Individual Mental Representations of Loyalty Development Dynamics
The article is devoted to the dynamic aspect of loyalty as psycho-behavioral participation of an individual in his group. The results of this study empirically verified differences in the mental representation of loyalty between individuals with different levels of loyalty development. Furthermore this study attempted to identify mental constructs, operated at different levels of loyalty in its mental representation. To investigate the relationship between the loyalty level and mental constructs, operated in its mental representation, we measured a contingency between responses to stimuli, representing a number of mental constructs theoretically associated with loyalty, and reactions to stimuli, denoting the eleven different loyalty groups of employees of Russian penitentiary system (N = 2786). Identified common trends in the development of mental representations of loyalty, in particular, the dynamics of its main components, theoretically allocated according to the results of the literature analysis. The congruence of loyalty group and of "I" in mental representation arises at the early stages of loyalty formation and is one of the basic characteristics of the loyalty phenomenon. Positive sentiment of loyalty group and satisfaction with it qualitatively grow in the mental representation of loyalty as it develops. Already at the initial level of loyalty there is a feeling of "security" in the group - the first positive emotion that is associated with the group in the mental representation of loyalty. Then a positive assessment of the group partners and relationships with them is formed. Last at the initial level of loyalty arises the feelings of "joy" and "novelty" of the group. When moving to the level of a well-developed loyalty, it begins to be associated with a sense of "inner peace". The components of the motivational significance of a loyalty group arise in its representation not simultaneously. At the lower levels of loyalty to a group, it begins to be associated with "activity", "self-realization", and "self-affirmation". The reflexive component of motivation of group loyal members arises in the mental representation later, when loyalty is already well-developed. Described qualitative changes are the most typical, regardless of the type of loyalty group, at least in the eleven test loyalty groups studied. At the same time, loyalty representations also have many specific features in the dynamics of their structural complication in various groups. The results of this study can help to clarify the essence of the loyalty phenomenon and to improve the ways of its psychological assessment and correction.