Five stages of professional personality development: Comparative analysis

The purpose of the study is to determine the characteristic features of personal functioning at different stages of professional development. The survey involved 139 professionals from various fields (74 women and 65 men) aged 24 to 67 years. The sample is divided into 5 groups according to the stage of professional development. A comparative analysis of groups by parameters of professional self-realisation, emotional burnout and psychological well-being is carried out. The results obtained demonstrate the nonlinear, complex dynamics of self-realisation of the individual throughout life and clarify the internal mechanisms of professional development at each stage. The stages of primary and secondary professionalisation are accompanied by the greatest need for self-improvement and at the same time, exaggerated and unrealistic ideas about one's own professional competence. An increased symptomatology of emotional burnout has been identified, which accompanies the peak of professional excellence and determines the next stage of professional activity decline after 30 years of work experience. The coincidence of the normative age and professional crises entails a profound crisis of the pre-retirement age, which is characterised primarily by a loss of goal-setting. People who continue to work in the post-retirement age have the highest rates of self-fulfillment, which leads to overall satisfaction with life and self. The described patterns open new perspectives for the development of ways of psychological counselling and organisational support of specialists

Emotional Intelligence and Burnout of Teachers of Higher Education Institutions

Emotional intelligence is an important resource for overcoming professional stress in members of socionomic professions. The research objective is to determine the role of its components in the development of emotional burnout. A natural experiment was conducted, which determined the manifestations of emotional burnout of 56 university teachers at the end of the academic year. The author used the questionnaire. Two experimental groups were identified in the general sample: teachers with burnout and those resistant to burnout (16 and 30 people, respectively). At the end of the academic year, signs of burnout were detected in one-third of university teachers. The leading symptoms are emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation, with no reduction in professional achievement. The dynamics of emotional life during the annual professional cycle are shown. The integrated indicator of emotional intelligence (EI) remains at the same level, but there are structural changes in the components of intrapersonal intelligence. At the end of the year, teachers' attention to their emotional states, work roles, and communication increase significantly. At the same time, there is a decrease in the ability to manage their own emotions. Resistance to burnout is accompanied by a high ability to realise and control their own emotions with a relatively vague focus on the emotional states of others. It was concluded that individual components of EI (intrapersonal and interpersonal, understanding and management) have different effects on burnout symptoms