Man in Isolation and Confinement

John E. Rasmussen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351507486
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book focuses on those special circumstances in which men (alone or in groups) are isolated or confined for periods of time long enough to affect the way in which they think and behave. Active research in these phenomena initially grew out of a concern about prisoners of war in Korea and the presumed effects of "brainwashing, " but this interest has been augmented by the technological advances that have allowed men to enter into isolation situations previously unattainable--in outer space, under the sea, on the face of the moon, or in remote places on the earth's surface. For the scientist himself, applications of the knowledge derived from these special situations is obvious. The variety of ways in which the search may be carried on, in both the laboratory and "real-life" situations, is amply illustrated in the approaches as well as the settings for research that are reviewed in this volume.

This book represents the first attempt to cover the total spectrum of isolation and confinement in one volume. The chapters are arranged so as to begin with study of the individual, proceed through artificial and natural groups, and conclude with broad ecological and taxonomic considerations. Each chapter of the book has its own unique form; however, they have been planned and written to address a single central theme--that increased understanding of this important social phenomenon depends upon a spectrum of conceptual and methodological strategy, and on a continuing interplay between basic and applied research. The contributors are among the world's recognized experts in the area, and because of its breadth, the book constitutes an unusually complete reference to contemporary research on isolation. The volume has implications for urban planning and for space and undersea programs, and will be useful for teachers and students of applied social and behavioral science.

1

Introduction

John E. Rasmussen

John E. Rasmussen, Director of the Battelle Human Affairs Research Centers in Seattle, received his Ph.D. in psychology from American University in 1961. A career Navy Medical Service Corps officer, he had assignments that included serving as Head of the Clinical Psychology Program; Director of the Behavioral Science Department, Navy Medical Research Institute; Head, Neuropsychiatric Section, Research Division, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery; and Liaison Scientist in Psychology, Office of Naval Research, London. At the time of his retirement as a Captain in 1969, he was serving as Assistant to the Chief of Naval Development for Medical and Allied Sciences. While in the Navy he was actively involved both in the research and the operational aspects of the Navy’s Antarctic, underwater, and fallout shelter programs. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Society of Medicine.

Although man has lived and worked under conditions of isolation and confinement for many centuries, only recently has there been any major, sustained, scientific interest in problems of human adjustment to such conditions. A few years ago the study of small crew interaction was not considered sufficiently important to be included in planning projected requirements for research to support United States manned spaceflight. Nevertheless, the last two decades, and particularly the last 10 years, have seen a tremendous growth in large-scale research programs concerned with isolation and confinement. What has stimulated such an intensive interest in these problem areas during recent years, and why has the research effort been so much more heavily concentrated in Canada and the United States than in Europe?

At the risk of oversimplification, several major influences may be postulated as responsible for development and maintenance of interest in these research problem areas: the concern with “brainwashing” that arose from the Korean war; the advances in engineering technology that made it possible to sustain life in exotic environments; the wide publicity given to early research findings and the glamour of pioneering isolation programs; and the continued quest for a fundamental understanding of human behavior. Hebb’s (Bexton, Heron, & Scott, 1954) pioneering work in sensory deprivation initially was stimulated by a concern of the Canadian government about the problem of brainwashing.

It may be legitimate to speculate, however, as to whether this area of research would have attracted as much attention as it did among experimental and theoretical psychologists if Hebb’s rather dramatic initial findings had not been extended, elaborated, and above all widely publicized by Vernon in his early Princeton studies (Vernon & McGill, 1957; Vernon, McGill, & Schiffman, 1958). The attention drawn by the spectacular and dramatic nature of these findings quite possibly had a significant part in stimulating the development of long-term and continuing systematic investigation of sensory deprivation as well as of group behavior under conditions of isolation and confinement.

While there was some limited, although significant, early work on small groups in isolation, the beginning of the major programmatic and systematic efforts in this area of social psychology well may be traced to an incident that occurred in connection with the 1957 International Geophysical Year program. Again, drama rather than science per se may have been responsible for stimulation of a major research area. Would a major research program have been undertaken had an individual in the United States Antarctic team not developed a florid and highly disruptive schizophrenic illness while totally isolated with a small group of men in the middle of the long winter night? As in the case of sensory deprivation, research was stimulated for very pragmatic reasons; officials responsible for administration of the Antarctic programs encouraged systematic study and made funds available in the hope of precluding future incidents of disruptive behavior in their program. The advent of space flight, as well as the experiments in underwater living made possible by the discovery of saturation diving, have given additional major impetus to research on small groups in isolation.

The circumstances and technological advances leading to our present-day space and Antarctic programs have created a set of conditions that had not previously been encountered as man lived and worked in isolation. As discussed elsewhere (Rasmussen & Haythorn, 1963), it is possible that this particular set of conditions also has contributed to the rapid expansion of research activity on behavior in isolation and confinement. Thus, for the first time man faced situations involving a unique combination of (1) prolonged total isolation in a sensory-poor environment, (2) intensive, enforced interaction between members of small groups, (3) total interdependence of all individuals for group survival, (4) total impossibility of removing an ineffective crew member, and (5) sustained demands for vigilance and reaching rapid and often irrevocable decisions. In addition, major financial and ideological commitments are made on a nationwide basis to the accomplishment of the mission. The flurry of concern with organization and management of fallout shelters in the late 1950s and early 1960s also undoubtedly sparked interest in this area.

While military problems and the evolution of technology initially may have stimulated scientific interest and investigation, the effort appears to have been sustained by a desire on the part of psychologists and others to understand human behavior and the nature of man’s interaction with his environment. For example, present-day sensory deprivation work continues, even though public concern with brainwashing is no longer great enough to provide the impetus for systematic investigation. Likewise, much of the work on small groups in isolation is motivated by a concern with adding to man’s fundamental knowledge of human behavior. Some of the major recent developments in social psychology, both in terms of content and methodology, have arisen out of the study of small groups in confinement. This book attempts to explore these contributions.

Several major factors appear to be responsible for the greater emphasis on research in isolation and confinement in North America than in Europe. Such research is extremely costly; few professional groups anywhere in the world, including North America, can afford to equip laboratories and logistically support research programs without considerable impetus from institutions and organizations wishing to apply the results of these efforts. Certainly most of the funds have come from military and space program sources. This is beginning to change. Fortunately, there is a growing interest on the part of European behavioral scientists in this problem area, as witnessed by the fact that the symposium upon which this book is based was initially proposed by our Italian colleagues.

The terms isolation and confinement, as well as natural and artificial groups, will be used in a very broad sense throughout this book. Without attempting to provide rigorous definitions, it may be well to briefly explore the implications of these concepts as an introduction to the chapters that follow. At the most gross level of description, isolation might be considered primarily a psychological concept and confinement primarily a physical concept. Isolation is seen as a reduction in level of normal sensory and social input without necessarily involving a limitation in physical space or freedom of movement. While there are obvious physical aspects to the concept of isolation (most people would agree that a castaway on a desert island is isolated), the psychological implications of the concept rest primarily with the individual’s own perception of and emotional response to his physical environment. It is possible, therefore, to conceive of an old person in a large city as being far more isolated than a lighthouse keeper or a solitary trapper in the Canadian wilderness.

Confinement means different things to different people. As used in this volume, the term generally connotes a limitation in amount of physical space and/or a restraint on actual physical movement. Isolation may or may not involve physical confinement. Likewise, a situation perceived as confining by one person may be perceived differently by others.

The understanding and prediction of behavior under isolation or confined conditions cannot be accomplished solely on the basis of the above dimensions. Two additional issues must be considered—the individual, and the group or segment of society in which he is functioning at the time. In this book a distinction has been made between artificial and natural groups. One again encounters problems of definition and taxonomy. As generally used in this volume, the term natural group refers to groups of individuals functioning in their natural work or social environment rather than in a laboratory or a simulated situation.

A third issue, which is methodological in nature, is introduced as one begins the systematic study of man under conditions of isolation and confinement. This is the very nature of the situations involved in the study, ranging from highly controlled, experimental laboratory studies, to unobtrusive observation in a naturalistic environment. Thus, the least sophisticated framework under which one might conceptualize studies in isolation and confinement includes consideration of three major issues.

This book represents the first attempt to cover the total spectrum of isolation and confinement in one volume. The chapters are arranged so as to begin with study of the individual, proceed through artificial and natural groups, and conclude with broad ecological and taxonomic considerations. With one exception, Dr. Wilkins’s summary, the chapters may be grouped into three overlapping units as indicated below.

Individual	Group	Social Systems and Taxonomy
Chap. 2: Classical sensory deprivation Chap. 3: The individual in underground cave studies Chap. 4: The individual in natural settings	Chap. 5: The individual in artificial group experiments Chap. 6: Field studies of groups under indirect observation Chap. 7: Field studies of groups under direct observation	Chap. 8: Controlled laboratory studies of artificial groups Chaps. 9,10: The ecology of groups in enclosed space Chap. 11: The taxonomy of man in enclosed space

The first three chapters focus primarily on the individual. Professor Zubek’s chapter deals with sensory deprivation, a condition of maximum environmental artificiality combined with maximum freedom of the investigator to experimentally manipulate both the environment and his subjects. The chapter by Professor Fraisse on cave studies represents an example of study focused on individuals under artificial field conditions which, at the same time, permit moderate experimental manipulation. The situation studied by Fraisse represents an interesting and logical extension of the classical sensory-deprivation work. These experiments well may be considered classics in the study of time perception. Professor Haggard has concerned himself with the study of individual development in natural isolated groups and an enviromental setting where the problems of unobtrusive measures become paramount. This work, which is at the opposite end of the continuum from sensory deprivation, is undertaken without manipulation of either environment or subjects; and, quite obviously, there is no artificiality of environment.

The next three chapters are concerned with field research. There is little difference in artificiality of environment but some difference in the extent to which experimental conditions can be manipulated. Beyond this, there is a highly significant difference in methodological problems; direct observation is not possible in the Antarctic, where it is possible in undersea experiments. The Antarctic and underwater exploration programs of the past decade have provided previously unequaled opportunities for the systematic study of human behavior of small groups under real life conditions of isolation and confinement. Fortunately, full advantage has been taken of these situations. For example, Dr. Gunderson’s chapter focuses on almost 15 years of research concerned with individual behavior in the isolation of Antarctica. Dr. Nelson approaches the same program from the standpoint of the group. Dr. Radloff presents a detailed consideration of a most unique field research situation—the Sealab and Tektite projects, where the small group is under direct observation while in meaningful real-world isolation.

The third set of chapters is concerned with broader and more general issues of isolation and confinement. Professors Haythorn and Altman have advanced bold theoretical formulations on the basis of their highly controlled laboratory studies of isolation and confinement. Dr. Haythorn is concerned with a highly artificial laboratory environment that permits extensive manipulation of the entire environmental context, although the severity and control of conditions does not reach that of sensory deprivation. His chapter is concerned with group rather than individual behavior.

The other three chapters in this section constitute the broadest treatment of the entire problem area, with Professor Altman’s chapter on the ecology of isolation cutting across all of the preceding contributions. Madame de Montmollin’s chapter provides an interesting and cogent extension of Dr. Altman’s theoretical position.

Finally, one cannot intelligently cope with this broad problem area as a whole without considering questions of taxonomy addressed by Professor Sells. Dr. Sells has drawn heavily from U.S. Air Force sponsored studies in the Arctic and the American space program. At the same time, his own research goals have necessitated a broad look at the entire area of isolation and confinement in an effort to order data and findings into a meaningful conceptual framework.

Dr. Wilkins has undertaken the task of integrating, synthesizing, and critically examining the preceding chapters, both from the point of view of a behavioral scientist who has been involved in research in isolation and confinement since its early days, and from the standpoint of methodology. Each author has made his own individual contribution to this ill-defined and complex research area, as well as identifying future challenges. Dr. Wilkins explores a number of philosophical issues which permeate this research area b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Behavioral and Physiological Effects of Prolonged Sensory and Perceptual Deprivation: A Review
• 3. Temporal Isolation, Activity Rhythms, and Time Estimation
• 4. Some Effects of Geographic and Social Isolation in Natural Settings
• 5. Individual Behavior in Confined or Isolated Groups
• 6. The Indirect Observation of Groups Under Confinement and Isolation
• 7. Naturalistic Observations of Isolated Experimental Groups in Field Settings
• 8. The Miniworld of Isolation: Laboratory Studies
• 9. An Ecological Approach to the Functioning of Socially Isolated Groups
• 10. Concepts and Strategies of Research on Groups in Isolation: Comments on Altman’s Approach
• 11. The Taxonomy of Man in Enclosed Space
• 12. Isolation Research: The Methodological Context
• Index