Amidst significant political, social, economic and cultural changes, the number of stressful and psychotraumatic factors that affect professional and life activities, human well-being and health is steadily increasing.
The profession of a teacher is one of the stress-resistant professions and implies the ability to successfully carry out the necessary activities in difficult conditions. In his or her work, a teacher is systematically exposed to psycho-emotional influences associated with excessive demands, a high level of control, limited resources for changing and improving them [1; 19]. Daily contact with other subjects and constant need to address various professional tasks requires significant emotional and energy costs from the teacher, mobilisation of physical and psychological resources, endurance, speed of response in performing professional duties, and stress resistance.
Academics do not have a common understanding of “stress resistance” and the ways to study it. Some authors associate it with emotional stability [2, 7; 8]. Others focus on coping strategies, performance, physiological characteristics, and self-regulation capabilities. Based on psychological research, it has been found that stress resistance is a complex dynamic characteristic that determines a person’s ability to withstand stressful influences or cope with many stressful situations, actively transforming them or adapting to them, maintaining not only the integrity of the body and personality in a stressful situation, but also the required quality of professional tasks (V. Bodrov). [7; 8]. This integrative property involves the interaction of intellectual, emotional, volitional and motivational components of mental activity and ensures the successful achievement of the goal of activity in a difficult emotional situation (P. G. Zilberman) [12; 13].
Stress resistance as a property of the psyche reflects the person’s ability to successfully perform the necessary activities (vital activity) in stressful situations. It involves interaction with all structural characteristics of the psyche both during and after exposure to stressors. Its functions include focus on overcoming obstacles; actualisation of activities in extreme conditions; stabilisation of internal mechanisms of emotional and volitional self-regulation; ensuring the ability to constantly reproduce a high level of professional motivation.
Structural components of stress resistance include cognitive component (skills and abilities to overcome stressful situations, ability to set goals and plan their achievement, autopsychological competence); socio-emotional component (emotional and neuropsychological balance); behavioural component (assertive behaviour, tolerance, communication and interpersonal skills, activity, self-development and self-knowledge). The cognitive component involves understanding the causes of stress, comprehending the pedagogical situation and incorporating its image into the teacher’s holistic view of himself/herself, the environment and relationships with it; searching for and evaluating possible means of overcoming stress; searching for constructive coping strategies, seeking self-reinforcement and support. The socio-emotional component involves the teacher’s awareness and acceptance of his or her feelings and emotions, needs and desires, mastering socially acceptable forms of feeling, controlling the dynamics of experience, eliminating “stuckness”; changing the orientation of the personality, adjusting life values or priorities, expanding the space of social roles, positions and interpersonal relationships, etc. The behavioural component involves restructuring the teacher’s behaviour, adjusting coping strategies and plans, tasks and modes of activity, activating or deactivating the teacher’s behaviour and professional activity [14].
Stress resistance as an integral characteristic of mental development is formed in the process of human ontogeny on the basis of genetically determined individual characteristics and repeated contact of the individual with stressors [5; 6; 10; 15]. This contact involves assessing a stressful situation; regulating activities under stressful conditions; overcoming stress or coping behaviour; and processing traumatic experiences.
Stressors of professional activity are divided into general and specific (D. Fontan). General stressors include:
- lack of a scientific approach to the organisation of activities, when the team works in the “fire brigade” mode;
- insufficient number of employees, which forces others to work in an exhausting mode;
- due to the large volume of work, it is performed poorly or its quality is ensured by excessive efforts;
- violation of the working time regime, when work is performed overtime;
- change in the rhythm of activity, which leads to the accumulation of fatigue, exhaustion, and psychological burnout;
- low status of the profession, low salary;
- insufficient career prospects;
- excessive organisation and formalism (a large number of meetings with few decisions made);
- “paper creativity” (a large number of plans and reports), etc. [19].
Specific professional stressors also deserve special attention, in particular those related to functional duties:
1) lack of regulation of functional duties, which puts a person in a difficult situation: in case of inaction, they are required to be active; in case of initiative, they are accused of abuse of power;
2) unrealistically high expectations regarding one’s own activities and the use of a categorical imperative (“I must in any case”); after completing a task, negative self-esteem and self-deprecation (“I failed, so I am a failure”); low frustration levels (“I can’t stand it”;
3) the supervisor’s disregard for the subordinate’s opinions: the supervisor’s actions can cause stress to the subordinate, as they can affect his or her life morally and financially (higher or lower salary, bonus, career opportunities, endless critical remarks, etc;)
4) peculiarities of horizontal interaction with colleagues can lead to stress in cases of psychological incompatibility, pronounced accentuation, different views on the strategy of the educational unit or the educational institution as a whole [19].
The highest level of stress is observed in people working in the “human-human” system [8; 11; 15], including teachers. The peculiarity of teacher’s activity (as well as many other human-human professions) is that in addition to professional knowledge and skills, the personality uses his/her own intellectual and emotional and volitional resources to a large extent. The teacher is the subject who develops, preserves and transmits the best national educational and upbringing traditions and experience to students from generation to generation [19]. Therefore, the contradictions between the growing requirements for the quality of professional and pedagogical activity are objectified by modern socio-economic realities (growth of information, complication of scientific and methodological work, socio-economic transformations, etc.) and psychophysiological, intellectual and emotional resources of the teacher’s personality, a wide range of professional functions, which increases the risk of professional stress and “professional burnout”. At the same time, the normal course of pedagogical activity is disrupted, and the relationship between all participants in the educational process is extremised. That is why professional stress becomes possible [17; 19].
The main reasons for stress in teachers are the peculiarities of pedagogical activity and the conditions for its implementation in educational institutions: significance of work and personal responsibility for the quality of education; time pressure; diversity of pedagogical activity; organisational shortcomings; low material reward for work. The diversity of tasks and professional problems often forces teachers to act in a new way in the face of a shortage of information and time, which can lead to stressful reactions such as loss of control over one’s state and behaviour. Changes in the education system bring new external stressors, including new state educational standards, changes in curricula, informatisation and technologisation of education, innovation processes, etc., which requires an active, conscious and flexible approach to professional tasks from the teacher. The emergence of stressful situations in the course of solving new tasks, the impact of a danger factor (or its threat) is accompanied by hasty decision-making, a decrease in the speed of information updating and other negative changes in the mental sphere.
Pedagogical activity involves intensive interpersonal interaction between all participants in the educational process, which is also a chronic stressor (V. Ababkov, M. Perre) [1; 6]. The need for active and often long-term communication with different actors in the educational process, in different social contexts, can lead to negative consequences. According to psychologists, prolonged stress associated with chronic exposure to negative factors (even if their intensity is low) affects the personality much more than strong but one-time stressors [1; 6].
Due to the specifics of profession, teachers’ stress is cumulative. They often do not have the opportunity to timely respond to stress, which results in its concentration and hides the danger of developing the last stage of stress – exhaustion and emotional burnout. I. Malkina-Pykh notes that even when the situation has returned to normal, the accumulated emotional stress may not weaken but disrupt the body’s systems. Repetition or long duration of affective reactions in connection with professional difficulties, emotional arousal can take on a stagnant stable form [16].
Stress in pedagogical activity has a prolonged character and is characterised by frequency, duration and repetition of the factor’s influence. The specificity of teaching involves the teacher’s work for a long time; the experiences associated with the profession do not stop with the end of the working day. According to psychologists, people who perform any complex work for a long time can stay in a stressful situation longer and experience greater exposure to stressors [16]. This can explain the manifestations of stress in teachers in various aspects: cognitive, emotional, behavioural and physical.
In view of the above, we can conclude that teachers need certain personal qualities to effectively perform their professional duties: activity, initiative, high level of communication, etc. E. Romanova lists professional characteristics of a teacher related to his / her resistance to stress: communication skills, psychological and emotional stability, tolerance and non-judgemental attitude towards people, ability to change decisions in accordance with the environment [14].
Difficulties in studying the determinants and mechanisms of stress and stress resistance in the professional activity of a teacher are associated with assessing the specifics of the manifestation of teacher’s reactions to the action of psychological factors. This professional activity contains a specific system of sources of stressful conditions, which is due to the informational, pedagogical, cognitive and organisational nature of pedagogical activity, high intensity of interpersonal interaction with students, colleagues, and direct supervision
