Negative Informational and Psychological Impact as a Determinant of Stagnation of Professional and Personal Development in Representatives of Law Enforcement Agencies

Background. Improving the work on psychological prevention of stagnation in professional and personal development of employees (military personnel) as well as counteracting the spread of negative information and psychological effects provide for professional efficiency and reliability of the personnel of law enforcement agencies.

Objectives. The article is aimed at studying the issues of negative information and psychological impact as determinants of stagnation in professional and personal development of representatives of law enforcement agencies.

Study Participants. The study was conducted on a sample of 163 people (62 police officers, 87 military personnel, 14 employees of the penal enforcement system). The participants are men who have been in office for more than 3 years and are experiencing negative information and psychological effects; the average age is 32.4 years.

Methods. Questionnaire for studying the impact of negative information and psychological effects on the personnel of law enforcement agencies; questionnaires for assessing the stagnation of professional and personal development and assessing the information stress tolerance by V.E. Petrov’s employees were applied. Descriptive statistics, frequency analysis, evaluation of differences using the Mann-Whitney U-test, correlation analysis by Ch. Spearman were used for statistical processing of the empirical data.

Results. With intense negative information and psychological impact, representatives of law enforcement agencies expressed: a subjective feeling of stagnation, loss of motivation for self-realization, awareness of stagnation in development. Such characteristics of personality and behaviour as information intelligibility, moderate information activity and sensitivity to stress, stress regulation of behaviour act as protectors from stagnation under the influence of negative information and psychological effects.

Conclusions. The study found that representatives of law enforcement agencies integrate negative intensive informational and psychological impact into the overall assessment of the level of psychological stress in the service. The etiology and generalization of information stress and stagnation of professional and personal development among police officers, the penal enforcement system officers, and military personnel are largely similar. Countering negative information and psychological effects and overcoming stagnation phenomena in professional and personal development can serve as the basis for a system of prevention of deviant behaviours in the personnel of law enforcement agencies.

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