Territoriality Among Coworkers on Missions

Being the middle child of three daughters, I have experienced my fair share of fighting for what ought to belong to me. It's not that I don't love my sisters, but it is easy to feel neglected and under-appreciated when siblings continually borrow your things without permission. 

This only scratches the surface of what astronauts must deal with. Imagine spending several months with the same two or three people, living in tight, cramped quarters with limited things to do to relieve stress and boredom. This is definitely not the same as fighting over a hairbrush.

Here is an excerpt from 'Living Aloft' by Mary M. Connors concerning territorialty:

 

"Several studies refer to the "territoriality" of confined individuals in describing their privacy seeking behavior. However, true territoriality is less obvious in the human than in other species. Sundstrom and Altman (1974) observe that most animals show highly stereotypic territorial behavior, whereas humans show considerable territorial flexibility. These authors conclude that the human [90] territorial response is probably learned and may be just one of many techniques for achieving privacy.

In only a few cases has the specific need to control particular spaces been identified in confinement. In the University of California, Berkeley, "Penthouse" studies, it was reported that subjects staked out territories for their own personal use and became hostile when others violated these rights (Cowan and Strickland, 1965). Several Russian confinement experiences also have concluded that there is a specific need for personal space (Leonov and Lebedev, 1975, p. 86), and in the submarine experience, the lack of personal space was identified as a cause of stress (Earls, 1969). Yet even in these examples it is not clear whether the felt need was for separate space per se, or for control over interactions with others. Further evidence of the chameleon quality of the territorial need in humans comes from studies of Esser and his colleagues (Esser, 1973; Esser, Chamberlain, Chapple, and Kline, 1964). These researchers found that in confined settings with only a few desirable areas, the more dominant confinees exhibited territorial behavior, claiming for themselves the preferred spaces. However, in a uniform setting, the more dominant members did not act in a territorial manner, but rather moved freely throughout all the available space.

In a recent experiment, Rogers (1978) offered confined subjects an opportunity to purchase specific amenities, inluding extra space which could be turned to personal use. He found that although extra space was sometimes purchased, this space was added to the public area and was not used as individual space.

The evidence, then, suggests that for the human, personal and exclusive use of an area is probably less important than the privacy requirement which such space would address. This finding allows us to search for solutions to the privacy problem in space which do not depend on the personal allocation of territories within the habitat."