Psychosemantic Features of Professional Consciousness of Engineers

Abstract

This article presents results of an empiric study of psychosemantic features of professional consciousness of engineers: the associative structure of key professional notions has been determined, and its key properties have been revealed. The method of free associations has been applied; J. Sax’s and S. Levis’s Unfinished Sentences projective technique; original questionnaire. It was proved that engineers are distinguishable for the desire to get promoted to a higher position while retaining inclination toward the present area of activity; functional autonomy; dependence on organization; internal control locus in the situation of professional problems; long-term professional planning; orientation toward refraining from inflicting damages upon others and themselves; balanced moral principles. An associative experiment has been held with stimuli words that concern professional sphere and with words unrelated to the profession. 1524 reactions to 37 stimuli words have been received in total. Building associative complexes for every stimulating notion allowed to reflect contemporary perceptions of respondents about each of them. The following most frequently occurring associations to the “work” stimulus have been highlighted: knowledge, experience, skills, work routine, Monday-Friday, boss, half-life, prospects, growth, success, hard. One of the features of professional consciousness of engineers is fixation of own subordination in performance of professional duties; inclination toward timely accomplishment of simple professional tasks; orientation of mindset toward integrity and discipline in business communication.