Titova, M. 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 study of professional identity in the representatives of the information technology sphere is connected to the problem of directing modern specialists in the world of work which is rapidly changing and structuring the system of tasks in a new way. This requires the compliance of the psychological characteristics of an employee with computerised forms of job functions. The present work aims to research the features of professional identity among representatives of the information technology sector with different job experience in order to understand identity transformations during the professionalization in a more profound way.

Methods. The respondents are offered to fill in a questionnaire for social status data, the «Trust in technology» questionnaire (Akimova, 2020), semantic differentials for the evaluation of one’s personal qualities (Ginetsinsky, 1994), and the evaluation of oneself as a professional (Serkin, 2016).

Sample. It has totaled to 52 respondents studying and working in the field of Network and System Management, Innovation, Information Systems and Technologies related to the IT sphere.

Results. The data demonstrate two statistically significant trends in the development of the professional identity in the representatives of the IT sphere: the linear and the structural ones. The first trend shows the gradual entry into one's own specialty which is expressed in a consistent complication of ideas about oneself as a professional, the growth in confidence in one's own qualification, competence, and knowledge. The second trend is supported by restructuring the emerging ideas about oneself in the profession with the growth of real practical experience. Unlike students, in working specialists, it is expressed in «ignoring» personal characteristics and emphasizing professionally important qualities against the background of a growing confidence in technology and the degree of mastery.

Conclusion. The common feature of all the participants under the study is a positive attitude towards the introduction of information technologies and experiencing difficulties in mastering them. Professional identity of the respondents belonging to the same professional field which is characterized by rapid and diverse change has got features that distinguish different stages of professionalisation.

The results obtained make it possible to adjust the training programmes of IT specialists, taking into account the required competences as well as personal characteristics in order to approach the model of a specialist in the IT field.

Relevance. The article presents the results of published studies’ review and the empirical study, targeted to estimate job stressors and proactive coping strategies in nurses during COVID-19 pandemic. The research urgency is connected with the necessity to evaluate psychological availability of nurses to be resistant to high work strain and risk of SARS-CoV-2 contamination.

Objectives. The research aim: to compare stress level, job stressors evaluation and proactive coping strategies in nurses with high and low chronic states.

Methods. Diagnostic set included: Chronic stress and fatigue inventories by A.B. Leonova; Job stress survey by Ch. Spielberger; Professional burnout inventory by N.E. Vodopyaynova; Proactive coping inventory by E. Greenglass; checklist “Means states’ optimization” by A.S. Kuznetsova.

Sample. Hospital nurses (n = 306; age 43,2±10,9; service 20,7±11,5). 

Results. Revealed job stressors are typical for nurses: inadequate salary, insufficient time for breaks, excessive paperwork and increased responsibility. Strong differences in job stressors evaluation are found between nurses of risk group (with high level of chronic states) and nurses with no chronic states (well-to-do group): in risk group, perceived job stress is significantly higher. Proactive coping strategies are quite high. Regression analysis did not reveal coping strategies as stress predictors. Three months after well-to-do nurses still perceived no high job stress, while in risk group perceived job stress increased.

Conclusions.Under pressure of unmanageable pandemic strain, self-evaluation of proactive coping possibilities in risk group and well-to-do group significantly diverged. Most likely perceived stressors are connected with the inability to manage work strain and to minimize the impact of its negative effects.

Relevance. The growing interest in assessment, development and maintenance of professional success is actual in the field of organizational psychology. It emphasizes the need to study the role of effective functional state self-regulation as a factor of professional success. 

Objective. The objective of this article is the systematization of the results of a number of studies on the analysis of effective functional state self-regulation as a factor of professional success.

Method. The complex diagnostic package was used. It includes surveys and questionnaires for analysis of subjective image of working conditions and personal current functional state, means of functional state self-regulation, the symptoms of chronic negative functional states and professional personal deformation as consequences of functional state self-regulation system failure.

Results. The results revealed that the features of the effective functional state self-regulation system as a factor of professional success are associated with the plastic adaptation repertoire of self-regulation means and techniques of highly successful professionals, applied adequately to the working conditions of increased job intensity of short-term and prolonged type.

Conclusions. The obtained results confirm the key importance of specialists` functional state self-regulation in supporting and providing of professional success. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the tensed working condition.

The empirical study of self-regulation means was conducted in employees with different levels of professional experience. The relevance of the study is based on the necessity of scientific data storage concerning human functional state regulation mechanisms. The aim — to reveal main job and organizational factors accepted by employees as the main causes of negative functional states dynamics, to describe the system of self-regulation means and to estimate how typical means correspond to organizational requirements. The results show that the novices tend to activate asocial and aggressive coping behavior as a response to emotional communications with clients and permanent work interruptions. Experienced employees report about more healthy typical coping means that are used in strict conformity with accepted organizational rules.