Socially perceptive images of law enforcement officers with different service experience

Mariya Andreeva

VAK Russia 5.3.9 UDC 159.9

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SOCIALLY PERCEPTIVE IMAGES OF LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS WITH DIFFERENT SERVICE EXPERIENCE Socially perceptive images of law enforcement officers with different service experience

АА Аа

Published in Russian Journal of Deviant Behavior · Volume 6, Issue 1 · Pages 45–61 · Rubric: Psychological research on deviant behavior

Received: 05.11.2025 Accepted: 18.01.2026 Published: 28.04.2026

Authors

Mariya Andreeva

ORCID

Mariya Andreeva

St. Petersburg University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia lecturer · Department of Legal Psychology of the educational and scientific complex for the study of problems of personnel management and moral and psychological support for the activities of internal affairs bodies · St Petersburg

ORCID

ABSTRACT

Introduction. The relevance of the research is due to the shortage of personnel in law enforcement agencies, which, according to official statistics, has been increasing every year. Traditional measures to improve the image of law enforcement officers do not lead to the desired result, thus highlighting the need to study the self-perception and social perception of employees. The question of how law enforcement officers perceive key figures in their professional activities –themselves, their colleagues, and offenders – remains virtually unexplored. The purpose of the research is to identify the characteristics of the structure of socially perceptive images and to examine how it changes depending on professional experience. The research is based on the principle of reflection and classification of images by V.L. Sitnikov: the Self-image, the You-image, and the Other-image. The results of empirical and theoretical research can serve as a basis for developing practical guidelines for preventing the negative perception of the profession, as well as for fostering a positive professional identity, resistant to the influence of stereotypes and stressors. Research methods. The methodology “Structure of the human image (hierarchical)” by V.L. Sitnikov, Wilcoxon’s T-test and comparative analysis were used. Results. The theoretical analysis revealed the main characteristics of socially perceptive images and their intercorrelations. The empirical analysis of the structure of socially perceptual images made it possible to identify reliable differences in the structures of the Self-image, the image of a police officer, and the image of an offender among law enforcers, depending on their service experience. The key characteristics of socially perceptive images making up the core of the image were identified.

KEYWORDS

self-image, image of a police officer, image of an offender, social perception, image of the profession

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