Simonova, N.N.

Background. Determining the types of professional performance in police officers through correlating the effectiveness and “cost” of activities and identifying the expression of professionally important qualities for each of them allows us to develop and implement programmes of psychological support for employees to preserve their professional health and longevity.

Objectives. The aim of the study is to identify the professionally important qualities of Arkhangelsk police officers with different types of job performance, recommended for a higher position.

Study Participants. The study involved 78 employees of the Arkhangelsk police department (56 males, 22 females) aged from 24 to 55 years.

Methods. The parameters of effectiveness and “cost” of the activity were assessed using questionnaires, instrumental methods and the M. Luscher colour test. Professionally important qualities were diagnosed with a battery of psychological testing methods recommended for use at police departments. Statistical methods included descriptive statistics, two-stage cluster analysis, χ2 for contingency tables and multivariate analysis of variance.

Results. Four types of professional performance have been identified in police officers: 1) high performance, 2) average efficiency while saving resources, 3) efficiency due to the “cost” of the activity, 4) reduced performance. It has been established that there are no statistically significant differences between police officers with different types of professional performance regarding age, work experience, and professional orientation.

Conclusions. Police officers with different types of professional performance differ in their attitude to work, cognitive and intellectual abilities, socio-psychological, emotional-volitional and leadership qualities.

Relevance. Professional reliability is a complex multidimensional construct that is used to predict the professional success of specialists working in extreme conditions. Such forecasting is possible in large-scale studies using complex multi-stage modeling, but the forecast will be abstract, not applicable to individual cases. An alternative is to predict certain aspects of success. At the same time, the components of “personal reliability” have the greatest predictive value, since with the development of civilization and changes in the “man-machine” relationship, the internal content of professional reliability shifted from a predominantly functional component to motivational, moral and socio-psychological, including the phenomenon of self-regulation. 

The purpose of the research is to study the components of personal reliability as possible predictors of certain aspects of professional success of rescuers. 

Sample:31 specialists (men), rescuers of one of the Subdivision Ministry of Emergency Situations AQUASPASS, aged 24 to 45 years. 

Research methods: expert assessment of professional success; self-assessment of the level of professionalism; case method; test questionnaire A.V. Zverkova and E.V. Eydman “Research of volitional self-regulation”; “11 personality factors”; test “Motivational Profile” by Ritchie S., Martin P.; Rosenzweig frustration test; “Express methodology” for studying the social and psychological climate in a team (OS Mikhalyuk and A.Yu. Shalyto); diagnostics of the attractiveness of labor (V.M. Snetkov). 

Conclusions (briefly): a) it is possible to use the indicator of success in a training situation as a predictor of professional success; b) the influence of each of the components of personal reliability on different aspects of professional success is differentiated, therefore, forecasting is more optimal also in differentiated options; c) the effectiveness of socio-psychological interaction makes an important contribution to professional success, and the components of the socio-psychological climate play different roles in this. 

Acknowledgments: The study was carried out with funding from grant 19-013-00799 A “Predictive model of adaptability and reliability of professionals in extreme working conditions”.