Emelin, V.A.

Background. The study of professional identity in modern specialists is associated with the need to ensure their psychological well-being in an increasingly complicated professional environment because of the inclusion of information and computer means of work. The present research continues the construction of a conceptual model for the professional identity in the context of digitalization.

Objective. The present stage of our investigation is aimed at constructing a model of professional identity of the modern specialist that allows to outline trends and directions of its changes in the system of self-evaluation as a professional and to link those evaluations with experiencing psychological well-being.

Methods. The respondents are offered the questionnaire for demographic data, the “Trust in technology” questionnaire (Akimova, 2020), the semantic differential for assessing oneself as a professional (Serkin, 2016), C. Ryff ’s scale of psychological well-being in adaptation by T.D. Shevelenkova and T.P. Fesenko (2005), L.B. Schneider’s method for studying professional identity (2001), and free associations to the word “technique” to identify the respondents’ ideas about it.

Sample. 150 respondents (50 men, 100 women) with an average age of 40 years (from 21 to 63) and an average work experience of 18 years (from 2 to 45 years) who work in different professional digital fields.

Results. The present paper describes the structure of ideas about technology, the core of which includes such associations as “a computer”, “technology”, “progress”, convenience”, “telephone”, “innovation”, and “modernity”. The zone of changes includes “work”, “the future”, and “the new” which confirms the digitalization of life and activity of a modern specialist. Those data have been completed by a strong trust in technology and a high degree of its mastering. It identifies three clusters based on the level of psychological well-being which are not associated with the respondents’ statuses of professional identity but relate to the self-evaluation as a professional. A two–dimensional space constituted by two factors: the level of qualification and capacity for work has been constructed. In relation to them, the statuses of professional identity are distributed to determine vectors of possible changes.

Conclusion. The ideas of specialists about technology represent the main trends in the digitalization of professional tools: expanding the range of devices used and their positive assessment. Professional identity of 47 per cent of the respondents is precocious, characterized by the recognition of their own authority but, at the same time, the lack of their independence. Only each third person in this group shows a high level of well–being. The vector model of professional identity constructed in the factor space of self–evaluation as a professional enables to outline the main directions of change in the identity according to two parameters: professional one (content oriented) and individual-personal one (performance).

Practical application of the results. The obtained results broaden the existing ideas about the professional identity of working people with different levels of psychological well-being and allow to outline the directions of their psychological support.

Background. The present paper discusses the relevance of identifying oneself with a professionalism, the attitude to the profession and the role in the professional activity as an integral characteristic of the professional identity among representatives of different positions.

Objective. The identification of the relationship between the professional identity and satisfaction with professional activities (work process, working conditions, organization, choice of profession, etc.) and well-being in the workplace among representatives of various positions.

Sample. 11 558 employees (7,373 women, 63.8%, and 4,175 men, 36.2%) of a large energy company in the Russian Federation.

Methods. The participants filled in the questionnaire on the components of job satisfaction, the scales of the work involvement, the boredom at the workplace, the emotional exhaustion and initiative.

Results. The representatives of different positions are most satisfied with the benefits of their work for people, with their choice of profession and the profession itself and the labour process but they are less satisfied with the working conditions, payment, management and professional prospect. As for representatives of all the positions, involvement in the work, a low level of boredom and emotional exhaustion and initiative depend on not only the satisfaction with working conditions, payment, management and the professional prospect but also on the satisfaction with the choice of profession, the profession itself, its content, the benefit to people and the labour process.

Conclusion. Regardless of the position and satisfaction with working conditions, the satisfaction with the choice of profession, its content and benefits for people and the labour itself predict the involvement in work, initiative, a low level of emotional exhaustion and the boredom at work.

Relevance. Multitasking gets defined socially and dominating with the development of information technologies. It becomes the system of requirements and possibilities for combining, switching and alternating activities of different forms and contents within one complex activity. As a consequence of the technological development of the information society and a result of worldview transformations within the framework of the paradigm of multiplicity of the postmodern culture, the phenomenon of multitasking as a complex form of the activity in the technologized society becomes one of relevant objects of research in psychology and other sciences of man.

Purpose. The theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of multitasking as a reflection of a multifaceted nature and variability of the postmodern culture and a result of the entry of digital technologies of the information society into the daily life in the context of the concepts of multiplicity and complexity.

Method. The logic and methodology of the study is based on the cultural-historical and activity-based and semantic paradigm. The theoretical and comparative analyses and the method of generalization are employed to achieve the defined goals.

Results. The philosophical analysis of socio-cultural, worldview and technological factors that determine the nature of multitasking is carried out. It shows the role of certain philosophical constructs of the postmodern worldview, particular technologies of the information society in developing the basis for the emergence of the phenomenon of multitasking and also its technological embodiment — mediamultitasking.

Conclusions. At present, multitasking is the practice imposed by the specific nature of the information-communication activity under the technologization and complexity of the modern realities. Regardless of the attitude to this phenomenon, multitasking is an objective fact of the culture of the information society and, as a result, is one of the prerequisites for an efficient activity under its conditions.

Acknowledgements: the present study is supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project 19-29-14181 “Multitasking in the Structure of the Digital Socialization: Cognitive and Personal Factors of Efficiency in the Context of the Digitalization of General Education”.

Relevance. The development of information society technologies becomes a crucial point in the transformation of human labour. Technogenic processes of automation, robotization and development of artificial intelligence models have an impact on the transformation of human labour. The future of labour becomes inseparably linked to an ever-increasing complexity and irreplaceability of technological tools. The need to single out a special field of psychology in order to study and predict the relationship between man and technology in the cultural-historical context of information society is on the agenda.

Purpose. The study’s aim is to show the necessity to study the psychological mechanisms of interaction between man and technology in the information society. It is based on the analysis of the main predictive vectors of transformation of labour activity under the influence of high technologies.

Method. The logic of the present research corresponds to the cultural-historical and activity-semantic paradigm. To achieve these goals the author usestheoreticalanalysis, method of generalization, and mental modelling.

Results. The study analyses possible solutions to the problems posed within modern humanities and associated with the technological replacement of a number of professional activities. Along with the traditional philosophy of technology and the developing sociology of technology, it suggests that the psychology of technologyis singled out as an independent sphere of research. It could provide specialized psychological studies of the interaction between people and the technical tools they use.

Conclusions. The development of information society technologies and their integration into the habitual, everyday life, the processes of replacing natural abilities and historically developed kinds of labour activity with technical tools imply a number of problems, especially those having to do with understanding the complexity of relations within the system “Man-Machine”. The answers may be found within the framework of psychology of technology,the task of which is to provide the basis for studying conditions of interaction between man and the surrounding technologies and “smart machines”that are hard to understand for a human being. Understanding their nature becomes increasingly unattainable. The discipline in question also aims at providing a psychological assessment of the impacts of technological progress on the possibilities of human self-realization.

Relevance. The spread of coronavirus infection is accompanied by the dissemination of information messages in the form of radical beliefsaffecting people’s behaviour. 

The aim of the study was to reveal the relationship between beliefs about coronavirus and its treatment, magical thinking, anxiety and the protective behaviour against to the pandemic. Methods. 402 adults aged 18–64 years old filled checklist including beliefs about causes, manifestations, consequences and control of the pandemic, Illness and Treatment Locus of Control Scale, Treatment Self-Efficacy Scale, Magical Ideation Scale as well as scales measuring anxiety and protective behaviour in pandemic and monitoringof information about coronavirus. 

Results. Factor analysis revealed three groups of radical beliefs about coronavirus: negligence as the cause of the occurrence and spread of coronavirus, a particular meaning of morbidity and negative consequences of the pandemic. 

Conclusion. Belief inthe negligence as a cause of coronavirus was more typical for people with an intrinsic locus of causes of the causes of illness but extrinsic locus of control of treatment and for those who were prone to protective behaviour in the pandemic. Belief about the particular meaning of coronavirus was associated with the magical thinking, the intrinsic locus of control of the causes of illness, less anxiety about infection and poorer compliance with self-isolation. Radical beliefs about the consequences of the pandemic were related to more frequent monitoring of the information about the pandemic, extrinsic locus of control of treatment but intrinsic locus of control of causes of illness and a pronounced anxiety regarding future negative consequences of the pandemic.