Psychology of Space Exploration
among Antarctic research have been findings that also report positive, or saluto-
genic, aspects of the winter-over experience in which winter-overers have reported
enhanced self-growth, positive impacts to careers, and opportunities for reflection
and self-improvement.^49
One of Antarctica’s most prolific researchers, Dr. Larry Palinkas has analyzed
1,100 Americans who wintered over between 1963 and 2003 over four decades of
research in Antarctica and proposed four distinct characteristics to psychosocial
adaptation to isolation, confinement, and the extreme environment:
- Adaptation follows a seasonal or cyclical pattern that seems to be associated
with the altered diurnal cycle and psychological segmentation of the mission. - Adaptation is highly situational. Because of unique features of the station’s
social and physical environment and the lack of resources typically used to
cope, baseline psychological measures are not as good predictors of depressed
mood and performance evaluations as are concurrent psychological measures. - Adaptation is social. The structure of the group directly impacts individual
well-being. Crews with clique structures report significantly more depression,
anxiety, anger, fatigue, and confusion than crews with core-periphery structures. - Adaptation can also be “salutogenic,” i.e., having a positive effect for individ-
uals seeking challenging experiences in extreme environments.^50
Palinkas found that a depressed mood was inversely associated with the severity
of station physical environments—that is, the better the environment, the worse
the depression—and that the winter-over experience was associated with reduced
SCAR/IUPS/IUBS Symposium on Human Biology and Medicine in the Antarctic, ed. O. G. Edholm
and E. K. E. Gunderson (Chicago: Year Book Medical Publications, 1974), p. 410.
- Mullin, “Some Psychological Aspects of Isolated Antarctic Living”: 323; A. J. W. Taylor
and J. T. Shurley, “Some Antarctic Troglodytes,” International Review of Applied Psychology 20
(1971): 143–148; O. Wilson, “Human Adaptation to Life in Antarctica,” in Biogeography and
Ecology in Antarctica, ed. J. Van Meigheim, P. van Oue, and J. Schell, Monographiae Biologicae,
vol. 15 (The Hague: W. Junk, 1965), p. 690; L. A. Palinkas, “Health and Performance of
Antarctic Winter-Over Personnel: A Follow-Up Study,” Aviation, Space, and Environmental
Medicine 57 (1986): 954–959; D. Oliver, “Psychological Effects of Isolation and Confinement
of a Winter-Over Group at McMurdo Station, Antarctica,” in From Antarctica to Outer Space:
Life in Isolation and Confinement, ed. Harrison, Clearwater, and McKay, p. 217; P. Suedfeld,
“Invulnerability, Coping, Salutogenesis, Integration: Four Phases of Space Psychology,”
Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 76 (2005): B61. - Palinkas, “On the ICE.”