Peculiarities of Time Perception as Indicators of Law Enforcement Officers’ Psychological State during Professional Training

Introduction. The psychological aspects of time perception as an indicator of the psychological state of police officers during the period of professional training are considered. The authors substantiate the relevance of assessing the psychological state during the period of self-isolation. The aim of the study is to determine the characteristics of the perception of time and psychological state during the period of forced self-isolation. Materials and Methods. The following methods were used: semantic time differential (SDT), method for determining the reproduction of time intervals — Individual minute, scale of subjective well-being, scale of problematic use of the Internet. There was employed a specialized software package “Excel 2013”, “IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0”, “Statistics for Windows 13”. The comparative analysis used the data of 101 law enforcement officers during the period of distance learning and afterwards on the basis of the St. Petersburg University of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Results and Discussion. Significant differences were revealed in terms of subjective perception of time parameters by law enforcement officers during their training, subjective well-being, problematic use of the Internet. During forced self-isolation, the indicator according to the “Individual minute” method increases, but there is a large scatter from the average value; after the distance learning mode, the duration of the minute decreases with less significant deviations from the average. The results of the empirical research obtained through the methods of the «Scale of Problematic Internet Use» indicate more frequent use of the Internet by law enforcement officers in the process of distance learning, both to communicate and compare themselves with others and to regulate their mood when leaving the distance learning mode. Conclusions. During the period of distance learning, in the process of professional training, law enforcement officers show the signs inherent to disorders of the psychoemotional sphere: sleep disturbances, a subjectively experienced feeling of pointless anxiety, response to minor difficulties, etc., while during distance learning, satisfaction with daily activities is noted.