Tommi, Haapakangas, Master of Sports. Senior Lecturer, Responsibility in Business and Services, Lapland University of Applied Sciences
Jenna, Kaila, BA student of Sports, Lapland University of Applied Sciences
Key words: Robustness, Resilience, Interoception, Psychological safety
Introduction
Mountaineering is often associated with its physical harshness and reaching summits. In popular perception, success is defined by whether you reached the top or not. However, for the mountaineering community and a lot of experienced alpinists, success is measured more broadly, including skills like safe decision making, emotional regulation under stress, feeling of competence, and coming back home safely. Therefore, the most profound demands of this sport are strongly neuropsychological, and it needs special kinds of skills to be able to work under extreme alpine conditions when the risks are high or even life-threatening (Eikeland et al., 2025.)
Even if the arctic areas are geologically in a completely different place than the alpine peaks, they share many similar risk factors for safety. Fast changing weather conditions, extreme cold and working by nature’s rules far away from other help create an environment where situations can change from routine-like to emergencies fast and unexpected. Because of these similarities, the psychological skills and lessons learned in mountaineering can offer valuable insights also for the jobs of arctic guides (Hild 2023.)
In this article, we will explore these neuropsychological skills- specifically robustness and resilience. In addition, we will explore how we can use these skills in the training of arctic guides. Combining these lessons from alpine environments with the needs of arctic traveling, it would be possible to add client and guides safety and create more value and benefit in the competition for the whole arctic tourism business.
Defining Robustness and Resilience in High-Stress Environments
To understand the performance of the mind and to be able to utilize that, it is crucial to separate robustness and resilience. Haapakangas & Minier (2026) point out that these terms are often used to mean the same thing, but they describe two different cognitive mechanisms.
Robustness means the body’s and brain’s ability to maintain performance, structure and clear decision making under acute and high stress. Neuropsychologically, it means that the brain can stop the over-arousal of amygdala and keep up the frontal cortex function in exceptional physiological stress and high-risk environments. (Arnsten 2009) A robust system doesn’t bend or collapse under stress.
Resilience is used to describe the ability to recover after the system has failed. It will help a mountaineer or a guide to recover from the crisis that they have phased and help the person to learn and recover back to the level, where they can function normally (Fletcher & Sarkar 2013.)
Biologist Oliver Hamant suggests that putting too much focus on strict performance can be harmful. He argues that in complex environments, such as mountains or the arctic, robustness is much more important than being perfectly efficient. If a system or a person focuses too much on perfecting efficiency, the system might become fragile and can’t cope with unexpected problems. (Hamant 2020.)
Both are important and needed, but in the learning process of the guides, would be better to focus on the robust side, so that the client and guide’s safety is guaranteed. (Haapakangas & Minier 2026)
The neuropsychology of extreme environments
In extreme alpine environments, the biggest challenge is not the mountain, but the way the brain is processing the risks. The human brain wants to get rid of uncertainty as fast as possible, and this makes the decision-making process vulnerable in critical moments. In these moments, opens an opportunity for the cognitive biases to happen, such as the “sunk cost fallacy” or “summit fever”. Meaning that the climbers are unable to make smart decisions because they want to reach the summit or because they used a lot of money, so they want to reach the goal and not waste money, even if it means taking unnecessary high risks for their life (Mannberg et al. 2021.)
Interoception and recognizing subtle signs of panic
Good mountaineers have usually very good body awareness and they are able to listen very closely to the signs that their body gives to them. This capability to sense and read the internal reactions of the body, such as heartbeat, breathing intensity, or muscle tonus, is called interoception. (Roelofs & Dayan 2022.)
Psychologically the most dangerous concept is that panic is thought to be just loud screaming, frozen still or running away from the situation. In extreme conditions panic is often observed in more subtle ways, but it can be even more dangerous. A person can become completely blocked or frozen where the body and brain become completely paralyzed. They cannot move and are unable to make any kind of decision. They might not be able to even speak. Another common way of experiencing panic is tunnel vision, where the person can’t observe the risks and changing conditions clearly because of the overstimulated nervous system. (Roelofs & Dayan 2022.)
In addition, social masking can occur in groups. When a climber is working in a group, the social pressure can become too big, and the climber might not communicate early enough about their fear. They are too worried about slowing the group down or ruining the mission, so they push past their limits until the control of the situation is lost. Knowing and recognizing these physiological states and group dynamics is very important for safety and survival and making this interoceptive diagnosis is the critical first step to being able to do the aporetic turn. (Snowden & Rancati 2021.)
The aporetic turn
When an individual phases aporia, it’s a moment where the person has reached a point where they don’t know what to do. It’s a psychological dead end where the previous plans and the solution models are no longer usable, leaving the person clueless. Making an aporetic turn means taking an intentional pause: The mountaineer or the guide needs to accept the feeling of confusion without making any rushed decisions. Instead of the automatic reaction of panic, the brain is forced to re-evaluate the situation. This requires great cognitive flexibility. (Snowden & Rancati 2021.)
Affect labeling
To initiate the aporetic turn, the mountaineer needs to mechanically unload the situation. This happens by wording out loud the feeling that they are experiencing, which changes the neurobiological state of the brain. It activates the prefrontal cortex, and this activation will immediately take some of the hyperactivity away from amygdala, which is responsible for the fight or flight response. In this way, the overwhelming feeling of fear and panic will be turned into concrete data that is possible to process in the brain and logical decision making becomes possible again. (Torre & Lieberman 2018.)
Group Dynamics and Collective Robustness
In a demanding environment such as high alpine terrain, the alpine group forms a sociocognitive system. The robustness of the group is defined by internal dynamics, communication and trust, not just by the qualities of individuals. The group can be an asset and help in crisis, but it can also act in ways that only deepen the crisis.
Psychological safety as a foundation of group-robustness
The human brain processes the social threat, such as being embarrassed in front of the group or showing weakness, in the same part of the brain as physical pain. (Eisenberger 2012) If the group doesn’t have psychological safety, the social fear can run over the fear of real risks.
In a group with low psychological safety, a climber might cover his exhaustion or doesn’t bring up the warning signs of an avalanche, because they fear the group’s judgement. In high-risk situations, they stay quiet, because they assume that other ones know better, and they don’t want to be labeled as annoying. (Mannberg et al. 2021.)
In a group with high psychological safety, any member can voice their feelings or doubts without fear of being judged. The group sees every member as an asset and is open to hearing different points. This makes the group more robust, as it allows the group to receive information from all its members and use it as data for making the right decisions. (Edmondson & Bransby 2023.)
Shared mental models
While moving on a terrain that leaves no room for error, misunderstandings or delays in decision making can be fatal. A robust group shares mental models, meaning that all the group members are on the same page about what is happening. All the members know and understand their location, conditions and when are the critical turn-around times. They also have a clear understanding of a member’s role and tasks in the group, as well as how the other group members are feeling mentally and physically. (Zweifel & Haegeli 2014.)
When the team has strong shared mental models, it liberates more capacity for decision making and observing. The work of the group becomes better even in moments when there is a lot of stress or high risks. (Haapakangas & Minier 2026)
Aporetic turn on the group level and leadership
Decision making within a group can easily lead to cognitive biases, such as groupthink and summit fever. When a group is invested in reaching a goal or a summit, it can be very difficult to break that momentum as an individual. (Mannberg et al. 2021). Guiding or leading a robust group needs neuropsychological knowledge about these biases and how to avoid them.
The group leader must actively perform debiasing, meaning they don’t trust just their feelings, but will make the group observe factors such as the time and the weather conditions objectively. When the group phases an aporia, the leader will make space to stop and open the situation for group thinking. A leader can also name a person to play the role of the “devil’s advocate.” The task of this person is to look for risks or holes in the plan that can become a problem later, but this questioning will not be seen as a negative thing in the group. This turns the group pressure into an asset that improves safety, because the members support each other to make better decisions. (Snowden & Rancati 2021.)
Rethinking Arctic Guide Training
Traditionally the training of the arctic guides has been strongly built on top of “hard skills” such as emergency training, camping, orienteering or reading the weather conditions. Even if this is clearly the base that is necessary for working in this role, the more recent research (Hild 2023) shows that for the safety aspect, it’s clearly needed a deeper understanding of the situation and capacity to handle high stress- situations.
Stress inoculation training
Learning only theory and hard skills in controlled environments doesn’t build the robustness of the brain. In the training of arctic guides, more stress inoculation training could be used, where students are made to undergo stress and cognitive overload such as storm, darkness and changing conditions. In these situations, would be possible to intentionally train to do the aporetic turn until it becomes routine. This would also strengthen the interoception of the guides and teach the brain to maintain control in real crisis. However, further research is needed to understand exactly how to use these methods in the best way. (Hild 2023.)
Understanding the group neuropsychological dynamics- creating psychological safety
Maybe even more importantly, strengthening the guides’ skills in creating a neuropsychologically safe environment should be an essential part of the training. International travelers usually seek experiences that are associated with a controlled feeling of danger and a profound sense of arctic deserted areas. (Hild 2023.)
If the guide understands and has the skills to create this psychologically safe environment, it elevates the experience of the clients. When the client feels fundamentally safe and free from social and psychological stress, they can deeply immerse themselves in nature. (Edmondson & Bransby 2023.)
Premium client experience and responsibility
While psychological safety and aporetic turn are important pieces for safety, there is one huge factor that increases the risks. As mentioned, doing these adventures is a business, so money and the pressure for achieving the goal, no matter of the weather or other conditions creates a problem for the industry.
Clients usually book a goal orientated trip and achieving these goals becomes an expectation. These trips are normally also booked through an organization instead directly from the guide. It makes the industry difficult to survive for an individual guide because of the competition. It means the guides might end up taking too many risks to reach the goal that was promised. The industry would need more robust guides and a change in the way that these trips and experiences are sold. Instead of promising a guaranteed summit, the focus should be on safe, high-quality experiences.
Strategically making these changes would likely raise the value of the arctic travel- experience. A guide who has knowledge of these things and the ability to use them even in high stress situations will not only be someone who just shows the route, but an expert in human performance, safety and experience management. This creates premium experience for the clients, offering them a chance to learn valuable skills that can be used in many areas of life, not just in the arctic or mountains.
Summary
The lessons learned from mountaineering show that survival in crisis is not only luck or physical performance, but it’s also about psychological strength, that can be learned and trained. Rabidly changing climate challenges guides decision making skills and awareness about the environment more than ever in industrial time. The robustness of the mind and capability to execute an aporetic turn in the moment of difficulty are tools that prevent panic and guarantee good decision making. By integrating these insights into the training of arctic guides, the industry could create a safer, more responsible and experientially deeper tourism for the Arctic areas. Surprisingly, these neurological pathways are the same as those involved in systems thinking. Embodied feelings, sensory information, and social behavior all become sources of information that guide decision-making and adaptation. The next phase of development is to explore pedagogical approaches to transformation management, ensuring that the competencies developed in mountain environments can be effectively transferred and applied across the wider biosphere.
References:
Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signaling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10(6), 410–422.
Brymer, E., & Schweitzer, R. (2013). Extreme sports are good for your health: A phenomenological understanding of fear and anxiety in extreme sport. Journal of Health Psychology, 18(4), 477–487. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105312446770
Edmondson, A. C. & Bransby, D. P. (2023.) Psychological Safety Comes of Age: Observed Themes in an Established Literature. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 10(1), 55–78.
Eikeland, P., Frühauf, A., Hetland, A., & Mehus, I. (2025). 1000 meters at the time: Self-determined motivation in extreme altitude climbing. Leisure Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2025.2596147
Eisenberger, N. I. (2012.) The neural bases of social pain: Evidence for shared Haapakangas, T., & Minier, F. (2026, June 8). Performance is fragile: What is outdoor guide education for uncertainty? Lapland UAS Professionals’ Blog. https://lapinamk.fi/en/blogArticle/performance-is-fragile-what-is-outdoor-guideeducation-for-uncertainty/
Hamant, O. (2023). An antidote to the cult of performance: The resilience of life (Antidote au culte de la performance: La robustesse du vivant) (Tracts No. 50). Éditions Gallimard.
Hild, B. O. 2023. Developing Safety Competencies Among Arctic Nature Guides in Training: An Analysis of Student Experiences. Studia Periegetica, 4(44), 13–28. DOI:10.58683/sp.566
Hild, B. O. 2023. Developing Safety Competencies Among Arctic Nature Guides in Training. Studia Periegetica 36(4), 117–133. DOI:10.58683/sp.566
Mannberg, A., Hendrikx, J., Landrø, M. & Stefan, D. (2021.) Who is at risk in the backcountry? Effects of individual differences on heuristic traps. Journal of Environmental Psychology 74, 101585.
Roelofs, K. & Dayan, P. (2022.) Freezing revisited: coordinated autonomic and central optimization of threat coping. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 23(9), 568–580.
Snowden, D. & Rancati, A. (2021.) Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis.
A field guide for decision makers inspired by the Cynefin framework. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2760/422616
Torre, J. B. & Lieberman, M. D. (2018.) Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling as Implicit Emotion Regulation. Emotion Review 10(2), 116–124.
Zweifel, B. & Haegeli, P. (2014.) A qualitative analysis of group formation, leadership and decision making in recreation avalanche accidents. Proceedings of the International
Snow Science Workshop (ISSW), Banff, Alberta, Canada. 29.9.–3.10.2014, 963–970. Online publishment. https://arc.lib.montana.edu/snowscience/objects/ISSW14_paper_O1.01.pdf