Reality Research – understand the invisible

T-5 talk @SpaceUpCGN

Can we research something we even cannot reach? Something beyond the horizons we are able to touch, see or travel to? 

I'm studying psychology. The official definition of psychology says, psychology is the study of mind and behavior. How do we study behavior though? We do research! 

@SpaceUpCGN

The function of research is to analyze and understand reality. How things are working, how people will react and behave. In order to research our mental status, psychologists use several methods. 

The most important thing are questionnaires. Psychologists love questionnaires! It’s the best method to analyze and understand our complicated social behavior. For example, the phrase in a questionnaire “I love solving puzzles” actually means: “I can solve problems”. This shows us, you can study an entire person’s soul by asking this kind of questions with five answer possibilities. 

The more complex version contains at least two or more subject groups – mostly students who need some money and therefore participate in the experiment. 

Psychologists split them into two or more groups, put them in this really realistic lab situation, and conduct our experiment, including questionnaires until they finish with some exhausting statistics. 

Remember, why are we doing this? Because we want to understand reality!

But regarding this research procedure, I sometimes think, we draw our conclusions about reality from unreal situations. 

Here we go with the biggest problem concerning space psychology. We want to find out how social behavior changes on Mars, but we can only do research on earth so far. So we search real facts in an unreal situation again!

In order to solve this problem, we establish simulations like Mars500 or artificial habitats and observe our subject groups, which is the most approximate method we possess. The positive aspect concerning simulations shows: these experiments are focused, concentrated and controlled. 

Nevertheless, we have to deal with two major problems:

a.       Factor of risk: would the results change, if we could actually fly to Mars?

b.      For studies like Mars500 or MarsHa we always acquire aspirants who want to be in this situation. But – what happens to people who are there involuntarily?  This is the worst, but not the most unrealistic scenario we might have to deal with. 

At my university, I attended a course, in which the teacher said about the definition of Psychology is not only the study of behavior and mind, but also the study of experiencing.” So we can draw conclusions not only from observing behavior but also from experiencing situations. 

This thought inspired me to search for answers focusing on space psychology on earth. And I found some: we can draw conclusions from long term isolated people in hospitals or people working in factories. 

My conclusion is: we should use both, controlled and special constructed space research, but also observational methods on earth’ environments in order to share our broad knowledge.

On the other hand, regarding environments on earth can have a reverse positive impact on especially these environments. 

Research is not only about facts; it is also about exploration, passion and risk. 

Sometimes, reality and research are like two parallel curves that meet in infinity.

Maybe, the most important thing is: Ignore the facts, and just go! Following our vision is the most real thing we can do!