Policeman’s Professional Deformations in Minds of Modern Youth

Introduction. The study of social representations about a policeman allows adjusting the work on his image, and the study of negative social representations about a policeman and their correlation with types of professional deformations provides information for preventive work with police officers. The purpose of the study is to identify the representation of professional deformations in the image of a policeman in the minds of modern youth, including gender differences. Materials and Methods. An associative experiment was used as a method of data collection, processing was carried out using content analysis. The study involved 85 students of the University of Arkhangelsk aged 17 to 25 years (43 young women and 42 young men). Results and Discussion. The nuclear and peripheral social representations of young people about the policeman are mostly neutral. Neutral ideas prevail in the nuclear sphere, there are more positive ideas than negative ones. Professional deformations related to the type of "behavioral transfer" are expressed slightly and only in the representations of young men. Neutral representations also prevail in the peripheral system, but there are more negative representations than positive ones. The most represented in the image of a policeman are such professional deformations as professional aggression and behavioral transfer, authoritarianism, irresponsibility and conservatism being much less intensive. Negative perceptions are more presented by young women than by young men. Conclusions. The image of a policeman in the minds of young people has undifferentiated character. The type of professional deformation "behavioral transfer" is identified in the core of representations, the types "professional aggression" and "behavioral transfer" are identified in the peripheral system. The negative nature of nuclear representations is expressed by young men, and peripheral ones — by girls.