Позитивно-психологический подход как фактор стимулирования психологического благополучия и редуцирования рисков профессионального выгорания педагога

Abstract

The article presents the results of our study of personal potential and personality traits of teachers. The study focused on the ways of preventing professional burnout and maintaining and increasing psychological well-being. There are a large number of approaches to describing personality traits and their relation to one’s profession. However, the positive psychology’s approaches to describing personality within the professional sphere are, in our opinion, insufficiently presented in the available Russian literature. This article aims to establish interconnections between the concept of Values in Action (VIA) and personal indicators of the psychological well-being of an individual. The psychological well-being is examined based on life satisfaction, self-esteem, self-efficiency, professional burnout and a number of socio-demographic indicators in a sample of Russian teachers. The study aimed to identify the general level of psychological well-being and professional burnout of teachers in Russia, test the relevance of using the positive psychological concept of VIA as a research tool for describing personality in the professional sphere, and establish relationships between certain strengths of the personality of teachers, their psychological well-being and professional burnout. The study involved 7946 teachers (7466 women, 480 men) from seven regions of Russia. The following methods were included in the questionnaire: “Life Satisfaction Scale”; “Self-Esteem Scale”; “Scale of General Self-Efficiency”; “Professional Burnout”; “Values in Action — Inventory of Strength”. The study revealed that there is a need to stimulate the psychological well-being of teachers—in particular, by providing teachers with training in how to reduce professional burnout. The VIA concept and the positive psychology’s approach were shown to be effective and relevant tools for studying the issues described above. The study also established specific relationships between certain strengths of the personality, psychological well-being and professional burnout of teachers in Russia.