Beyond the “Right Stuff”: The role of group processes in isolated confined extreme environments

• Main Author: Krins, Phillip William
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Subjects: space psychology; space medicine; group dynamics; social psychology; social identity; self categorization; self categorisation; diversity; group hetrogeneity; group processes; group effectiveness; right stuff; astronaut; astronaut psychology; antarctic psychology; arctic psychology; extreme environment psychology; diversity norm; diversity management; social network analysis; multi level linear modelling; Mars; Mars psychology; space; psychological processes; identification; team identity; Arctic; Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/49430; https://doi.org/10.25911/5d7a27f9585ee; https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/49430/5/01Front_Krins.pdf.jpg; https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/49430/7/02Whole_Krins.pdf.jpg

The purpose of this thesis was to apply mainstream theoretical social psychology to group dynamics in isolated confined extreme (ICE) environments, with a particular focus on the context of long duration spaceflight. This was done by providing a thorough review of both the ICE environment psychology literature and the social psychological literature. From this it emerged that significant gaps existed within the ICE literature around the understanding of group processes. A review of relevant social psychology literature suggested that the social identity perspective may have much to offer in advancing the understanding of group processes in these environments. It was argued that processes related to social identification plays a key role in the team functionality. Of particular note was how social ‘norms’ could influence social identification processes and group functioning. Crew heterogeneity had been cited as a potential concern in much ICE literature, so group norms that related to diversity were investigated. Three theoretical chapters provided a review of space and ICE environment psychology literature, social psychology literature and diversity literature. Five experiments are reported in this thesis. The first, an exploratory field study which study took place during an expedition into the Australian Outback, made general predictions about how social identification might be constrained by the extreme environment context. The study demonstrated that identity processes did indeed influence group functionality, but also that the presence of pro-diversity group norms seemed to have a positive influence. In order to explore this issue in more detail, four studies were conducted. These included a field study at the Mars Desert Research station in Utah, two laboratory studies and a final field study that took place during a winter-over period at the Concordia Research station in Antarctica. Collectively these studies demonstrated that ingroup identification played an important role in driving group functionality ...