The thesis theoretically and empirically investigated the problem of emotional intelligence of future specialists of socionomic professions; it also justified the dependence of future specialists' professional development from the development of emotional intelligence. Summary of the results of the study allowed defining emotional intelligence as a complex construct of mental abilities that operates with the emotional information and shapes the emotional experience. The structural-functional model of emotional intelligence was developed. It reflected the performance levels of emotional intellect, its functional and contextual characteristics, the emotional competence, and the emotional experience. The emotional experience was considered as the basis of emotional intelligence at three levels (cognitive, emotional, behavioral); it is a complex of emotional knowledge that a person receives in the course of life and uses in everyday life when interacting with the outside world. It was found that the development of emotional intelligence affects the optimization of professional development of future specialists of socionomic professions; particularly it contributes in the development of emotional readiness for professional socionomic activities. The emotional readiness is considered as an integrative and dynamic characteristic of person, which is determined by a combination of emotional knowledge, and how effectively a person uses this knowledge; it is an important resource for a future specialist. An empirical study of the structural and functional features of emotional intelligence of students was carried out. According to the results of psychological diagnostics three groups of respondents with different levels of emotional intelligence (low, medium and high) were allocated. The study of emotional experience highlighted the following key criteria for its quality assessment: the emotional repertoire, the optimism-pessimism, the actuality-potentiality, the differentiation. The emotional intelligence results in the emotional readiness as the ability to make effective use of emotional knowledge. The specified connection manifests itself in three main types of emotional readiness of the future experts: optimal, sufficient and emerging. Feature occurrence of a specified communication is the separation of the three main types of emotional readiness of future specialists: optimal, sufficient and emerging. Assessment of development of emotional readiness of the future specialist to socionomic activity is carried out on the basis of certain criteria (structural, regulatory, stabilizing), taking into account relevant parameters (the desire for self-development, adaptive professional behavior, awareness of image of professional "Self", emotional health). The procedural model and training program of emotional intelligence of students are presented. Implementation of the developed program increased the level of understanding of emotions, managing and ability to adequately express the emotional attitude to situations; it also increased emotional effectiveness in communication and productive interaction with others; it has significantly expanded the emotional repertoire, increased expression level of positive emotions and decreased levels of negative emotions manifestation, increased the optimism index, the level of awareness and relevance of the emotional experience of students. In addition, the corresponding components of emotional readiness for professional work of socionomic type were developed.
