Cultural Intelligence and Strategies of Cognitive Regulation of Emotions as Factors of Foreign Students' Sociocultural Adaptation While Studying in an International University

The specificity of educational work in an international university implies knowledge of cultural differences of the expression and regulation of emotions, which can become an obstacle to a positive intercultural understanding. In this regard, cultural intelligence is important as it ensures the success of intercultural relations. The aim of the study is to identify the features of the relationship of cognitive regulation of emotions and cultural intelligence of Russian and Nigerian students in the context of intercultural communication. The research was conducted on the basis of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. The participants were Russian and Nigerian students aged 19-35. The total sample size was 87 people. The strategies of the cognitive regulation of emotions were studied using the Cognitive Regulation of Emotions questionnaire by N. Garnefski and W. Craig (in the Russian adaptation by O. Pisareva and A. Gritsenko). The Cultural Intelligence Scale questionnaire by P.C. Earley and S. Ang (in the Russian adaptation by E. Belovol, K. Shkvarilo, E. Khvorova) was used in order to identify indicators of cultural intelligence. The cognitive component of cultural intelligence proved to prevail in the students who participated in the research. The dominance of this component involves the ability to recognize cultural signals, focus on obtaining knowledge about a different culture (values, traditions, customs), and the understanding of the cultural consequences of communication. Nigerian students are distinguished by a more pronounced awareness of themselves as subjects included in a foreign cultural environment, by a motivational readiness to interact with people of other nationalities in a foreign country. The dominant strategies of the cognitive regulation of emotions for the Russian students are the strategies of "catastrophising" and "accusation", while "positive focus" and "positive revision" prevail among the Nigerian students. The Russian students more often attribute a global scale to the events that have occurred, tend to exaggerate the negative consequences of what has happened. When regulating their own emotional state, they mostly focus on interpreting the meaning of the event, they focus on their own negative role, tend to blame themselves. The Nigerian students are not inclined to catastrophize life events, which is associated with the peculiarities of Nigerian culture. They accept and cope more easily with stressful and negative events that they try to analyze in a more positive perspective than Russian students. The article describes the specific features of the relationship of cultural intelligence and cognitive regulation of emotions among representatives of the Russian and Nigerian students. The authors pay special attention to stable positive correlations of the components of cultural intelligence and positive strategies of emotional response.