The Phenomenon of Corrupt Behavior and its Associative-Conceptual Component in the Social Representations of the Heads of Departments of the Traffic Police Road Patrol Service

Abstract

The topic of corrupt behavior with a high degree of public danger remains relevant in science and practice. It is not trivial to study corrupt behavior at the level of social representations as a manifestation of the psychological space of a social group, namely a professional group of traffic police officers. The purpose of the study is to determine the features of social ideas about the phenomenon of corrupt behavior, identified on the basis of the establishment by respondents of associative-semantic relations with other concepts. In the course of an empirical survey carried out in an online format with the heads of the State Traffic Inspectorate, a survey, analysis of specific situations and the method of directed associations were applied. The main results consist in finding the content and structural features of social representations of corrupt behavior revealing a close associative relationship with the categories of social mentality, professional environment, corruption risk, legal awareness and professional deformation. The obtained conclusions can serve as a starting point for experimental research and the formation of explanatory theoretical knowledge.