Biographical, physiological, and personality variables as predictors of performance under sickness-inducing motion

Developed a screening procedure for the early identification of individuals whose performance is likely to be damaged by sickness-inducing motion by collecting from 199 US Navy seamen (Exp I) biographical, personality (Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale and the Repression-Sensitization Scale), and physiological (nystagmic eye movement and spiral aftereffect) data. In addition, each S's performance under sickness-inducing motion was assessed by self- (the Pensacola Motion Sickness Questionnaire), peer, and officer ratings. Results show that a combination of biographical data and eye nystagmus explained 40% of performance variance. The remaining variables failed to add significantly to the proportion of explained variance. In Exp II, the biographical inventory and the test of eye nystagmus were administered to 71 new Navy recruits, and the quality of Ss' performance was assessed 8 mo later. The multiple correlation between predictors and criterion was .51, thereby indicating that this screening procedure is highly effective. (54 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).