Kuznetsova, A.S.

Background. According to VTsIOM, the demand for psychological services in the Russian Federation continues to increase along with the increase in the demand from the system of rendering psychological assistance to the population for training of competent specialists (counseling psychologists, educational psychologists, psychologists in emergency services, sports psychologists, psychologists for social and medical institutions). One of the key professional tasks of these specialists is to provide psychological counseling. At the moment, there is insufficient data in the literature on the psychological analysis of psychologists’ work activity related to the task of counseling.

Objective. The goals include: analyzing objective data on normative components of work for psychologists who carry out psychological counselling for the population; revealing subjective representations of counselling psychologists about the content and process of their professional activity; revealing stress-factors in the profession of counselling psychologist, based on the comparison of objective data on labor components and counselling psychologists’ subjective representations about their work.

Study Participants. 20 counselling psychologists who provide psychological counselling service to the population.

Methods. Document analysis, structured interview, analysis of professional standards, as well as labor method were applied.

Results. The obtained results reflect the matches and differences between objective requirements to the structure of labor activity realization and subjective representations of the specialists about the profession “psychologist”. These consistencies along with inconsistences were obtained in the process of analysis and comparison of the normative components of professional activity and subjective ideas of counselling psychologists about work. Stress factors in the work of consulting psychologists were identified.

Conclusions. The correspondence of objective requirements to normative components of work and subjective perceptions of normative components of work in the professional activity of counselling psychologists is revealed. The conducted analysis allows to make assumptions about the factors of professional stress in their work.

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 paper outlines the main branches of research work and development projects carried out by researchers and lecturers of the Work and Engineering Psychology department, Faculty of Psychology. It studies the contribution of the four heads of the department (professors V.P.Zinchenko, E.A,Klimov, Yu.K.Strelkov, A.B.Leonova) to the development of the main research areas within psychology of work content and work environment, as well as in workers’ psychology. 

Results. The main research results obtained by the department's staff are arranged according to the main areas of scientific research supervised by the head of the department: 1) The 60s and 70s: studies of cognitive and senso-motor processes in the work of automated system operators — the birth of engineering psychology (V.P. Zinchenko) and the revival of labor psychology (Yu.V. Kotelova); 2) The 80-90s (E.A. Klimov) - problems of human psychology as subject of labor: research of professional consciousness, work motivation, mental regulators of labor based on the psychological interpretation of the subject of labor activity and its components; 3) The first decade of the XXI century (Yu. K. Strelkov) - research of transport professions, the formation of a temporal approach in engineering psychology, methods for studying the operational and semantic experience of a professional; 4) 2015-2020 (A.B. Leonova) - a series of studies of occupational stress and other functional states on the basis of structural-integrative approach; problems of organizational psychology and cognitive ergonomics. 

Conclusion. The study singles out and discusses prospective areas of future research, such as psychology of professional health, psychology of rest, psychology of security (of an individual, collective, organization, society as a whole); psychological study of the transformation of professionals’ psyche in the digital age, psychology of trust. 

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.

Relevance. It is stressed that the structural-integrative approach for human functional states’ analysis, elaborated at the end of 80s on the base of system analysis of work activity, formed the appropriate theoretical frame for evaluation and prediction of workability and reliability alteration. At present, in innovative work environment, this approach is still the adequate base for urgent and challenging issues, both scientific and practical, such as analysis of work activity regulation mechanisms in tensed work situations; evaluation of a state’s self-regulation in work conditions under long-term strain; elaboration of applied programs for the development of adaptation resources.

Objective. The article focuses on the basic issues of the structural-integrative approach, where a state is defined as a special structure of inner means for tasks execution regulation, acquired by a subject under specific work conditions to human functional states’ analysis. The main aim – the estimation of the approach capabilities for human functional states’ investigations in modern organizational and professional environment.

Method. Methods of multilevel assessment of a functional state’s manifestation are analyzed. The possibilities of data integration technologies, used for different functional states identification, are discussed. The different technologies for self-regulation of a state are viewed taking in account their capabilities to develop and improve the individual adaptation potential in work.

Results. The results of the main research based on the structural-integrative approach is overviewed. Special attention is given to the following question: is the structural-integrative approach worth implementation for the evaluation of a human functional state in applied research, when it is not possible to get data about manifestations of a state on all necessary levels - physiological, psychological (including cognitive and subjective sublevels) and behavioral. The example of such research is presented. 

Conclusions. The results ofmore than 30 years of the structural-integrative approach implementation proved its efficiency for human functional states’ evaluation in dynamic work environment. The possibilities of the approach for functional states’ analysis under work conditions of high autonomy and self-determination in work tasks planning and execution are defined.

The empirical study is targeted to estimate the subjective value of rest and to analyze rest as an activity for efficient recovery. The study was conducted in employees of different industrial and service organizations. The results showed that mostly by all respondents rest is accepted as an important instrumental value for workability maintenance. At the same time, high rating positions of rest in the life values list does not always transform rest value into the intention to arrange recreation purposively. The type of attitudes to rest determines different approaches to rest arrangement: proactive (based on anticipative rest planning) or reactive (which manifest itself in acceptance of rest as necessary recreation combined with no special rest arrangements). The extraction of indirect rest attributes seems to be possible on the base of psychosemantic analysis of the notions form work and rest domains. The semantic distance evaluation of the work and rest notions allows revealing different meanings of recreation: as a forced necessity because of work and for work, or as a possibility for recovery.

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.