Communicative potential in the official activity of law enforcement employees
The purpose of this study is a comparative analysis of the structure of the communication potential of police officers with different length of service. The article focuses on understanding the communicative potential as an integrated ability to establish and maintain all kinds of contacts in order to successfully communicate in the professional activities of police officers. Based on a theoretical analysis, the components of communicative potential are identified and subsequently investigated: personal adaptation, self-control, communicative attitude, tolerance and empathic abilities. The object of the study was 67 law enforcement officers with experience of up to 5 or more than 10 years. As a result of the analysis, data were obtained on the specific structure of the communication potential of police officers with different length of service. The communicative potential of employees whose service experience is no more than 5 years is primarily characterized primarily by negative communicative attitudes, intolerance towards others, while the components of communicative self-control are low in weight. Indicators such as behavioral regulation and moral normativeness were not included in the overall structure of communicative potential. The structure of the communicative potential of police officers with over 10 years of experience is characterized primarily by indicators of communicative self-control and the empathic abilities. Respondents in this group are characterized by a low level of negative manifestations in communications. They are also characterized by a higher level of personal adaptive potential, which is decisive in the development of the communicative potential components. According to the results of the study, together with the psychological service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, recommendations were developed aimed at developing the communicative skills of law enforcement officers through psychological correction of mental tension, emotional-volitional excitability and other adverse mental states manifested in destructive behavioral reactions obtained during professional communication.