Psychophysiological ADAPTation to ICE situations 

Fundamental research theme in science since Darwin, adaptation has more than ever become a central issue with the current climatic, environmental and societal changes that are upsetting the balance of the relationship between humans and their environment. The aim of this new interdisciplinary and international program is to study psychological and physiological adaptation processes to ICE environments.
This program relies on the previous studies of the applicant team that has a significant scientific background in the extreme environment research domain. In the continuity of our previous research program ICE-Q with ESA and IPEV, the specific goals of this proposal are to:

1. Confirm the factorial structure of the ICE-Q questionnaire and propose a short and numeric version of the ICEQ to develop a specific and predictive tool for the assessment of Psychological Adaptation Processes (PAP) in ICEs. But also to investigate sociodemographic, professional status, gender and cultural differences related to adaptation.

The unique ICE-Q questionnaire that we have validated in our previous research program encompasses four key domains in psychological adaptation and offers a single measure that may facilitate measurement consistency across ICE environments such as long-duration space missions, wintering in the polar regions, submarine missions, solo sailing, deep diving, mountaineering, weather and other monitoring sites, and some military missions. The ICE-Q could be integrated in Long-Term Medical Survey (LTMS) and psychological monitoring as an indicator of adaptation and help for diagnosis and intervention.

2. Examine the time courses of the big 4 dimensions of PAP (occupational social, emotional and physical). A particular attention will be devoted to the:
– Occupational dimension far less studied in the literature despite its important role in adaptation and that winterers (Scientifics, personnel) have an important work schedule to perform,
– Social dimension that have been shown as one of the most impacted by ICE situations.
Very few if none study have conjointly investigated the impact of ICE environments on these occupational, social, emotional and physical, the big 4 PAP dimensions during a wintering.

3. Examine the relationships between the PAP dimensions and psychological variables involved in adaptation including:
– Psychological traits: personality traits, resilience, and defence mechanisms,
– Psychological states: perceived stress and control, emotional processes (intensity and direction of emotions, emotional intelligence and regulation),
– Social and occupational variables: leadership, cohesion, social support, psychological demand, decisional latitude, counterproductive activity, quality of work,
– Wellbeing and performance,
– Their gender and cultural outcomes,
– And if available, the Isolation Standard Measures (ISM) and Long-Term Medical Survey (LTMS) or physiological data from other projects to examine the relationships between the PAP dimensions and their concomitant physiological and biological markers involved in adaptation.

Much research remains to be conducted in an interdisciplinary approach to better understand the complexity of adaptation from a psychological point of view. The research design methodology used a mixed-method approach embraces both quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (interviews & individual journals) approaches. Although mutual influence of these socio-environmental and occupational factors on the individual variables is admitted to be a crucial key in adaptation, few protocols have studied these relationships and their dynamics during long-term ecological ICE situations which then could be supply to the LTMS data to better evaluate adaptation during winterings.