Person-environment fit: A cross-national and cross-temporal study of human adaptation to isolated and confined environments

Abstract

While most studies using a Person-Environment (P-E) fit approach focus on commonplace work settings, the present study adopts this approach to explore an extreme and unusual setting; specifically, Antarctic research stations. People who had been deployed for a year in Antarctica (n = 59) were asked to reflect on their experience and to report their perceived fit with the environment. Other measures reported included job satisfaction, cognitive impairment, sleep disturbance, and an indicator of subjective well-being (positive/negative mood ratio). It was hypothesized that measures of personality traits and social needs could predict one's fit with the environment. It was found that loneliness (misfit with isolation) was significantly negatively related to job satisfaction and mood, and positively related to cognitive impairment. Fit with confinement was not reliably associated with any outcome variables. The explanations regarding the lack of predictability from personality traits and social needs, and other limitations are discussed.