Psychology of Space Exploration
Stanford students to be so cruel to another randomly assigned group that the
study had to be terminated.^14
The three projects described are dramatic because they dealt with negative
behavior. But in the study reported in this paper, with only a 2-hour training program
for essentially unselected people of a wide range of ages, we were able to produce an
index of amicability in one group that was nearly three times greater than that in an
equivalent group. The argument here is not against any selection. Obviously passen-
gers in an airliner want their pilot to have good vision and a healthy heart. The argu-
ment here is for a shift in emphasis toward making it possible for a broad spectrum
of people to become space tourists by briefly but effectively developing in them the
social skills necessary for a safe and pleasant experience in space.
The spaceflight simulator is an excellent tool, both in which to conduct the
necessary social psychology research to show what needs to be done and as the vehi-
cle for conducting the training exercises to bring that about. Interestingly, in terms
of selection, the spaceflight simulator provides people with an opportunity to see
if they will like such an experience; if not, they will select themselves out without
jeopardizing the safety or happiness of others on a real spaceflight.
There is a subset of social psychology theory referred to as attribution theory.
Much of the research in this area indicates that humans have a tendency to attribute
people’s behavior to their character. This is known as the fundamental attribution
error. It is the tendency to over-attribute the motivation for a person’s behavior to
that person’s character and underestimate the effect of situational factors. When we
emphasize selecting the right “type” of person for spaceflight instead of creating the
right “type” of social and environmental factors, we are committing the fundamental
attribution error. We have seen in the three social psychology research projects cited
above how “good” people could be made to do “bad” things by simple manipulation of
situational circumstances. We have also seen in my Aerospace Psychology Laboratory
study presented here that people in one group similar to people in another group
could have the negative behaviors they would be expected to produce dramatically
reduced (58 percent; see table 1) by a small amount of focused training. Emphasizing
selection will diminish the number of prospective spacefarers and inhibit the growth
of space tourism. However, emphasizing environmental design and training instead
- David G. Meyers, Social Psychology, 9th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006).