THE MENTAL HEALTH IMPLICATIONS OF WORKING IN A LUNAR SETTLEMENT

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THE MENTAL HEALTHIMPLICATIONS OF WORKING IN A
LUNAR SETTLEMENT

• CHESTER S. SPELLSchool of Business-CamdenRutgers
  Universitycspell_at_camden.rutgers.edu

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• Technology makes it possible for human beings to
  live and work in places that in the past we could
  neither reach nor have survived in.
• Extreme environments (e.g. Lunar base) present
  unique opportunities for psychological research
  and applications.

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Prior Research

• Psychological research of EUEs
• polar stations
• space vehicles
• undersea habitats
• Methods psychometric and projective tests,
  interviews, participant observations, field
  studies, simulations

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The Good News

• Autobiographical accounts of astronauts(Collins
  1974).
• Polar crews report many more positive than
  negative experiences
• Twenty-six of 28 participants in a undersea
  habitat study were willing to do it again

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Perception and reality

• How people experience an environment is more
  important than the objective characteristics of
  the environment (Suedfeld 1991).

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Potential negative impact on psychological
well-being

• Social isolation
• Confinement
• Sensory restriction
• Circadian Rhythms

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Confinement Monotony

• After 2 weeks the foremost psychological
  irritants were inadequate leadership and the
  behavior of others (Smith,1969) .
• Members with low social coherence report
  significantly more depression, anxiety, and anger
  (Palinkas,2003)

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Conflict

• Murderous attack over a chess game (Palinkas
  1990)
• Assault with a hammer (New Zealand Herald 1996).
• Foreign visitors in Russian and American space
  flights felt marginalized.

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Are prior results relevant for a lunar base?

• Unlikely that we can generalize data from
  Mercury missions, Shuttle missions of a week or
  two, Mir space station missions of 612 months.

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Our researchStudy 1

• People working in groups share perceptions of
  fairness of work assignments, responsibility,
  etc.
• The work groups fairness climate can affect
  individual levels of anxiety and depression
  (Spell Arnold, in press)
• Social contagion-feelings of fairness (or
  unfairness)

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• Implication in cohesive groups (limited
  interaction outside of group) establishing and
  maintaining fair procedures especially significant

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Our researchStudy 2

• Faultlines subgroups or divisions
• Gender
• Age
• Experience level
• Ethnic group
• groups with strong faultlines and unsupportive
  supervisors were less anxious and depressed than
  groups with weak faultlines
• groups with strong faultlines and perceived
  unfairness were less anxious and depressed than
  groups with weak faultlines

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Implications

• Group composition affects individual mental
  health
• In diverse work groups, importance of supportive
  supervisor trained in leadership
• Speculation effects exacerbated in extreme and
  isolated work environment of a lunar base

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Recommendations

• Radloff Helmreich those who were considered
  best suited to working under water could also
  walk on it(!)
• (Russian) space programstress test requiring a
  group of candidates to drive a small car
  cross-country
• Select crews, not just individuals