Does working too closely affect team productivity? Here’s what one study found

The International Space Station is seen from the space shuttle Atlantis on July 19, 2011, after it left the orbiting complex. (NASA via AP, File)

People get frustrated when they’re stuck together for long periods of time, a new study confirmed.

Researchers looked at 12 crew members stationed in Antarctica over 10 months, using proximity sensors and questionnaires to track how social relationships changed over the period.

Researchers examined different metrics to determine the effects of close quarters on the team effectiveness. They examined loneliness, paranoid thinking, team cohesion, team conflict, and individual performance in researchers at the Concordia Station in Antarctica.

“People who had more frequent contact with other team members were more likely to report conflict, growing mistrust and reduced performance,” according to a press release for the study. “The results suggest that in highly confined settings, not only isolation but also constant proximity can be a source of stress.”

“Close-range interactions were positively associated with conflicts and paranoid thoughts and negatively related with individual performance, suggesting that more frequent contact did not equate to social support,” the authors said.

Cliques

Sensor data showed the team broke into subgroups along language or nationality as the mission progressed. This trend “may increase the risk of social fragmentation and can weaken cohesion within multicultural teams,” according to the press release.

The crew was made up of primarily French and Italian researchers, with a wide variety of ages and higher education levels.

“Social interactions became increasingly clustered within national groups, highlighting the risk of social fragmentation and crew polarization,” the study said.

Out of this world potential

The study and its associated press release highlighted the potential for its findings to be used in space applications. As Antarctica research sites are cut off from the rest of the world for large portions of the year, its similar to the isolated environment found on space missions.

“Lasting months or even years, such missions will require small teams to operate in confined and isolated spaces, under hazardous conditions and high autonomy requirements, with significant communication delays with Earth,” the authors wrote.

Antarctic “environments share key characteristics with space missions, such as heavy reliance on technology for life support, hostile external conditions, limited rescue options, communication delays, confinement, and multicultural teams working in small, isolated settings ,” the authors wrote.

They added, however, “the fact that (Antarctic mission members) remain accessible in case of emergencies, thus lacking the full psychological stressors of an actual space mission.“