Personality and the positive psychological impact of polar sojourns

• Main Authors: Suedfeld, P., Steel, Gary D., Brcic, J.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: SCAR
• Subjects: Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctic Science
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10182/9857; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.53122

Traditionally, the anecdotal and research literatures on the polar regions have emphasized the negative psychological aspects of working, living, and traveling in such extreme and unusual environments. More recent studies, however, have paid increasing attention to positive effects, including salutogenesis, the enhancement of psychological and/or physical health that occurs as a result of the experience. This paper describes the statistically significant relationships between the widely used “Big Five” personality measure and salutogenesis in 28 polar crewmembers who participated in the multinational Polar Psychology Project. Salutogenesis, as measured by the Sense of Coherence scale (SOC), was positively correlated with Conscientiousness and negatively with Neuroticism and depressive symptoms. The Big Five measure of Conscientiousness was positively related to the SOC factor Manageability (the belief that the individual has sufficient resources to cope with stressors), as was Extraversion to the factor Meaningfulness (the perception that life demands are worthy of pursuit and engagement). Neuroticism was negatively related to the third SOC factor, Comprehensibility (confidence that the environment is predictable). More detailed analyses will be presented concerning the relationship of SOC to gender, occupation, and nationality.