Recruiting Confidential Informants in Operative-Investigative Activity: Psychological Mechanisms of Trust and Their Didactic Modeling through Literary Texts

Aim. To substantiate the methodological relevance of using the image of Luka from Maxim Gorky's play "The Lower Depths" as a didactic model in training cadets of departmental educational institutions in specialized methods of recruiting various categories of citizens as confidential informants; to identify the psychological mechanisms of trust formation within this legal institution as embodied in the character's behavio, and to determine their significance for the professional training of operative officers.

Methodology. Theoretical and comparative analysis; literary and discourse analysis of the character's communicative strategies; psychological interpretation of the literary text drawing on the concepts of C. Rogers, A. Maslow and P. Ekman; specific methods of operative-investigative psychology.

Results. It is established that Luka's communicative behaviour is characterised by psychological patterns extensively studied in the scholarly literature: unconditional positive regard, adaptive communication strategies, emotional resonance, and positive reframing of life situations. The artistic environment of the doss-house is shown to function as a model of a criminal micro-environment marked by a high level of distrust towards the outside world. Four stages of psychological influence in the recruitment of confidential informants are identified, and their correlation with the literary character's behavioural strategies is demonstrated.

Research implications. The proposed approach enriches the methodological framework for teaching operative-investigative disciplines through the incorporation of narrative analysis of classical literary works. The identified principles of communicative influence may serve as the basis for practical training sessions aimed at developing cadets' foundational knowledge of establishing psychological contact with potential confidential informants in order to effectively address the tasks of crime detection and investigation.

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