Psychology of Space Exploration

Spaceflight and Cross-Cultural Psychology

cific and complex and less ethnocentric, and they become better at estimating what
members of the target culture will do.^29 Thus, a great deal of anticipatory culture
learning takes place in a relatively short period of time.
The culture assimilator then represents a vicarious enculturation experience
preparatory to the actual encounter with a new and different culture. Does it have
anything to offer over the real-life immersion in the other culture, followed by thor-
ough debriefing that NASA has already instituted for astronauts assigned to mul-
tinational space crews? Potentially, there are four advantages that the assimilator
may provide.
First, the rationale, if not the actual procedure, of the culture assimilator pin-
points and makes explicit the themes and features of the other culture. This is par-
ticularly germane to the debriefing phase as specific incidents and encounters come
to be imbued with more general meaning and patterns are established.
Second, properly constructed, the culture assimilator increases the range of
situations that people are likely to encounter. This helps people “fill in the gaps”
and respond appropriately to spontaneous and somewhat unpredictable instances
of unfamiliar cultural realities.
Third, on the basis of the accumulated experience with mixed American-
Russian space crews over three decades, we can anticipate specific problems and
incorporate them into custom-made versions of the assimilator. That is, the assim-
ilator can be adapted to cover the unique situations of astronauts and cosmonauts.
Fourth, the culture assimilator methodology is useful in both its specific and its
general aspects. Given the ever-greater variety of nations from which spaceflight
participants are increasingly drawn, it may be possible to develop a general culture
for increasing generic awareness and sensitivity, especially into the early phases of
astronaut training.

Subjective Culture

Conceptually, the development of the culture assimilator was linked with
basic research in Greece, India, and Japan, which Triandis conducted on subjective

29. Ibid.