When people start getting real: The Group Living Skills Survey for extreme work environments

Lauren Blackwell Landon; Jennifer C W Miller; Suzanne T Bell; Peter G Roma

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1348119

When people start getting real: The Group Living Skills Survey for extreme work environments

Front Psychol. 2024 Apr 16:15:1348119. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1348119. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Lauren Blackwell Landon¹, Jennifer C W Miller², Suzanne T Bell³, Peter G Roma¹

Affiliations

¹ Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory, Biomedical Research and Environmental Sciences Division, Human Health and Performance Directorate, KBR, at NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, United States.
² Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory, Biomedical Research and Environmental Sciences Division, Human Health and Performance Directorate, JES Tech, at NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, United States.
³ Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory, Biomedical Research and Environmental Sciences Division, Human Health and Performance Directorate, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, United States.

Abstract

Introduction: Group living skills (GLS), that is, being tidy and considerate of others, are an important skillset for teams who live and work together. However, this construct does not have a validated measure to enable an understanding of how group living skills influence team dynamics over time. We developed and validated a short measure of group living skills for teams living in extreme work environments.

Methods: We collected data from 83 individuals in 24 teams living and working in space and spaceflight analog environments on missions of 45-240 days.

Results: We provide evidence of reliability and validity for the GLS Survey over time and identify a two-factor structure. We also demonstrate its use as a measure of team-level dynamics and its utility as a sociometric measure to identify a person's degree of group living skills.

Discussion: We outline recommendations for using this new measure in future research and applied settings to understand this unique aspect of teams living and working together.

Keywords: extreme environment; group living; measure; scale development; spaceflight; team.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. PGR led the 2015 NASA Behavioral Health and Performance Team Risk Standardized Measures Workshop as part of NASA grant NNX15AK76A (D. F. Dinges, PI) and NNX13AB39G (PGR, PI). Additional funding for data collection was provided by NASA-directed funding to the Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory. LBL, JCWM, and PGR were also supported by KBR’s Human Health and Performance Contract NNJ15HK11B through NASA.