I think you can actually stretch this to say attitude and mind set are really significant in life, including survival situations.

Self fulfilling prophesies are well documented (i.e. I know this isn't going to work and lo and behold I am right!!) in psych. I am sure we have also all experienced the other side of this coin also, someone who demonstrates exaggerated or misplaced self confidence in their abilities. Both of these mind sets/attitudes will probably have negative correlation with survival situations.

Similarly there are people who always see options and possibilities. It doesn't seem to matter what situation you put them in they are always finding a way to improvise a solution from what is around. The opposite of this is people who, even given the right tools for resolving a problem, are unable/unwilling to see any options or possibilities.

Beyond that it gets harder to speculate but I think that basically you can always quit fighting to survive and die. Attitude/mind set/determination is what keeps you going when things truly suck and hope is at best a very distant glimmer.

-Eric

Because of the many instances, some of which have been recently mentioned (Hugh Glass is the poster boy) where it was significant. I have seen many less well publicized instances from my own experience in SAR where mindset made a difference.

Eric's response is extremely good. He makes a very good point.

Anecdotal evidence is barely evidence at all. I just wondered if those who have studied survival have done the cold, brutal, factual, actuarial analysis to determine if mindset seems to affect the rate of survival, at all.

While just speculation on my part, I would guess that much survival training, trainors, and professionals have their roots in the military and incorporate the military's gung-ho attitude. If so, then I would expect a projection of that attitude to everything as a one-size-fits-all, everything-looks- like-a-nail-when-you're-a-hammer sort of thing.

Perhaps a calm, Buddhist-like acceptance while just making the best choice you can is better for survival. Perhaps mindset is not a significant factor when compared with luck, choice of companions, quality of clothing, culture, lifestyle, physical condition, age, etcetera.

I also suspect most "survivals" and many failures to survive do not get reported and have not been analyzed for whatever their lessons may be. I further suspect that survival outside the US-Europe area is little reported or considered in our current conclusions.

Just because we have been taught it, or everybody we know seems to believe it, does not mean the earth is flat or the center of the universe about which everything, including the Sun, rotates.

Please understand I am just wondering if science has weighed-in on the topic.

There are a couple of seminal books (IMO) that I own, although are not scientific and peer reviewed studies, do an excellent representation and study of what drives people to have the will to survive...and to die.

1) Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.

2) Surviving the Extremes: What Happens to the Body and Mind at the Limits of Human Endurance

I can understand you desire for statistically valid, well conceived studies that come to an unassailable conclusion. Unfortunately, the data set for survival situations is almost completely anecdotal, with wildly uncontrolled variables, some of which you mention.

Nobody is claiming that mental factors are preeminent,or even the most significant - simply that they are important, in combination with other aspects of the situation, and that there are instances where, carefully analyzed, attitude, etc. seemed to make the difference.

You rightly point out the existence of the "empty set," those people with the right attitude, who were simply overwhelmed by circumstances. The best mental attitude in the world doesn't do you any good if you step off a 300 foot cliff or attempt to cross a raging river.

Of course, with the right attitude, you might have not put yourself in a vulnerable situation in the first place, or extracted yourself once danger was evident, and so forth, on and on.....

I imagine a competent psychologist might be able to devise a study, both ethically and scientifically valid, that might shed some light on this subject, but that is well outside my field. I'll stick to worrying about the quality of the steel in my survival knife, or the three best means of starting a fire.

I agree with Hikermor that it is unlikely that any scientific test would produce a repeatable result because of the multitude of uncontrollable and even unmeasurable variables. I would find it easier to precisely number the black flies and mosquitos within an acre of my campsite on a breezy day, than to devise an actuarial test to reliably predict the long-term survivabilty of a human being in the wilderness. Best to analyze anecdotal events and outcomes and compare to personal hypothetical situations (something we do with regularity in this forum).

I have read #1 and it is thought-provoking. I would add to your list "The Lure Of The Labrador Wild" http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0921054580/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used which I purchased and read at CANOEDOGS suggestion. That book was written in a manner that made me feel like I was in the survival situation with them. They were equipped to survive by the standards of the day, but there were many things that I would have done differently if I were there.

I have and read this book (very good BTW) on my E-Reader. For anyone else interested, it is a available as a free download from Gutenberg.org in a variety of formats.

I have not seen a real study of those who have survived, but there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence (yes it can be evidence) of people who gave up and died when there was still a chance to survive. You have to look at the negative side of it, giving up is a sure way to die, not giving up at least gives you the chance to keep on surviving.

The discussions here have focused on the situations where the never-say-die, raging-against-the-night attitude have won out, but there many cases where the "calm, Buddhist-like acceptance" works out best, or at least well enough to achieve a good outcome. Typically it is a situation where the individual is indeed in serious straits and needs to summon aid and/or sit tight with calm, Buddhist-like acceptance, faced with, say, a river in flood stage in the winter time, or downed power lines. (just to pick a couple of hypotheticals at random)

It is really all about making decisions that are appropriate for the situation and not applying a "standard" strategy. We should all take Ecclesiastes to heart - there is a time for everything under the sun - a time for extreme exertion and a time for rest. This is true for survival situations and it is also true in the complementary activity of SAR. Rushing into action is not always the best course. Sometimes it is best to sit down and think or take less physical action. The trick is to know which strategy is appropriate to the circumstances - often it is best to switch drastically form one to the other as the situation evolves.

For that matter, that is probably true of matters military - I am fortunately not experienced enough in that arena to comment meaningfully. I would say, based on my two years military service (at a very low level) that it is not at all like SAR or survival training. It is an entirely different ethos - very few of my mentors or contemporaries in SAR had any military time.

I would infer from your comments above that you have little or no direct military experience.

Due to the challenges involved in creating a controlled, repeatable experiment I am sure there is nothing directly addressing the question. I am equally sure there is plenty of relevant material available addressing very specific aspects. This is not my field of study or interest so I cannot be precise in pointing these out. Sociologists and Psychologists have done a lot of research on things like self fulfilling prophesies, observer effects, placebo effects, the will to believe and my very general, layman's summarization of all of this is that attitude (any attitude) has a direct impact on how humans deal with any situation.

The military has a very vested interest in turning this scholarly work into practical applications. The US Marines are an excellent case in point, especially looking back to WWII. Conventional wisdom then (and now also I think) was that any unit sustaining losses exceeding 30% will be combat ineffective (basically write them all off, even the survivors, for the current battle). Several Marine units sustained losses greatly exceeding that (over 100% if you count in line replacements) and continued with their missions. This is one example of attitude making a key difference.

The military approach to survival has to be different from civilian since it must assume that escape and evasion are important in addition to simple survival. That doesn't invalidate it but it does put a specific bias into the choices that are favored.

There are also various psych studies that have been done looking specifically for good decision making under stress and many of these are probably also applicable to the topic. My very very vague recollections from the long past are that the best decision makers are those who can remain calm while focusing on the long term goal. Again this would play very strongly into survival and is something the US military specifically has been looking at for a long time.

Don't confuse a can do attitude with reckless behavior. I have known a lot of Marines, and while they vary (like the rest of us) from wild to studied they have all had a can do attitude and have been great team members. I suspect this is because everyone of them has internalized that "gung ho" really does mean all together.

- Eric