WHAT CAN ABNORMAL ENVIRONMENTS TELL US ABOUT NORMAL PEOPLE - POLAR STATIONS AS NATURAL PSYCHOLOGY LABORATORIES

The psychological effects of unusual environments reveal different asp ects of behaviour from those seen in more customary situations. Such e nvironments provide natural laboratories in which many questions of ps ychological interest, varying with the specific environment, may be st udied. This paper uses isolated polar stations to illustrate this poin t. In such settings, the usual parameters that control a variety of ps ychological processes are drastically changed, and confounding variabl es are stripped away. Consequently, the environment offers unique pers pectives on environmental perception and cognition; adaptation to and use of the environment; environmental bonding; social interaction; and coping with environmental challenge. (C) 1998 Academic Press.