Gender Composition and Crew Cohesion During Long-Duration Space Missionsresults are qualified by the fact that gender differences in team performance are
often moderated by other factors such as the type of task and the personality com-
position of the individual team members. With regard to personality in team sports,
for example, male and female athletes exhibit different personality profiles and
attitudes toward recreational activities.^12 Furthermore, gender heterogeneity may
influence the development of team factors that contribute to successful team perfor-
mance like cohesion and trust. As noted above, cohesion is a team’s commitment
to a shared task and attraction between team members, whereas trust refers to atti-
tudes held by team members regarding their emotional closeness with, and the reli-
ability of, other members of the team. How men and women respond to stress, for
instance, can influence both cohesion and trust, particularly at the interpersonal or
emotional level. N. S. Endler notes that men tend to cope with stress using “fight
or flight” strategies, whereas women employ a “tend or befriend” approach.^13 This
latter strategy may therefore evoke more emotional closeness among crewmembers.
In spaceflight, mixed-gender crews have flown successfully since the 1980s;
however, a majority of these missions were short-duration flights of one to two
weeks. For example, although no performance issues were attributed to Svetlana
Savitskaya’s gender when she visited the Soviet Salyut 7 station for eight days in
1982, cosmonaut Valentin Lebedev’s account of the visit suggests that gender ste-
reotyping did occur. After presenting her with a floral print apron upon her arrival,
he declared, “Look, Sveta, even though you are a pilot and a cosmonaut, you are still
a woman first. Would you please do us the honor of being our hostess tonight?”^14 For
longer-duration missions lasting between five and seven months, anecdotal reports
from two mixed-gender missions aboard the ISS indicate that the crew also got
along and functioned effectively.^15
Decomposition Approach,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 88, no. 1
(2002): 445–475.
- Bruce D. Kirkcaldy, “Personality Profiles at Various Levels of Athletic Participation,”
Personality and Individual Differences 3, no. 3 (1982): 321–326. - N. S. Endler, “The Joint Effects of Person and Situation Factors on Stress in Spaceflight,”
Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 75, no. 7, sect. II (2004): C25. - Valentin Lebedev, Diary of a Cosmonaut: 211 Days in Space (New York: Bantam Books,
1988), p. 191. - Kanas and Manzey, Space Psychology and Psychiatry, p. 77.