Examining congruence of self concept and vocational self concept of policemen, and perceptions of the public about the police

Individuals who have chosen their careers consciously and willingly, and have knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for their jobs may have a successful work-life. Career success is based on the congruence between personal attributes of an individual and self-perceptions about himself/herself. This phenomenon demonstrates that congruence between self-concept and vocational self-concept is important. Because, it is known that the individuals whose self-concept and vocational self-concept are congruent have a more job satisfaction, motivation, performance, and willing to stay in the job. As a public service, this is valid for the police which communicates with community directly. The aim of this study was to determine the level of congruence between self- concept and vocational self-concept of policemen charged in police stations and examine the perceptions of public about police and policemen. For that reason, firstly, a general conceptual analysis on the congruence between self-concept and vocational self-concept, and the relationship between police and public were presented. Then, the importance of congruence between self-concept and vocational self-concept for the police was emphasized and what could be done for the development of the relationship among police and public was discussed. As a descriptive study, in this research, an adjective list developed by the researcher was used to gather data from the policemen working in the police stations and people from community. 87 policemen and 96 people from public (total 183) participated in the study. These people were asked to point out their perceptions about adjectives for the police. Congruence between self and occupation self was analyzed by using Kappa coefficients. In addition to, the perceptions of policemen and public about police were analyzed with t-tests procedures. Results from this study indicated that the congruence between self-concept and occupational self-concept of policemen was moderate and statistically significant. However, the level of this congruence was significant according to theIV years in profession. While the policemen working for from 1 to 7 years have a good level of congruence, the policemen working for from 8 to 15 years and from 16 through highest have a moderate level of congruence. According to result of this study, when the years of profession increase, the congruence between self-concept and vocational self-concept decrease. Results demonstrated that public had more positive adjectives about police than the policemen had. In addition, public did not consider police and policemen as negatively as the policemen consider themselves. In contrast to, public had a more positive attitude about police than the policemen had. In other words, public did not attribute negative adjectives to police. However, people from public who had already gone to the police stations had a more negative attitude regarding some adjectives about police than that of those who had never gone to the police stations. Based on the results of this study, it is suggested that the motivators which can maintain the congruence between self-concept and vocational self-concept of policemen during the later years in profession should be used, the efforts for improving the relationship between public and police should be continued, and the policemen should evaluate the perception of public about police realistically. It is considered that the results from this study can provide some implications for increasing the congruence between self-concept and vocational self-concept of policemen and for improving the relationship among police and public.