Specific Features of the Professional I-Concept of Patrol Police Officers Depending on the Availability of Previous Experience in the Ministry of Internal Affairs
The paper is focused to the study of the professional I-concept of patrol police officers and the features of this concept, depending on the availability of previous experience in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The definition of I-concept, self-appraisal, awareness and self-consciousness of a personality has been revealed. The modern approaches to the problem of the professional I-concept in psychology have been analyzed. The author has presented the results of the empirical study, which was attended by police officers divided into 2 groups – those who used to serve in the internal affairs agencies (IAA), and those who did not have experience in the militia. During the research the author has studied the representations of police officers about themselves and about the ideal police officer, the levels of self-appraisal of police officers, peculiarities of their career orientations and self-efficacy. It has been experimentally established that the self-appraisal of police officers without experience in the IAA is overestimated. The specifics of the system of representations of patrol police officers of different groups about their own professionally relevant personality qualities and the specifics of the system of representations about their own communicative qualities have been also researched. The author has demonstrated the vision by police officers who do not have the experience in the IAA, the image of an ideal patrol police officer, their understanding of the ideal police officer, as well as their vision of themselves as the bearer of leadership qualities, the attitude towards authoritarianism and dictatorial manifestations. Based on the research the author has also noted the specifics of career orientations and the peculiarities of the effectiveness of patrol police officers, depending on their previous experience in the police. To solve the problems, the author has used the following psycho-diagnostic techniques: “Personal differential”; Lyri method of diagnosis of interpersonal relations; “Career Anchors” by Edgar H. Schein; Scale of general self-efficacy; S. Budassi methodology.