Factors of Professional Personality Deformations - Business Psychology

Factors of professional personality deformations

The main factors include the nature of the activity, the individual characteristics of the specialist, the socio-psychological conditions of the environment, organizations, as well as the factors of culture, socio-political environment, the significance of which was especially evident during the transformation of society.

One of the most important factors of professional deformation is the formation of stereotypes of activity. Stereotyped actions arise in multiple repetition as the result of automation. This, of course, facilitates the performance of activities, but prevents the perception of new forms of activity, inhibits the adoption of innovations.

Identify such psychological determinants of personality deformities.

1. Unsuccessful motives for choosing a profession (conscious motives and unconscious).

2. Failures, negative emotions, disappointments, discrepancy of expectations initiate the development of professional disadaptation of the person.

3. The emergence of stereotypes of the implementation of professional functions, actions, operations. Stereotypes are formed to automate and simplify activities. Their negative influence affects when they spread to a large number of work situations, turning into stereotypes of thinking, behavior and activity. A person is lost in non-standard situations, and then erroneous actions and inadequate reactions are possible.

4. Psychological protection. Many types of professional activity are characterized by considerable uncertainty, causing mental tension, often accompanied by negative emotions, destructive expectations. In these cases, the protective mechanisms of the psyche come into play. From the vast variety of types of psychological defense, the formation of professional destructions is affected by denial, rationalization, displacement, projection, identification, alienation.

5. Emotional tension of professional work. Often repeated negative emotional states with increasing length of service reduce the frustration tolerance of a specialist, which can lead to the development of professional destruction. Emotional saturation of professional activity leads to increased irritability, overexcitation, anxiety, nervous breakdowns. Such an unstable state of mind was called the syndrome of "emotional burnout". This syndrome is most often observed in teachers, doctors, managers, social workers. His consequence may be dissatisfaction with the profession, loss of prospects for professional growth, as well as all sorts of professional destructions of the person.

6. Psychological saturation with professional activity, dissatisfaction with the image of the profession, low salary, lack of moral incentives.

7. Different accentuations of the character of the person. In the process of long-term performance of the same activity, accentuations are professionalized, weave into the fabric of an individual style of activity and are transformed into professional deformations of a specialist. Each person has his own set of deformations, and they are clearly manifested in activity and professional behavior. In other words, professional accentuations are an excessive reinforcement of certain traits of character, as well as individual professionally conditioned properties and qualities of personality.

8. Age changes. At the stage of professionalization (especially for socionic professions), as the individual style of activity develops, the level of professional activity decreases and conditions arise for stagnating professional development. With the increase in the length of service, a decrease in the level of intelligence is possible, which is often caused by the peculiarities of normative activity, when many intellectual abilities remain unclaimed (unclaimed abilities quickly fade away), the individual limit of the development of the worker, which largely depends on the initial level of education, on the psychological saturation of labor; reasons for the formation of the limit may be dissatisfaction with the profession.