The psychology of working in isolated environments

The kind of extreme violence that we are hearing about from the South African expedition in the Antarctic, although frightening, is very rare amongst expedition teams, although incidents do sometimes happen. Team members will have been trained to deal with all kinds of scenarios. The case of an individual team member becoming violent will have been something they would have been trained to deal with, including live exercises on how to cope in these situations, de-escalation training, and even subduing and restraint training. Given that this a large team by expedition standards, I'm confident in saying that the impact of one rogue individual can have, can be swiftly limited by the rest of the team if they follow their training. 

The dispute in the Antarctic outpost revolved around a weather dependent task that the team had to carry out. What do you think might have happened? 

We know that with extreme environments, and the teams that operate within them, that the selection and screening process can be vigorous, along with the training and the final team selection. 

In those harsh environments where it is a whiteout, where team members are often stuck indoors or that tasks are safety and time critical, it can often be the small things that can flare up into big disagreements. Individual perceptions of favouritism or 'organisational injustice' can become serious issues. It sometimes depends on how the team is organised. Some teams may have a hierarchical structure with a leader at the top, with a second or third in command. But depending on the type of task or mission, there may be a more circular team structure, with a leader in the middle and everyone else equidistant around them, so there is no hierarchy. It largely depends on communication and how tasks are communicated down the hierarchy (if there is one). However, it also depends on people's ability to communicate and resolve conflict. One of the things that extreme team members are taught is that they need to look at themselves first to see if they are the problem in any conflict, rather than other people or the work they are being given to do. This is part of the training and selection these members are subjected to. 

When you are working in a small, isolated team, working in harsh weather conditions, what does this do to the human mind?

Ever since different nation's navies began working to colonise the world, we have seen people working in extreme environments and extreme locations. Then in the 1930s NASA developed their AMES programme, looking at how people were going to survive in aeroplanes and then when we would eventually venture into space. We therefore know a lot about "capsule living," people who are living in enforced extreme living environments, whether it's in the Antarctic, in spaceflight or even in submariners all around the world. 

What we are looking at is how to keep teams healthy when they are working in environments which are in fact incredibly unhealthy. Essentially, how to keep people alive in deadly working environments, where life is the exception. Whether it's extreme cold, up in the air or below the waves. One thing we know in these rare occurrences, when bad things happen in enforced isolation or capsule working, is that it's often the small things that can blow up into conflict. Issues around hierarchy, workload allocation, and even small things about leisure time or rations and food portions can rapidly flare up to become something much larger than they typically are. This is where selection and training are absolutely vital in missions such as this. Neutrality among members is crucial in order to avoid any perceptions of favouritism or unfairness among the crew.

Is rogue violence common in an isolated environment? 

Rogue violence on expeditions is not common but there have been examples of submariners becoming violent and also members of expeditions to the North and South Pole. This reminds us that there is something about the human character and behaviour that we will never fully understand. It's that small element of 'factor x', that can make somebody fail to cope in difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, in this case their inability to cope has resulted in violence towards others.

Do you have any advice for the other team members who have to continue to live and work with this individual before help reaches them? 

Without knowing the exact setup it's difficult to make any make reliable predictions, however all the team would have also been screened for their positive characteristics and coping ability. Importantly they would have all been taught how to deal with and resolve conflict effectively and quickly. What is important in extreme expeditions such as this, is that alliances between individuals or pairs need to be avoided. Crew members need to feel that everybody is equal amongst the team. Otherwise, we tend to find that some disgruntled individuals may believe that some team members are taking against them, and it becomes a psychosocial mess. I'm confident that the team will be trained to deal with conflict resolution, but sometimes when situations result in extreme violence, training may go out of the window and people are forced to rely on instincts which can compound things further.

The discipline of Occupational medicine, and its more extreme offspring such as Aerospace medicine and Expedition medicine, constantly strive to ensure those working in extreme and deadly environments are kept as safe and as healthy as possible, both physically and mentally.