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There has been a substantial increase in the number of people living and operating in isolated, confined, and artificially engineered environments, such as spacecraft, deep diving, weather stations, submarines, and polar outposts. This article gives an overview of research undertaken in a variety of extreme environments in an effort to better understand how semiautonomous, task-oriented groups operating within these environments develop over time, as well as identification of the individual characteristics that promote performance under such circumstances. Research reviewed includes space simulation studies for the European Space Agency (ESA) where groups were isolated in hyperbaric chambers, as well as findings from polar expeditions, space missions, submarine missions, and other military settings. Findings from the space simulation studies in hyperbaric chambers provided empirical evidence for interpersonal issues anecdotally reported in Antarctica and in other isolated, operational team environments, such as "scapegoating" of deviant crew members, displacement of aggression to outside personnel, and time patterns in psychological reactions. No indications of a "psychological limit" for how long people can tolerate remaining in isolation and confinement were found. Certain personality characteristics were consistently associated with coping, and individuals characterized by strong achievement motivation combined with interpersonal sensitivity seemed to adapt better than others. Together, these results have implications for selection and training of people operating within extreme environments.

PMID: 11871456