Psychology of Space Exploration

Psychology of Space Exploration

Table 4. Phase- and status-related changes (mean value scores).

Value Status

Mission Phase

Preflight In-flight Postflight

Power Majority .08 .06 .23

Minority .11 .05 .29

Achievement Majority .76 .47 .47

Minority .46 .21 .29

Self-Direction Majority .26 .17 .23

Minority .31 .10 .21

did their American colleagues; minorities flying with Interkosmos mentioned it less
frequently than Russians in their own spacecraft.

Value Change

In general, all value references decrease when the source is discussing the
period of his or her flight and mostly move back toward or above preflight baselines
in descriptions of the postflight period. There were three significant phase-related
value changes among the 17 minority and 15 majority crewmembers for whom we
had complete data across the three mission phases (see table 4).
For minority sources only, significant changes over the three phases were found:
increasing references to Spirituality and Hedonism between the in-flight and post-
flight phases, as well as decreasing references to Stimulation and Conformity over
the three phases (see figure 3). For majorities, none of the changes was significant.
There were no significant interactions of gender and status or nationality and
status with regard to value change over time, nor were there significant national
differences in individual- versus collective-oriented values.

Social Relations

There were four separate, although correlated, measures within this category:
Trust, Mistrust, Positive Intimacy, and Negative Intimacy.