Power discrepancy Power is the capacity to influence others. The Russian commander was the most powerful person in the capsule for a variety of reasons: Judith Lapierre No legitimate power, just a participant in the experiment. No coercive power without alliances. New participants, had only been in capsule for 28 days when the incident occured; “playing an away game”. People in control of the experiment had not made big investment in her. Language and cultural barriers between her and the people in charge. Russian Commander Legitimate power as a result of his position as commander of the capsule. Coercive power, he controlled the resource that was important to the other participants’ careers; he could get others removed from the experiment. Been in the capsule 120 days before the new participants entered the experiment, he was on “home turf”. The return of the massive investment made by IBMP into the social isolation experiment was vested in the participants who had been in isolation the longest. This put new participants at a disadvantage in any conflict situation, No language or cultural barriers between him and the people who were in control of the experiment

Incompatible goals: Russian cosmonauts had a realistic chance of space travel as a result of participating in the experiment, the other potential astronauts were dependent on their own national space agencies, these played no major role in the experiment. Differentiation: Even though we can not make any causal statements about cultural, gender or language differences as source of the conflict due to the massive confounding factors, these differences contributed to the conflict. Interdependence: There was a reciprocal interdependent relationship between the participants in the study but the non Russian participants were far more dependent on their Russian colleagues than the other way around. Scarce resources: The experiment took place in a very confined space which was shared by 7 people. The original Russian participants had the whole space to themselves before the others entered the experiment. Having to share this commodity with the new people contributed to conflict between the Russians themselves and between the Russians and the “intruders”. Ambiguous rules: There was no informed consent from the Austrian,Canadian and Japanese subject in the actual aim of the study, which was the effect of long term social isolation on the Russian cosmonauts in the experiment. Poor communication: Communication had broken down between the participants in the capsule, but more importantly the safety concerns of the female subject was not listened to by the people in control of the experiment. Model of the Conflict Process.

Organisational Approaches to Conflict Management Emphasise superordinate goals: IBMP researchers should have made clear that the Russian cosmonauts’ success would depend on the other participants’ successful participation. This would have given the commander a sense of responsibility for all members of his crew. Clarifying rules and procedures: All participants in the study should have been informed on their role in the experiment before giving their consent to participate. Reduce Value Differences: Shared experiments from the start to emphasise the identity commonalities as scientists and potential astronauts rather than cultural and gender differences. This will lead to reduced differentiation between the participants. Improve Communication and Understanding: After differentiation was reduced the contact hypothesis states that shared experiences will reduce the conflict. Reducing interdependence: Splitting the capsule in two reduced the interdependence between participants but also reduced the external validity of the experiment. Increasing resources: Unfortunately the scarcest resource in the experiment, space and this is also the hardest to increase.