feelings is inevitable in life, but each person must discover their usefulness for himself. It is a path laid out by emotional intelligence, part of which is self-knowledge and coping with unwanted emotions in such a way that the person in question maintains inner peace and does not harm those around him. The connection between emotionality and rationality is therefore hidden in the ability to influence such thoughts that cause us useless emotions, such as: low resistance to stress, demandingness, uncertainty, doubts. We don’t necessarily need to get rid of unhelpful emotions, but “the key is rather to accept the thoughts that appear on the way to the goal – effective orientation and learn to follow them from a vantage point and not look at the world through their prism. The key is to have unhelpful thoughts, but should not necessarily believe them.” (Schulzex – Roberts, 2007: 100)
A person constantly thinking about his thoughts can gradually fall into passivity and will think about a given problem by repeatedly using the same pattern. In this way, however, he will not mature or at least make his way to solving problems more difficult. These problems then no longer have to depend only on a specific person or thing, but a passive-minded individual becomes a stumbling block. Although he may not realize it, or even deny participation in the responsibility for the problem, he is responsible for it. The behaviour we describe here is called rumination. “Rumination is thoughtless jumping from one negative thought to another, perhaps in an attempt to escape an unpleasant emotion by trying to control the uncontrollable.” (Schulze – Roberts, 2007: 101) This escape from the negative thought is ineffective. There is an obligation towards oneself and others, it refers to some appeal to show such an action that leads to correction, to change, to shift, to action, because passivity is as dangerous as a bad thought or deed. This is one of the aspects where emotional intelligence is not used correctly, or one is not aware enough of his emotional intelligence to be helpful in dealing with emotions that we do not want to experience. An individual who is aware of this sphere of intelligence and consciously works with it can also use negative thoughts or influence them so that they do not have an unpleasant effect on him. At this point, we have to remind ourselves again that what we feel and experience in ourselves will also reach others, and if this experience is negative, our social interactions will also reflect it negatively. The question that remains is that to what extent are we willing to realize this and admit our complicity in our relationships.
Understanding and coping our emotionality is of great importance for us and the surrounding world. Therefore, we should be more sensitive to the sensations from which it arises, and we should learn to recognize them at the moment of their occurrence. If we do not figure out how to work with them, we will be defenceless against them. Through emotions and thoughts, both positive and negative, and their interpretation, we also influence our feelings and motivation. E. Nürnberger (2011: 18-19) claims that “the very way we evaluate our failures and the feelings resulting from them, for example, a failed exam, a rejection at a job interview, an argument with parents, often become a certain individual attributional style by which we evaluate the world. In addition, these attitudes affect our future motivational level.” The reasons for success or failure can already stem from the attributions and evaluations that a person has worked with before. K. Nešpor (2011: 51) stated “effective yet simple procedures for managing negative emotions:
Avoiding the influence of external triggers or constraints: An external trigger is a situation or environment that induces risky mental states.
Avoiding the influence of internal triggers or constraints: An internal trigger is an internal state that produces risky mental states, for example, fatigue, boredom, and lack of fluids.
To work with our own motivation: Awareness of the risk of inappropriate response and the benefits of good self-control. For this, your own experience and the experience of other people will serve you well.
Relaxation: Depending on the situation, you can use a relaxation technique, to relax with the help of calm belly breathing, to find a quiet environment or to smile. Physical and mental activity helps. After they end, the realization often occurs spontaneously.
By using reason: For example, get advice, to learn to communicate, to look at a situation from another side, to focus on something useful, to perceive thoughts.”
Not only utility, but also moral responsibility obliges us to learn to distinguish our emotions and to be able to work with them effectively for the benefit of ourselves and society. Some emotions should not be suppressed unnecessarily and should be shared with others, other emotions are good to control and ventilate in an appropriate way. Only our attitude can guarantee us joy and happiness. It is not necessary to change the stimulus, it is enough if we change our thinking about the stimulus. For example, if we put a rabbit in front of a certain number of people, each of them may take a different attitude towards it. One may be afraid of it, another will feel excited, another will be uncomfortable with its smell, and for another it may be a creature they want to care for. The object of their diverse feelings is always the same. The subject does not change, only the stimulus and the attitude towards the given hare changes. If we can think about it, we will realize a very simple yet important thing. How we treat people and things and how we behave in various situations, what feelings it evokes in us, can mostly be influenced only by us.
Emotionality in the sphere of art. Emotionality and experientiality are an integral part of art, literature, music, etc. Experiencing is an essential element in the creative sphere. According to I. Ruisla (2008: 33) “emotional experience can also be explored through art”. We cannot understand or enjoy art without feeling it. This would also lead to a decrease in happiness and joy from art and everyday things. It mainly happens when we neglect our emotional side and look at the world too rationally. When our emotions are controlled the reason and rationality, our experiencing is of these emotions is limited. These components of rationality and emotionality must constantly cooperate. If you give mathematical logarithms to a group of mathematicians, they certainly have to engage their minds to use knowledge and logical reasoning, analysis and synthesis. But if they want to solve the problem effectively, they should also involve their cooperative behaviour, they should not give up in the face of obstacles and problems that arise during the solution, they should be able to communicate effectively with each other and be creative when finding a solution. These aspects are included in the emotional intelligence, which, as we see, is also necessary for purely rational problems.
Art is of great importance for emotionality and intellect. It is such a phenomenon that we can perfectly feel only through our perception. Listening to music, dancing, painting, reading are activities in which we cannot be authentically involved unless we involve emotionality. These are elements in which human experiencing is essential. For example, literature offers us an incredible place of mediated experiences and knowledge. We have the opportunity to encounter ethical dilemmas, and we have the opportunity to learn how the opposite sex thinks through the literary character in the story. Through art, we get an experience perceived by our emotionality, which, however, needs to be further processed. Here the necessary cooperation with reason is shown. In order to be able to realize the moral aspect of a literary work, draw further from it and use it in real life, rationality must enter into this process of experiencing. Rationality will enable us to complete the process of becoming aware of doing good, because rationality reflects on the literary work and its moral message and, based on experience, it can predict the possible consequences of our actions. I. Lomnický (2011: 25) states that “art conveys knowledge, but at the same time it offers and brings us closer to the inner view of a person and thus motivates and encourages us to think about life. Therefore, in connection with literature, but also with art as such, we should think about its moral aspect in addition to its artistic value. Experientiality, which is closely connected to emotionality, is its most important feature, through which we can empathize with various situations, and which then motivates us to think about ourselves, others, and the world.”
Nowadays, people devote themselves to art less, they do not train themselves to experience what is beautiful. At the same time, art brings pleasant and useful feelings such as joy, gratitude, interest, hope, inspiration, well-being and directly affects our emotional development. In this context, we can talk about “emotional atrophy, when there is a decrease in happiness and a negative impact on the intellectual and moral side of a person can also be observed. Person’s mediated experience, moral responsibility, which is an essential part of human nature, is weakened.” (Rollo, 1993: 47) Through the literary protagonist, it allows us to understand the motives of other people, for example from the point of view of the opposite sex and it awakens and improves empathy as well as understanding of others. It is a space for the formation of morality in a person and includes unconscious and conscious learning about emotions, human relationships, communication skills and other abilities and competences that emotional intelligence understands.
Conclusion. In this article, we dealt with the importance of emotionality in human life, which, however, should also be accompanied by rationality. The harmony between these two components of social intelligence largely determines the formation of attitudes towards oneself and the environment. We have pointed out the great influence of self-experience, the manifestations of which act on the outside and with the help of which we build our social interactions. That is why we are responsible for them. We dealt with the effects of emotional intelligence on us and on others. Its great advantage is that we can deal with negative feelings and can identify their origin. It is one of the prerequisites so that we can direct our experience and behaviour in the right way and remain authentic in our relationships. Thanks to this, our experience will be sincere, and our emotionality balanced. One of the main factors related to emotionality and rationality is our subjective attitude. We create this subjective attitude by ourselves, it represents our thinking. It reveals our values, attributions and its positive direction depends to a large extent on the individual. We also commented on the activities that should accompany us, because they are important for our real experiencing. It is culture in various forms, especially art and literature. We use them to shape our behaviour and gain mediated experience so that we can confront the authentic world. Emotions are one of the main carriers of information about us and others and are the basis of our experience. However, unless we learn to perceive our emotions, identify them, realize the causes of their occurrence, or suppress them, our life will not be based on quality and authentic relationships. Through self-knowledge, self-regulation and self-motivation, as elements of emotional intelligence, we build the ability to notice the needs of others, recognize their experiencing and expand our social competences. Conscious awareness of these factors helps to maintain healthy and harmonious relationships with oneself and the surrounding world.
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