Взаимосвязь когнитивной оценки трудных профессиональных ситуаций и профессиональной пригодности у страховых агентов

Abstract

The article presents the outcomes of our research into stressful working situations and the role of cognitive appraisal of work conditions for insurance agents. Too little attention has so far been paid to the role of individual characteristics in the perception of stressful professional situations. Studying the role of cognitive appraisal of such situations is relevant for defining the criteria of professional aptitude and predicting professional success. We offer a new approach to defining professional aptitude, which takes into account the peculiarities of cognitive appraisal of stressful professional situations. Our study began with a survey of expert opinion and a questionnaire covering 140 insurance agents from the cities of Volgograd and Lipetsk. Their job experience ranged from 3 months to 32 years. The respondents also varied by the level of professional success achieved. As the outcome of Stage 1, we compiled a list of 7 most stressful work situations as mentioned by insurance agents. During Stage 2, respondents arranged these situations by degrees of stressfulness. Stressful situations were assessed by such parameters as frequency, emotional tension, personal significance, uncontrollability, productivity, suspense. Comparing mean values revealed some variations in appraisals. Stressful situations were assessed as significant, uncontrollable and undefined but at the same time infrequent and not causing emotional tension and productivity. This example proves that the cognitive appraisal of professional situations is ambivalent. According to mean appraisal values, the sample was divided into 3 groups: those with high, middle and low resistance to stressful situations. All of these groups also featured a correlation between professional aptitude and cognitive appraisal of the situations offered. Early career specialists are highly vulnerable to stress, while the next stages of professionalization could show either high and low stress indexes. The study outcomes were confirmed by significant variations on the Mann-Whitney U-test. We conclude that cognitive appraisal characteristics may be used as criteria for diagnosing and predicting professional development of insurance agents.