The tendency to lie among students at the Ministry of Emergency Situations College: stages and psychological safety

This article examines the stage-based structure of the tendency to lie among students at the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) College and its relationship with psychological safety and resilience. The relevance of the study stems from the need to develop a scientifically grounded model that allows for the differentiation of preventive work, taking into account the stage of personal development and the gender characteristics of the students. The aim of the study is to provide empirical evidence for a stage-based model of the tendency to lie in relation to indicators of psychological safety. The study involved 303 students from a fire and rescue college (207 males, 96 females) aged 17–22. A range of methods was employed: the ‘Identification of the Causes of a Propensity to Lie’ method (S. P. Kochkina), rapid assessment of psychological safety (I. I. Prikhodko), the educational environment safety scale (I. A. Baeva), and the resilience questionnaire (S. Maddi, adapted by D. A. Leontiev). Preliminary processing included the inversion of parts of the scales and standardisation. The Kruskal–Wallis test with Bonferroni correction was used to compare the stages. Based on the authors’ methodology, five stages of propensity to lie were identified: pronounced risk (0 individuals), possible risk (77 individuals), situational (128 individuals), value-based (88 individuals) and meaning-based (10 individuals) stages. It was established that a decrease in the propensity to lie is accompanied by an increase in psychological safety. The scientific novelty lies in the development and empirical validation of a stage-based model of the propensity to lie among students at the Ministry of Emergency Situations College, taking gender differences into account. The findings may serve as a theoretical basis for the development of tailored programmes for psychological and educational support and the prevention of dishonesty in departmental educational institutions.