INVESTIGATION OF PERSONAL DETERMINANTS OF THE PROPENSITY TO CONFLICT BEHAVIOR OF PATIENTS IN A HOSPITAL

Abstract. The article is prepared based on the results of an empirical study on the relationship between propensity for conflict behavior and certain personality characteristics. In the opinion of the authors, in analyzing the causes of medical conflicts, in most studies, the object approach dominates, which focuses on the objective and social prerequisites for the emergence of conflict situations in the doctor-patient dyad and overlooks the personal characteristics of the participants in the conflict. The methods used were the 16 PF Cattell questionnaire, Lusher's color-selection test, and the conflictlevel test questionnaire. Based on the results of the study, significant but distinct correlation between the level of conflict and the indicators of dominance, self-control, intelligence and practicality in the sample of patients undergoing treatment in the hospital were found on the samples of hospital patients. Specific patterns of distribution of propensity to interpersonal and intrapersonal conflict in samples of subjects of different sex and age have been revealed. In particular, a higher tendency of male patients to escalate the social conflict and a predisposition of women in the same situations to produce or aggravate intrapersonal conflicts. The age dynamics of the propensity to conflict has a nonlinear and heterogeneous character - this is how middle-aged patients experience the lowest level of dominance and, at the same time, the peak of maladaptation. Presumably, this fact is due to the fact that being in the hospital environment most frustrates precisely the representatives of this most efficient and active age. It is assumed that the results of the research and a compact block of psychodiagnostic techniques may in the future be useful in profiling and in psychological work to increase the psychological competence of employees who constantly contact people due to their professional activities.