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Resilience and Survival in Extreme Environments 141

to overcome serious adversity (Morrell & Capparell, 2001; Perkins, Holtman
& Kessler, 2000). In 1916, Shackleton was stranded with 27 fellow Antarc-
tic explorers after their ship had been crushed in the ice pack. Against all

odds, Shackleton successfully led his men to a safe refuge on Elephant Island,
from where he precisely navigated a small boat across 800 miles of ocean
waters to an inhabited island and then traveled over diffi cult mountainous

terrain to reach a whaling station on the opposite side. Through his deter-

mined effort, Shackleton was finally able to bring help and rescue every one
of his men. He demonstrated extraordinary performance despite extreme
cold, fatigue, hunger, danger, and the apparent hopelessness of his plight.
Certainly, Shackleton’s success can be attributed to a large degree of skill
acquired through training, experience, and preparation. However, it is also
possible that an explorer of equivalent training and preparation may have
failed to survive, or led his men to survive, such a journey. In addition to
possessing myriad necessary skills, Shackleton brought to bear a uniquely

sufficient ability to lead, motivate, and inspire. He promised his men that he
would “bring them all back alive,” and they believed he would do so. Shack-
leton’s leadership, and its impact upon others, illustrates the importance of
psychologically mediated resilience.

Four years before Shackleton’s most difficult adventure, British explorer
Robert Falcon Scott made an unsuccessful bid to be the fi rst explorer to
reach the South Pole. Scott’s story illustrates a very diff erent approach
to challenge, and an apparent lack of resilience to the challenges of the
journey. When Scott and his team arrived at the South Pole to discover

the Norwegian flag had already been posted there just a few days ear-
lier, Scott described it as “a horrible day.” A photograph of Scott’s team
depicted them standing well apart from one another, looking obviously
dejected ( Huntford, 2000). Scott and his team began their return trip with
severe disappointment. Within a few weeks, the men began to die. Th ree
months into their journey home, Scott and his remaining team members
succumbed to fatigue, frostbite, and malnourishment. They died in their

sleeping bags at the site of their last camp, just 11 miles from a food and
fuel depot. Certainly, the psychological orientation of Scott’s team was not
helped by Scott’s own negative response to defeat. What should have been
a survivable event was instead a tragedy, resulting from multiple failures in
judgment and stamina.

Throughout history, the quest to extend the physical barriers of human
endurance has inspired many remarkable examples of psychological resil-
ience. In each case, extraordinary individuals have been able to push them-
selves beyond ordinary limits, in some cases risking their health and life in

the process. The marathon celebrates the feat achieved by the Greek courier
hero, Phidippides (490 bc), who himself died of exhaustion aft er pushing
himself past the limits of human endurance to assist the Athenian Army

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