A thematic issue of the journal "Extreme Psychology and Personal Security" (No. 3, 2025) has been published, dedicated to stressful professions determined by an objective criterion. The issue's thematic editor is Tatiana Nikolaevna Berezina, Professor, Doctor of Psychology, Professor of the Department of Scientific Foundations of Extreme Psychology, Faculty of Extreme Psychology, MGPPU.
Objective stress factors of professions play a key role in understanding the specifics of the work of specialists who face increased workloads on a daily basis. This is the performance of work involving a risk to life, performing work in dangerous (physical, climatic, chemical and other) conditions, physically or psychologically hard work, and a number of others.
As an objective criterion for the stress of a profession, we suggest considering the possibility of early retirement. These include: specialists who have the right to receive an early insurance pension after reaching the required length of service in this profession or the right to a retirement pension. The main groups of professions that meet this requirement are: professions of special risk (military service, in the systems of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, FSIN, Ministry of Emergency Situations, Rosgvardiya, etc.), professions of physical labor performed in special conditions (miners, aviation workers, etc.), some professions of the public sector (secondary school teachers, certain categories of medical staff), civil service employees, creative workers, and a number of other categories.
Psychological support for representatives of these groups becomes especially important throughout their professional career. Our articles reflect this fact, the objects of research are both professional adherents who are just acquiring a stressful specialty (cadets of the Russian Guard – a study by V.A. Bogan and K.E. Buzanov), working professional specialists (employees of the patrol and guard service and the cynological service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs – a study by M.I. Morozova, K.V. Kupchik and M.Y. Yashneva), medical professionals (review study by Kaplan, a doctor from the University of Harran (Turkey)), as well as representatives of high-risk professions, including those who have retired (a study by T.N. Berezina).
The issue opens with a large article by T.N. Berezina "Personal resources of professional longevity of representatives of high-risk professions of different age groups." It is dedicated to extending the working age of representatives of high-risk professions.
Risk factors for representatives of stressful professions are discussed in detail in a joint article by Moscow and St. Petersburg psychologists M.I. Morozova, K.V. Kupchik and M.Y. Yashneva "Emotional and personal characteristics of stress resistance of employees of internal affairs bodies".
Innovative technologies in the field of psychological training are presented in the article "Psychological training of Rosgvardiya cadets for basic weapon handling using virtual reality methods", where new methods of providing activities in extreme conditions are proposed.
International cooperation in the field of studying stressful professions is reflected in two articles by foreign colleagues. V. Kaplan's article "Stress and psychological safety of medical workers: current findings and support strategies" analyzes the causes of stress in medical workers. The article by Maria Crisnatalia and co-authors from Indonesia, "The influence of attitudes towards safe driving on risky driver behavior: a study using a car simulator," provides data from an interesting empirical study. The authors used a car simulator to test the hypothesis that a high level of safe driving would be associated with a lower frequency of risky driving behavior.
The Methodological Toolkit section of the issue includes two articles devoted to the development and testing of new diagnostic techniques that may be useful, among other things, for the selection of specialists in stressful professions. The article by O.A. Ulyanina and co-authors "The Verum 1.0 software and hardware complex: an innovative tool for personnel selection and evaluation" describes the empirical verification of the effectiveness of the VERUM-EYE tracker in combination with verification questions and questions of controlled lies to identify intentional concealment of information by a person. I.N.'s article The essay "Verifying the validity of nonverbal evaluation scales of the semantic differential" presents the results of testing a graphical version of the semantic differential, confirming its effectiveness when compared with stimulative verbal material.
In conclusion, we note that stressful professions include a large number of different types of activities. And the role that representatives of these professions play in society is extremely important. Therefore, research in this area continues, and our journal will repeatedly present new materials on this topic on its pages.
Listen to episodes of the PsyJournals LIVE podcast, where the authors discuss their research:
Tatyana Nikolaevna Berezina discusses the personal resources for professional longevity in high-risk professions of different age groups.
Kirill Eduardovich Buzanov discusses the psychological preparation of Rosgvardia cadets for basic weapons handling using virtual reality methods.