Fearless Temperament and Overconfidence in an Unsuccessful Special Forces Polar Expedition

BACKGROUND: Assessment of the influence of personality and decision processes on the performance of two-person expedition teams has application for the composition of small teams for planetary exploration and potentially responding to off-nominal situations.CASE REPORT: We studied a two-man Special Forces team with a goal of reaching the North Pole in the shortest amount of time. Both subjects had high scores on measures of leadership/dominance, fearlessness, and achievement, and low scores on harm avoidance (high risk-taking). Differences were noted on scales measuring empathy, agreeableness, extraversion, emotional regulation, and callousness. Individual differences in the primacy of personal values of tradition vs. pleasure-seeking were evident.DISCUSSION: High dominance traits of both team members, incompatibility in other characteristics and values, and minimal pretraining had a significant impact on the decision to abort the trek because of severe frostbite suffered by one subject. Implications for dyads exploring the Mars surface are discussed.Leon GR, Venables NC. Fearless temperament and overconfidence in an unsuccessful special forces polar expedition. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2015; 86(6):567–570.