Person-environment fit: Needs and challenges in Antarctica : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University

Abstract

Thousands of individuals are deployed to Antarctica every year to support scientific research. Understanding how they cope in such an unusual location can reveal the factors and dynamic processes of human adaptation inherent in the more general category of Isolated and Confined Environments (ICEs). Drawing from an organisational psychology approach that considers the interaction between an individual’s and an environment’s characteristics, the present research applies the Person-Environment fit (P-E fit) theory to ICEs. This approach assumes that matching characteristics of an individual with relevant aspects of an environment allows one to predict overall adjustment to that environment. Focussing on the fit of two defining characteristics of those environments (isolation and confinement) with social needs and personality traits, the present research investigated a new theoretical model aimed at better understanding and predicting one’s overall adjustment to deployment, as measured by job satisfaction, job performance, sleep disturbance, cognitive impairment, and mood ratio (positive/negative). Two studies were conducted to test this model. Study 1 utilised data from wintering personnel (“winter-overs”; n = 14) at Antarctic stations operated by five different National Antarctic Programmes. Data were collected throughout each participant’s period of deployment in Antarctica. Study 2 used former winter-overs (n = 59). Deployments for this group covered a range of almost 60 years, in 16 different Antarctic stations that were operated by eight different National Antarctic Programmes. Results across both studies consistently found one’s fit with isolation to be positively related to one’s job satisfaction, cognitive performance and mood. No reliable relationship with sleep quality was found. By contrast, results failed to find any consistent relationship between one’s fit with the lack of privacy and the same outcome variables. The results suggest that it is possible to predict one’s fit with the isolation from one’s need for affiliation but not from one’s need for intimacy. It is suggested that one’s fit with the lack of privacy on station can be predicted from one’s need for intimacy but not from one’s actual need for privacy. Moderation of these relationships via privacy regulation strategies is discussed, such strategies being behaviours one would adopt in order to achieve one’s desired privacy (e.g., social withdrawing). Finally, the impact of limitations of the studies and the implications of the results for theory and for practices in other ICEs are discussed.