Psychosemantic Study of Police Officers' Life Performance during Lockdown

Introduction. Forced self-isolation during the period of coronavirus infection once again in practice showed the social nature of a person, his need for daily direct communication with other people. The developed life conditions during this period were experienced in different ways: for some, as a traumatic situation, for others, as a period of searching for new resources and activating various potentials. The aim is a psychosemantic study of the characteristics of police officers' life performance during the lockdown. Materials and Methods. The survey included trainees of faculties of administration and post-graduate students of the faculty of scientific and pedagogical personnel training of the Academy of Administration of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Thirtyfour respondents were anonymously questioned through Google-forms from April to June in 2020. A psychosemantic approach was employed. The data collection was carried out via method of free associations to the stimulus “life performance during lockdown”. The semantic field obtained consisted of 306 words. The associations were classified according to semantic groups. To reveal the largest semantic units service https://облакослов.рф. was used. This enabled the authors to create visualization of the most frequently used associations (100) in the form of “word cloud”. Results and Discussion. Nine consolidated semantic categories connected with the vision of a lockdown as a resource and stress-factor were identified; satisfaction of needs in acceptance, self-development and security; other two semantic categories comprised characteristic of activity, performance and behavioural strategy during lockdown, a separate semantic group indicated attitude to work and service. The lockdown turned to be a resource period for law enforcement officers. The primary strategy of protection from extreme social situation was immersion in professional activity. Conclusions. Police officers' psychological well-being and viability during the lockdown were revealed, which is proved by the content of the identified semantic groups, where the lockdown is generally associated with professional activity, resourceful state, self-development in relevant environmental conditions.