ABSTRACT
The study concerns the question of how much the emotional competence and the ability to cope with problems in one's own personality increase in the process of professional psychological education, for which students of different years of study were tested. The aim of this study is to deeply diagnose various components of psychological flexibility and the ability to cope with unexpected events among psychology students. The study involved 30 students from 1 to 4 years of university grade level participated into study, divided into 4 equal groups from. Based on testing various aspects of psychological flexibility, emotional intelligence test (EQ test), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) and D.V. Lyusin emotional intelligence instrument (Emin) were used; it was tested using Student's t-test and Kruskal-Wallis H-test to evaluate differences between three or more samples simultaneously. As a result of the study, the significant differences between all groups of participants and between the assessment of individual factors of psychological flexibility in different groups was accepted. Each of the groups demonstrated its specific characteristics of the relationship between emotional competence and coping with stress. Comparison of the results of students from different years of study showed that psychological education does not have a significant effect on emotional intelligence as an indicator of emotional flexibility, but positively affects the development of coping with stress, although in predominantly passive forms. The practical application of the research lies in improving psychology students' learning; the research results can be used as methods for determining psychological flexibility factors that require development in study groups.