ORCID

0000-0002-8748-1219

Keywords

Challenges, Emotion regulation, Teamwork, Psychological safety, ICE, Team viability

Subject Categories

Industrial and Organizational Psychology | Psychology | Social Psychology

Abstract

Isolated, confined, and extreme (ICE) teams experience challenges that require continuous emotional adaptation. Although emotion regulation (ER) has been recognized as critical for functioning in these contexts, little is known about how specific challenges shape regulatory responses, how team climate influences those responses, and how individual regulation accumulates into team-level outcomes. This dissertation develops and tests a multilevel framework linking challenge exposure, perceived psychological safety, individual ER, team emotions, and team viability in space analog environments. Data were collected from 36 crews (N = 184) participating in two-week missions at two space analog stations, yielding 2,577 daily observations and 370 weekly observations. Results revealed distinct challenge-specific regulatory patterns. Environmental challenges primarily elicited disengaging ER, whereas task challenges preferentially activated engaging ER. Interpersonal challenges uniquely co-activated both engaging and disengaging responses and emerged as the most consequential challenge for team functioning. Psychological safety modestly shifted regulation toward more engaging strategies, particularly discussing and emotional expression, but demonstrated stronger direct associations with team viability than indirect effects through ER. A robust maladaptive pathway emerged whereby disengaging ER predicted greater team negative emotion, reduced team positive emotion, and lower team viability. In contrast, engaging ER was associated with higher same-day team negative emotion but also supported team positive emotion and long-term viability, suggesting short-term emotional costs accompanying adaptive interpersonal processing. The results have implications for ER theory in social contexts in general, as well as for astronaut selection, training, psychological support systems, and the management of teams operating in extreme environments.

Completion Date

2026

Semester

Summer

Committee Chair

Burke, Shawn

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Department of Psychology

Format

PDF

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

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