The main trends in the formation and development of methods of security psychology

Abstract

Introduction. Security psychology is a relatively young, but rather rapidly developing branch of psychological knowledge, for which the problem of improving empirical research methods is relevant. The development of the problems of security psychology has already been accompanied by the involvement of certain tools, but its use is still fragmentary, experimental and exploratory in nature. Meanwhile, the development of any field of knowledge is impossible without methods and techniques that have confirmed their research reliability. This article is focused on filling the gap in security psychology regarding the possibility of using empirical data collection tools in it. The purpose of the research presented in it was a theoretical analysis of the possibilities of using various research methods in security psychology.Materials and Methods. The method of theoretical analysis of relevant research papers, methods of systematization, generalization and classification of scientific approaches to the organization of research, the method of scientific extrapolation, the method of scientific forecasting were used.Results. The impossibility of studying a significant part of the phenomena relevant to the problems of security psychology, synchronously with their occurrence and course, as well as the lack of unity of the author's approaches to understanding the essence of the basic category of "psychological security" for it, explained by the complexity of the original phenomenon, is revealed. In security psychology, ex-post-facto research prevails, and psychological security is studied by identifying its conditions and features of the projection of danger/security on the psyche of the subject. Methods of observation, introspection, experiment, survey and testing in security psychology not only retain the classic advantages and limitations for psychological research, acquiring the specifics of use.Discussion and Conclusions. For security psychology, it is most preferable to use the possibilities of projective materials and methods of experimental psychosemantics and psycholinguistics. Further improvement of the scientific tools of security psychology should be based on the development of its methodology, adaptation to the problems of classical methods for psychology and the involvement of methods used by related disciplines.