Varied Personalities Could Lead to More Successful Outcomes in Mars Missions

Deciding who gets to undertake a long-term mission to Mars is a long and complicated discussion, one that requires careful planning and forethought. But one aspect that you might not expect could be particularly critical to the success of the mission – the team’s personality traits.

Dr Hao Chen and Iser Pena from the Stevens Institute of Technology ran a simulation assessing how different groups performed, depending on the different types of personality traits represented in those groups. They looked at five specific traits – openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness – and examined how different groups responded to certain situations, using agent-based modelling (ABM). They found that teams with heterogeneous personalities represented (ie, different) performed better than those with homogeneous traits. 

While the simulation has it’s limitations, the study shows just how valuable diverse personality traits can be in successful teamwork.

The full study is available in the open access journal, PLOS: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0332496

Image: Astronaut team aboard the space station. Credit: NASA, CC-BY 4.0