Dynamics of Psychology Students’ “Image of a Psychologist” Conception during Education

The purpose of the presented study was to investigate how the content of the media images of psychologists is reflected on the psychology students’ self-consciousness and how the “image of a psychologist” changes its content during education. We compared the “image of a psychologist” of university entrants and students of various years of psychological education. The study involved 62 university entrants and 92 students of the first, third and fifth years of psychology education. The “image of a psychologist” portrait characteristics were evaluated by T. Leary's “Interpersonal diagnosis of personality” instrument modified by Sobchik. The “image of a psychologist” positioning in entrants’ and students’ professional identity was investigated by the “multiple identifications” method. The dynamics of the “image of a psychologist” conceptions were explored by the age-slicing method. The results of the study showed that entrants of psychology education had a positive but mythicized “image of a psychologist”. During education the “image of a psychologist” in students’ self-consciousness transformed: it became authentic, true to life, with normal and variant portrait features, as a professional self-identification image. Also during education the “image of a psychologist” lost features of a mentor or guardian and became a real life guide.