Professional Culture And Attitude To Personality Security In Future Specialists

Abstract

In current conditions of economic instability, it becomes most important to ensure the economic security of society and the state. The quality of professional activities of specialists depends on professional knowledge and skills, as well as on the professional culture of a specialist. One of the important components of a specialist professional culture is one’s ability to ensure personal security, which consists in protecting vital interests from external and internal threats, preventing such negative consequences as professional deformation and burnout. A study of attitudes towards personal security among university students-future specialists in economic security made it possible to identify the structure of actual fears, especially the perception of people around them, the specifics of perfectionist attitudes, and characteristics of attitudes toward personality. The following questionnaires were used during the study: a questionnaire of the hierarchical structure of actual personal fears, a projective test of hostility, a questionnaire of perfectionism. The results of the study lead to the conclusion that the main risk factors that impede the full implementation of professional activities of future economic security specialists are underestimation of possible risks in the process of social interaction, explicit social fears, self-doubt, shifting the blame onto others and procrastination. The results obtained allowed to substantiate and compile psycho correctional and psycho-prophylactic activities for students aimed at developing skills to achieve the most optimal attitude towards personal security.

Keywords: Professional cultureattitude towards personal securityfuture economic security specialists

Introduction

Currently, in the conditions of economic instability, it is becoming increasingly important to ensure the economic security of society and the state. The economic security of a country is influenced by many factors that act either negatively or positively depending on the attitude of the subject to security (Collins, 2016). These factors are religious, psychological, cultural, political and legal (Morova, Zakharova, Talanova, Dulina, & Nikolaev, 2018).

Experts in the field of economic security should be well informed about the situation and effectively address the challenges in various areas of economic, law enforcement, information, management and research activities. In this connection, these specialists should have skills to identify facts, circumstances and events that pose threats to economic security of various forms of ownership, make decisions taking into account socio-economic risks and available resources, as well as perform professional tasks in various emergency situations, ensuring personal safety and security of citizens (Kormishkin & Sausheva, 2013).

For the most effective performance of professional tasks, specialists in “Economic Security” should have skills to ensure their own personal security in situations that place special requirements on a specialist personality.

According to Krasnyanskaya and Tylets (2016) human security is characterized by a structure of four levels of security related to each other. In this connection, the violation of any of the security levels may adversely affect other levels. The main level significant for survival is physical security, followed by levels of mental security, psychological security and social security (Krasnyanskaya & Tylets, 2016). The authors consider the level of psychological security of a person as personal security, as it is determined by a person’s ability to maintain a state of dynamic balance between a person’s relations with himself, others, the world and his behavioral activity (Eksakusto & Lyz, 2010; Krasnyanskaya & Tylets, 2016).

Other researchers include all threats to the daily life and dignity of a person, his survival and the implementation of activities in the concept of personal security (Konyshev, 2014). At the same time, awareness of security of vital interests from external and internal threats, and the presence of social skills of safe behavior determines the essence of information and psychological security of a person (Lunev, Pugacheva, & Stukolova, 2014).

Thus, the concept of personal security includes all threats to the daily life of a person, his interpersonal interactions and behavioral activity, as well as awareness of an individual security and safe behavior skills.

The studies have shown that safe behavior is indirectly influenced by personal characteristics and peculiar character traits of a proactive personality, shaping attitudes toward safety (Guo, Wei, Liao & Chu, 2016; Ji, Liu, Li, Yang, & Li, 2019). Researchers associate some aspects of professional culture of specialists with safety issues. In this direction, issues of professional culture of doctors in relation to personal safety and patient safety (Danielsson, Nilsen, Rutberg, & Carlfjord, 2018), as well as professional culture of teachers and manifestation of bullying among students (Ertesvåg & Roland, 2015) are considered.

Examining professional culture of a specialist, researchers focus on its relationship with personality traits (Rosenthal, Tsao, Tsuyuki, & Marra, 2016) and professional features of mentality of specialists (Peters et al., 2017). They analyze the essence, structure and mission of professional culture of a modern specialist. The basics of professional culture of the subject of labor as an integrative phenomenon (Laptev, Stolyarenko, Budanov, Grishenko, & Demin, 2018) are studied in detail, the professional culture of the higher school teacher (Kozhanova et al., 2016) and the vocational college (Gao & Xie, 2018) are widely analyzed.

Problem Statement

Analysis of research positions on the issue of attitudes towards students' personal security will allow to identify possible risk factors that impede the effective performance of professional tasks in situations that impose special requirements on the personality of a specialist and create a scientifically based basis for psycho prophylactic and psycho correctional programs aimed at developing skills allowing specialists to provide their own security.

Research Questions

The quality of professional activity is inextricably linked with professional culture, which is a system-forming factor in the development of a future specialist. The professional culture of a specialist in economic security, including not only necessary professional skills, abilities and knowledge, but also such qualities as professional ethics and professional morality, reflects those specific values, attitudes and standards of professional behavior that best meet the requirements for representatives this profession (Zakharova et al., 2018).

Our research is aimed at identifying those attitudes and relations of future specialists in economic security that may hinder the effective implementation of their chosen professional activity. What is the structure of current fears of future experts in economic security? How do these students most often perceive people around them? What perfectionist mindsets do they show? What is the characteristic of the attitude to personal security of these students?

Purpose of the Study

The study of professional culture and the attitude of future specialists of economic security towards personal security addressed the following tasks:

study of manifestation and structure of actual personal fears of future specialists in economic security;

study of the hostility characteristics of future experts in economic security;

evaluation of perfectionist attitudes of future specialists in economic security;

identification of the relationship between manifestation of personal fears and characteristics of hostility and perfectionism in future specialists in economic security;

identification of psychological risk factors that may impede the quality of the professional activity of a specialist in economic security.

The object of the study: personal security as a component of professional culture of a specialist.

The subject of the study: attitude to personal security of future specialists in economic security.

Research Methods

The empirical study was conducted in the Chuvash Republic, Cheboksary.

The study involved 37 students of the Chuvash Republic, Cheboksary, whose speciality is «Economic Security». The average age of them is 20.4 ± 1.9 years.

The study of the attitude to personal security of university students - future specialists in economic security was carried out with the help of:

  • the “Questionnaire of the Hierarchic Structure of Current Fears” offered by Scherbatyh and Ivleva (1998),

  • the “Projective Test of Hostility” offered by Kholmogorova and Garanian (as cited in Garanyan, Kholmogorova, & Yudeeva, 2003),

  • the “Questionnaire of Perfectionism” offered by Garanian and Kholmogorova (as cited in Garanyan & Yudeeva, 2009),

Methods of mathematical statistical processing of the research results were also implemented.

The questionnaire of the hierarchical structure of actual personal fears allows to assess the intensity of the manifestation of a particular fear, as well as the presence or absence of phobic conditions. The questionnaire enables us to classify the studied fears into fears associated with the threat to human life, fears associated with the social functioning of an individual and fears associated with existential threats.

The projective test of hostility is aimed at exploring a person’s stable tendency to negatively perceive his social environment, attributing to him various negative qualities, such as the desire to humiliate, envy, indifference, dominance, etc.

The perfectionism questionnaire is aimed at diagnosing the perfectionist attitudes of an individual: perception of other people as delegating high demands, inflated claims and requirements on themselves, high standards of activity, selecting information about their own mistakes and failures, polarized thinking.

Findings

Personal security as a component of professional culture includes all threats to the daily survival of a person, preserving his dignity and his professional activities. Experienced fear, hostility, as well as personal characteristics and attitudes in the context of values and norms of behavior reflect the individual attitude of a specialist to personal security.

The fear experienced by a person shows the problem areas of a person’s life activity, his attitude to the world around him, helps a person to know himself and his ways of the world vision. In a broader sense, fear is defined as an emotion, which is a person's reaction to his experience of a real or perceived danger to life, health, and psychological well-being (Perevozkin, Perevozkina, Dmitrieva, & Samojlik, 2013).

Viewing hostility as a basic characteristic of the subjective world of a personality, determining its relation to perceived social objects and being formed in the process of gaining life experience, it is possible to identify personality tendencies to perceive reality as potentially dangerous to human health and well-being. Hostility can also be regarded as a communicative attitude of the personality, manifested in the readiness to show aggression towards others (Lukanova, 2008).

Considering the concept of perfectionism, modern researchers solve the problem of differentiation between positive and negative perfectionism. Researchers attribute stringent standards of activity in which a person exhibits more adaptive behavior, not perceiving his/her own mistakes as a tragedy, to the manifestations of a normal adaptive perfectionism. Researchers found out that perfectionism may be associated with irrational fears of performing any public activities or actions related to attention from others (Nasledov & Kiseleva, 2016).

The study of the hierarchical structure of actual personal fears showed that future specialists in economic security revealed a high level of fears associated with the threat to human life, manifested by fear of spiders and snakes (50%), crime (47.2%), and war (27.7%).

The high level of social fears associated with the threat to social status and self-esteem of the personality is characterized by the fear of illness of loved ones (75%), fear of the negative consequences of illness of loved ones (38.8), fear of responsibility (47.2%), fear of «examinations» (44.4%), fear of changes in personal life (38.8%), fear of superiors (33.3%), fear of sexual dysfunction (33.3%).

The high level of fears associated with existential threats concerning the personality of students is characteristic of the fear of the future (36.1%) and the fear of a disease (30.5%), the fear of depth (38.8%), the fear of poverty (30.5%).

These results show that future economic security professionals have the most pronounced and widely represented social fears, a little less pronounced fears associated with a threat to human life and the least relevant fears associated with existential threats.

The results of the study according to the methodology of the «Projective test of hostility» by Kholmogorova and Garanian show (Table 1 ) that significant differences were identified on the scale of «seeing other people as «cold, indifferent, and not inclined to assist» (p <0.00001). This indicates that most of the surveyed students perceive other people as capable of sympathy and assistance. At the same time, 27.7% of respondents see other people «as despising weakness» and 16.6% of students believe that other people tend to show superiority and humiliate.

Table 1 -
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The study showed that most of the surveyed students have a low level of hostility towards others and more often rate people as ready to help in difficult situations and who can sympathize and empathize. These attitudes about people can play both positive and destructive roles, since in some situations the interviewed students may demonstrate possible risks of underestimation and frustration that lead to disappointment and negative emotional reactions.

The study of perfectionism among future experts in economic security showed (Table 2 ) that credibly significant differences were found in all scales of the questionnaire.

Table 2 -
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The results obtained allow us to conclude that future specialists in economic security have pronounced perfectionist attitudes, manifested in the feeling that people around them expect a lot from them (p <0.001), as well as a tendency to set themselves difficult tasks and goals (p < 0.0001), targeting successful people with constant comparison of themselves with them (p <0.05), as well as accumulation of negative information about their own mistakes and failures (p <0.01), evaluation of the result of activity by all or nothing type (p <0.05).

These results suggest that future specialists in economic security have a high level of self-control and practicality, which can be regarded as a positive characteristic of perfectionism. Vivid criticism of oneself, the increased knowledge about one’s own failures, self-doubt are negative and maladaptive. Also, the respondents may avoid solving difficult problems, vent their negative emotions on safer objects and blame others for their failures.

The correlation analysis of the analyzed characteristics of the attitude towards the personal security of future economic security specialists revealed significant positive correlations between the characteristics of perfectionism and actual personal fears.

The perception of other people as demanding is interrelated with the fear of crime (p <0.01), the fear of “exams” (p <0.001), the fear of war (p <0.01), the fear of death (p <0.01), fear of confined spaces (p < 0.001), fear of depth (p <0.001), fear of disease (p <0.01), fear related to sexual function (p <0.01), fear of speaking in public (p <0.001), and an integral indicator of fear (p <0.001).

The scale of inflated claims and demands on oneself is interconnected with the fear of changes in personal life (p <0.01).

The tendency to constantly compare yourself with successful people is interrelated with the fear of disease (p <0.01), fear associated with sexual function (p <0.01), fear of public speaking (p <0.01).

The scale of selecting information about one’s own failures and mistakes is interconnected with the fear of insanity (p <0.01), the fear of superiors (p <0.001), fears related to sexual function (p <0.001), and the integral indicator of fear (p <0.01).

The overall indicator of perfectionism is associated with the fear of falling ill with some disease (p <0.001).

Conclusion

The study of the attitude to the personal security of future specialists in economic security has shown the greatest intensity and representation of social fears associated with the fear of illness of close people, fear of responsibility, situations of knowledge testing and competencies, changes in personal life. These fears can be formed as a result of a feeling of insecurity in one’s own abilities and capabilities, assessing available resources as insufficient for overcoming these problem situations, as a result these situations are perceived by the surveyed students as difficult to tackle and causing a feeling of fear.

The fears associated with the threat to life are represented by the fear of spiders and snakes, crime, depth, war. They show the attitude to situations that a person cannot control and prevent their negative consequences.

The fear of the future, the fear of illness, the fear of poverty and the fear of depth, which we attribute to existential fears, show that the subjects are more afraid of the novelty and uncertainty awaiting a person in future.

The attitude to the personal security of the future specialists in economic security is characterized by a tendency to a positive assessment of the people around them. Such trends can have both positive effects and negative consequences with possible underestimation of risks and deceived expectations. At the same time, a small percentage of the respondents see other people «as despising weakness» and believe that other people tend to show superiority and humiliate.

The increase in perfectionism among the future economic security specialists, identified by the study, indicates their high self-control and self-criticality, as well as the possible predominance of such protective behaviors as avoiding problem solving, shifting negative emotions to safe objects and shifting the blame for failures to others. The interrelationships of the characteristics of perfectionism with actual fears reveal the students perfectionist attitudes as accompanying the states of social anxiety, intolerance of suspense and uncertainty and awareness of uncontrolled external events and situations.

According to the results of the study, it can be concluded that the main risk factors that impede the full implementation of professional activities of future economic security specialists are underestimation of possible risks in the process of social interactions, explicit social fears, self-doubt, shifting the blame to others and avoiding problem solving.

The attitudes towards personal security among the future economic security specialists are characterized by tension in social contacts, anxiety in terms of possible changes and the inability to control all situations, perfectionist attitudes and underestimation of possible risks in interpersonal interaction.

The results of the study allowed to substantiate and compile psycho-correctional and psycho-prophylactic activities for students aimed at developing self-management skills in order to achieve the most optimal attitude to personal security in conditions placing increased demands on the personality of a specialist.

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02 December 2019

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Cite this article as:

Lazareva, E., Zakharova, A., Nikolaev, E., & Emelianova, M. (2019). Professional Culture And Attitude To Personality Security In Future Specialists. In N. I. Almazova, A. V. Rubtsova, & D. S. Bylieva (Eds.), Professional Сulture of the Specialist of the Future, vol 73. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 785-793). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2019.12.83