FUTURE SELECTION OF AQUANAUTS 191 



feelings better. Distortions of answers are possible but far less likely to questions concerning 

 objective demographic characteristics than they are for variables of the interest-and-attitude 

 variety. 



A second advantage of demographic characteristics is that they are easy to obtain and ana- 

 lyze. A few simple and unobjectionable questions can frequently supply as much information 

 as a long battery of less objective questions, or possibly more. Once their utility as selection 

 predictors has been established, demographic characteristics can be used without a complex 

 scoring or analysis process. 



Finally, demographic characteristics have useful predictors in other situations where men 

 have been exposed to stressful environments. A brief discussion of some of the possible rela- 

 tions among the demographic variables and performance will indicate why these particular 

 variables were chosen. Probably no discussion of age and experience are necessary in this 

 regard. It is quite reasonable to expect that an older and more experienced man will cope 

 better with a stressful situation than will a younger and less experienced man. On the other 

 hand, there is no reason to expect that education per se would have an appreciable relation to 

 performance in Sealab. However, there was a considerable range in years of education among 

 the aquanauts, and the civilian and military subgroups were quite different in education, and in 

 the functions they performed as well. This fact would tend to wash out any correlation between 

 education and performance in the group as a whole. However, if amount of education is related 

 to how well a man does his job or to his ability to adjust to others in the group, there could be 

 a correlation between education and criteria within either the military or civilian subgroup. 



Birth order, size of home town, and family mobility are variables which are similar to 

 each other, in that each one can be significantly related to the type of person one has become. 

 It has long been known in psychology that whether a person was an only child or first born, or 

 whether he had older siblings, had profound effects on his personality and behavior. However, 

 the nature of these effects has been confused and muddled for an equally long period. In recent 

 years, studies have accumulated which indicate that first and only borns are more reactive to 

 other people and may be more dependent upon them, particularly in stressful situations. The 

 findings regarding birth order are not at all clear at this time, but the variable has been found 

 to be of great significance in a variety of situations involving social behavior and stress. Per- 

 haps the finding of most relevance for present purposes is the fact that later-born men were 

 significantly better fighter pilots during the Korean War as measured by the number of enemy 

 planes they destroyed. Similar data are not available for size of home town and family mobil- 

 ity. These variables were included because of the reasonable presumption that men who had 

 been raised in a small town or whose families had not moved while they were growing up would 

 be different from men who were raised in the city or whose families moved frequently. It would 

 be an unnecessary digression to present the speculations concerning the possible relationship 

 between these variables and performance and adjustment in Sealab. 



The other type of measure used in this analysis is the "Study of Values." This series of 

 scales measures the basic value orientation of a person. It is perhaps the most widely used 

 measuring instrument of its type. There are six basic value orientations measured by this 

 form; they are theoretical or scientific, economic, aesthetic, social, political, and religious. 

 By answering a series of questions, a person indicates the relative importance of each of these 

 value orientations for himself. For example, a person scoring high on the theoretical scale is 

 interested in studying the world around him, of acquiring knowledge for its own sake. A person 

 scoring high on the political scale is interested in activities in which he is in control of or di- 

 recting other persons. In contrast to the specific objective information represented by the 

 demographic variables, the study of values provides data which is general and subjective. 

 Thus, in a sense, considering types of information available about a man, this analysis employs 

 data from two ends of a continuum ranging from specific and objective on one end to general 

 and subjective on the other. 



Intercorrelations of Demographic and Criterion Variables 



Correlations between demographic and criterion variables are presented in Table 7. The 

 symbols in the table indicate the degree of association. No symbol means, of course, that the 

 correlation is not significant. 



