Amadee-20-ACT

Details

Summary

Astronauts are at all times required to provide outstanding performance. They are to remain resilient and to maintain their psychological well-being in order to successfully accomplish their mission in extreme and isolated environments. Future Martian explorers therefore have to be selected and trained to be able to deal with such environments and to be able to maintain an adaptive and resilient mind-set, communicate with others efficiently and pro-actively, process and accept worries and sadness, and to stay persistent with respect to the goals of the mission.

In the course of the experiment, all six analog astronauts will be trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). In a wide range of studies, ACT has proven to increase people’s psychological flexibility; this is, their ability to pursue their important goals, even when they experience thoughts, feelings, fears, and emotions that may get in the way of their moving towards those goals. The ACT training will focus on providing key, practical skills that the participants can use in carrying out their daily activities, as well as in interacting with their colleagues. This study aims to assesses the ability of ACT to improve participants’ psychological flexibility, stress and well-being, performance and error measures, narrative contents and communication patterns, cognitive and physiological outcomes.

The study will use a pre - post-test design. The pre-test will be completed by the participants before the ACT training, a post-test after completing the training. Further, a follow-up measure will be taken from participants at the end of their mission. Additional qualitative data will be collected from the analog astronauts in form of a diary.

Experiment Data