Analysis of Military Cadets Professional Identity by Means of Associative Verbal Net
The article is devoted to the professional identity analysis of the cadets of a higher military educational institution with the help of data taken from the mass associative psycholinguistic experiment. A brief overview of the definitions of professional identity formulated by various researchers is given. It is shown that professional identity is the most important component of a person’s psychological well-being. The issue of the psychological well-being of the military is of great importance, since the defense capability and security of the country largely depend on its solution. The article reveals theoretical grounds of associative experiments data application as the tool for the analysis of human identity in general and professional identity in particular. As an example, the analysis of the associative field OFFICER, obtained during the experiment with cadets of one of the military higher educational establishments located in Siberia, is demonstrated. An attempt is made to interpret professional identity based on the structure and composition of this field. The place of the word «officer» in the structure of the main associative databases of the Russian language is analyzed with the purpose of revealing national associations with this word. The author shows that associations appearing in the minds of cadets when they hear this word are largely formed under the influence of a nationwide mass consciousness but have their own specifics.