Features of religiosity in representatives of extreme professions (on example of firemen)

The paper examines characteristics of religiosity in employees of Fire Service of EMERCOM. The analysis of the phenomenon of religiosity of personality in psychology demonstrated the lack of its comprehensive treatment and the lack of methodological tools for its studying. The authors (a) underlined the necessity of studying spiritual and moral values of Russians in the conditions of global civilization challenges, (b) distinguished atheistic, Christian (Orthodox) and non-Christian traditions of studying the phenomena of faith, religiosity, and spirituality of an individual, (c) revealed the psychological content of the concepts of “faith” and “religiosity”, and (d) considered the typologies of religiosity of an individual. The study involved 62 employees of the Federal Fire Service of EMERCOM of Russia in the Rostov region (men) at the age from 21 to 52 with labour experience from a year to 25 years. The methods of the study were (a) psychological testing: the questionnaire of the level of religiosity by Yu. V. Shcherbatykh, the “Inspirit” questionnaire (“Index of core spiritual experiences”) by J. Kass in D. L. Spivak's adaptation; (b) mathematical statistics: Spearman rank correlation analysis, non-parametric Friedman test, and Wilcoxon criterion. The results of the empirical research enabled to make a conclusion about the dominance of three components in the structure of firemen's individual religiosity: (a) the relation to religion as a philosophical concept, which helped to understand life in all its contradictoriness and often tragic nature, (b) the tendency to consider religion as a source of support and comfort in uncontrollable conditions, (c) desire to observe the trappings of religious life as a manifestation of internal discipline and the skill of following clear rules and regulations. The experiences which convinced firemen of the existence of God and enhanced the experience of the presence of God inside a man dominated in their religious experience. Since religiosity is a resource of stress tolerance of representatives of extreme professions, the findings of the study are of direct practical relevance.