Personal Space

11 Key excerpts on "Personal Space"

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  In Celebration of Play

  An Integrated Approach to Play and Child Development

  • Paul F. Wilkinson(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Altman has defined the essential and general properties of Personal Space which is basically the compilation of the existing definitions provided by theorists such as Hall, Sommer, Little, and Dosey and Meisels. According to Altman (1975, p. 53):

  Personal Space is an invisible boundary or separation between the self and others; it is literally attached to the self. Regulation of Personal Space is a dynamic process that permits differential access to the self as situations change; when someone crosses a Personal Space boundary, anxiety or stress or even flight may result.

  Hall (1966), Sommer (1969), Little (1965), and Dosey and Meisels (1969) have individual yet overlapping views of the concept of Personal Space. Hall’s analysis seems to be the most descriptive in that he presents his theory of Personal Space in terms of series of concentric circles around the body which represent four zones, each reserved for a particular quality of interpersonal communication. He maintains that people reserve specific zones of Personal Space for particular settings and social relationships. The intimate distance zone (0–18 inches) is reserved for loved ones and intrusion into this zone by others tends to cause discomfort and in some cases alarm; the personal distance zone (1½ –4 feet) is the space most customarily used by people engaged in conversation; the social distance zone (4–12 feet) is typically used in business and general social interaction; and the public distance zone (12–25 feet) is the distance used for formal functions, e.g., lectures, performances. Hall maintains that the type of behaviour permitted within each zone is a function of ethnicity and culture and that each zone permits a type of interpersonal communication. He has specified four variables determining the distance maintained in an interaction: culture, status, personality, and the feelings of the interactants toward each other.

  Sommer (1969) deals with Personal Space in terms of intrusion. He states that Personal Space refers to an area with invisible boundaries surrounding a person’s body into which intruders may not come, and maintains that it is not necessarily spherical in shape nor does it extend equally in all directions. Sommer, like Hall, stresses that cultural differences determine the differences in personal distance.

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  Public and Private Spaces of the City

  • Ali Madanipour(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  et al., 1996; Veitch and Arkkelin, 1995).

  Personal Space is a subjective space around individuals, as it is not visible or real. It is at the same time objective, in the sense that the individual and the others around him/her seem to agree in observing it, although they may disagree on the methods of this observation and the size of this Personal Space. The individual protects it and the others avoid invading it. Getting very close to a complete stranger often has the result that the stranger will move back to keep the distance. It is a piece of private space that individuals carry with them around wherever they go. That is why it is called ‘portable territory’ (Sommer, 1969:27). It is this space in which individuals perform their social acts, where they feel safer and in control of their bodies. Social interaction in the public sphere therefore takes place from across Personal Spaces. Intersubjective relationships depend on the safety and security that the observation of subjective spaces bring about for those involved.

  Behaviour in bus stops and underground stations shows how the establishment of Personal Space is a complex relationship between the patterns set by the first individuals to arrive, their number and the number of subsequent arrivals, and the size of the space. The distance that the first few keep on the platform may be as large as 3 to 4 metres. As new passengers arrive, they may follow this pattern until the linear space of the platform appears to be full. From this moment on, the distances observed grow smaller and new adjustments are made. The extreme conditions of adjustment emerge when large crowds wait for buses or trains, effectively reducing the Personal Space to a minimum, which may be even smaller once inside the vehicle. This shows how in a short period of time the size of Personal Space is established and adjusted. In a busy bus or underground train, when people have to be very close to each other, the barriers may have to come down, as everyone is aware of the inevitability of crowding. But as soon as a person can have some control on the surrounding environment, the Personal Space will be observed. In this sense, Personal Space is a sign of control, a sign of power over one’s environment, which is part of a general sense of psychological wellbeing.

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  Environmental Psychology

  Behaviour and Experience In Context

  • Tony Cassidy(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  The study of Personal Space is sometimes referred to as proxemics, and the field was founded by E.T. Hall (1966). Personal Space refers to that invisible bubble we all carry around with us which defines how close we will approach other people and how close we will allow other people to approach us. To a very large extent it is a function of our relationship with the people involved and the society or culture to which we are accustomed. To some extent the terminology is misleading since in fact what we are considering is interPersonal Space. It only becomes important when we interact with others. In addition we need to be aware that the bubble can expand or shrink. In essence we all have a construction of the amount of Personal Space that is appropriate between ourselves and other people in a range of situations. We only become aware of our Personal Space when it is invaded. In other words it is something which maintains an invisible control over our behaviour with others most of the time. Hall (1966) identified four categories of Personal Space, each of which can be subdivided into two, near and far.

  Intimate distance

  This tends to be somewhere between 0–45cm and is generally the domain of those who have an intimate relationship with each other, but also includes situations where the social rules allow contact, for example in a wrestling match. Hall distinguishes between near situations requiring body contact (lovemaking) and far distances which require being very close but not in contact (whispering). It is quite clear that the distinction is rather artificial since whether or not contact occurs will depend on a variety of things such as the social and physical setting.

  Personal Space

  This ranges from 45–120cm and is the zone generally reserved for good friends or intimate partners in a social setting. Again Hall defines two aspects of this based on the level of friendship. The near aspect is reserved for couples or very close friends whereas the far phase is used by acquaintances or friends.

  Social distance

  This varies between 1.2–3.5m, and is the zone where those who are not acquainted interact or where business transactions occur. The near distance would be used by those being introduced or for informal business transactions whereas the far phase would be reserved for more formal business processes.

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  Understanding Nonverbal Communication

  A Semiotic Guide

  • Marcel Danesi(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  The intimate-personal zone is violated in urban centers where crowds tend to form—as for example, in subways, in elevators, etc. So, the intimate-personal meanings of these zones are also breached—while most people would sense the physical proximity of strangers on subways or elevators to be uncomfortable, it is still accepted as a fact of modern-day city life. The situation is now felt as impersonal, and the factors above are adapted accordingly—for example, eye contact tends to be avoided and any non-accidental physical contact is perceived as an unwanted advance or threat. This suggests that we carry our Personal Space with us wherever we might be—it is a psychological-semiotic space that constitutes a form of self-definition and self-awareness (Richmond 2008). It is a residual territorial mechanism that is likely based in our evolution—located in the amygdala of the brain, which is involved in all forms of emotional responses. Body spacing and posture, as they unfold in a particular zone, are unconscious reactions to sensory fluctuations or shifts, as Hall called them, such as subtle changes in any one of the above factors—tone and pitch of voice, eye contact, etc.

  Figure 7.2

     Actors in the four zones (Wikimedia Commons).

  The actual physical distances of the zones are called horizontal, and the associated social behaviors are called vertical. So, for example, looking up at or down on the other person generally coincides with social status (Richmond 2008). Needless to say, the regions of intimate-personal zones vary horizontally across cultures. For instance, personal zones with respect to strangers exceed 3.9 ft. (120 cm) in Romania, Hungary and Saudi Arabia, but have been found to be less than 2.9 ft. (90 cm) in Argentina, Peru, Ukraine, and Bulgaria (Sorokowska, Sorokowski, and Hilpert 2017). These horizontal factors then influence vertical ones—for instance, in cultures where the zones are less than they are in others, the tendency is to react in more emotively expansive ways, with increased eye contact and even touch. As Kendon (2010: 54) observes, the zones are shaped by behavioral and sensory factors:

  Hall has pointed out that the degree and kind of detail that can be perceived in another’s behavior varies with distance, and whereas at very close distances information may be transmitted via the senses of touch and smell, at greater distances sight and hearing become the only senses that can be employed and at very great distances only sight is available. Hall has further suggested that such changes in available information will have consequences for the kinds of actions that interactants can engage in. He has suggested, for instance, that whereas at close distances, where small noises can easily be detected, rapid feedback from listeners is possible, at greater distances this ceases to be available, and speech styles and gesture styles may shift accordingly.

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  The Individual and Privacy

  Volume I

  • Joseph A. Cannataci(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Asylums (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1961), p. 231.

  39 Ibid. , p. 246. For more on norms regulating territorial conduct in face-to-face encounters, see Nancy Felipe and Robert Sommer, “Invasions of Personal Space,” Social Problems , XIV (May, 1966), 206–14; and Robert Sommer, “Sociofugal Space,” American Journal of Sociology , LXXII (May, 1967), 654–60.

  40 Simmel, “Brücke and Tür,” op. cit. (see n. 2 above), p.3.

  41 Goffman, Asylums , op. cit. (see n. 38 above), pp. 248–54.

  42 Everett C. Hughes, Men and Their Work (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1958), p. 51.

  43 Whyte, op. cit. (see n. 32 above), p. 390.

  44 Goffman, Asylums , op. cit. (see n. 38 above), pp. 319–20.

  Passage contains an image

  [8]Interpersonal Relationships and Personal Space: Research Review and Theoretical Model 1

  Eric Sundstrom

  2 ,4

  and Irwin Altman3

  This article reviews research concerning interpersonal distance as a function of interpersonal relationships, attraction, and reactions to spatial invasion. To integrate research findings, we propose a simple model, based on the idea that people seek an optimal distance from others that becomes smaller with friends and larger for individuals who do not expect to interact. The model describes comfort-discomfort as a function of interaction distance in three situations: interacting friends, interacting strangers, and strangers who do not expect interaction. These three Personal Space profiles are discussed in terms of qualifying variables, such as seated vs. standing interaction, sex composition of the dyad, intimacy of conversation topics, and situational variables.

  Key words: Personal Space, interaction distance, spatial invasions.

  INTRODUCTION

  Personal Space

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  Emotional Expression

  • G. Collier, Gary James Collier(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  6 Personal Space

  Meaningful facial and body movements can occur with or without other people, but spacial behavior can occur only within an interpersonal context. Our attitudes and emotions are often shown by the way we handle ourselves in relation to other people. We can move close or far away, making interaction easy or difficult. We can turn and orient our bodies so that others are included or excluded from an encounter. Spatial relationships are shown by different seating arrangements and variations in height that convey relative degrees of power and status. Although most of the research on Personal Space (particularly in the area of liking and affiliation) has focused on distance, the handling of Personal Space in the present chapter is used in the broader context and includes body orientation, seating patterns, and height.

  Like touch and eye contact, which also require the presence of others, the handling of Personal Space expresses not discrete emotions but interpersonal attitudes, such as dominance and attraction, and these channels are to a certain extent interchangeable. A person can express attraction toward another person by touching, maintaining eye contact, or manipulating spatial relationships. Dominance or submission can also be shown through nonreciprocity in touch, gaze holding or aversion, or differences in height or seating arrangements. There is also a common tendency to compensate for increased immediacy within one channel by decreasing immediacy in others, and while this tendency is discussed more fully in Chapter 10 , it should be noted that spatial behavior is often difficult to interpret without taking these other channels into account.

  Individual and Cross-Cultural Differences in Spatial Behavior

  Although many aspects of touching, eye behavior, and facial and body cues associated with emotions appear to be universal and innate, a strong case has been made for the cultural relativity of spatial relationships. The use of Personal Space is often seen as a learned phenomenon (par excellence) because of the numerous cross-cultural differences. Edward Hall (1966), for example, described the perception and use of space in six countries, pointing out numerous variations among American, English, French, German, Arabian, and Japanese cultures. Watson and Graves (1966) compared pairs of American and Arabian college students in the United States and found that Arabian students stood closer to each other with a more direct body orientation, touched more frequently, and maintained more eye contact. Forston and Larson (1968) noted differences among Latin and North American subjects, and Shuter (1976) made a finer distinction by pointing out differences within three Latin American countries. These differences seem to depend not only on cultural norms but on the language being spoken as well. Sussman and Rosenfeld (1982), for example, found that Japanese and Venezuelan students would approximate American conversation distance (by moving closer or away, respectively) when speaking English.

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  Intercultural Communication between Chinese and French

  • Lihua Zheng(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Éditions Le Manuscrit

    (Publisher)

  4. Space of an Informal Nature and the Management of Interpersonal Relationships

  Contrary to space of a fixed nature, informal space is invisible and fluctuating. Although the frontiers of this sphere often escape our consciousness, its existence is nevertheless felt and very real. It is a kind of halo which envelops us directly, an emotional area which cannot be penetrated by others without immediately provoking a defence reaction on our part. In a word it is our personal territory. In social interaction, space of an informal nature manifests itself through the use of distances that individuals establish and maintain between themselves to preserve their personal territory. Interpersonal distance is thus a way of organising space of an informal nature.

  4.1 The Four Types of Interpersonal Distance and Their Cultural Variations

  Hall, created the term "proxemics" , and distinguished four types of interpersonal distance: intimate distance, personal distance, social distance and public distance; Each one is composed of two phases, close and far, which vary according to people’s personality and the socio-cultural characteristics of the environment (Hall, 1971: 147-160).

  1) Intimate Distance

  Intimate distance is that where presence imposes itself and can even become invasive by its impact on the perceptive system. The close phase of this distance is less than 15 centimetres. It is the distance for sexual acts and fighting, for comforting or protection. The far phase of intimate distance measures between 15 and 45 centimetres. In this case, heads, thighs and the pelvis should not come into contact, but hands can, and it is possible to detect the heat and smell the breath of others. It is also an affective distance, where, for example, a conversation between lovers may occur. As the linguist Martin Joos writes: "This intimate form of expression makes it possible to avoid giving other people information, which does not originate in the body of the speaker itself" (quoted by Hall, 1971: 149)

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  Elements of Applied Psychology

  • Peter Spurgeon, Roy Davies, Antony Chapman(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The violation of individual distance is the violation of society’s expectations; the invasion of Personal Space is an intrusion into a person’s self boundaries. Individual distance may be outside the area of Personal Space – conversation between two chairs across the room exceeds the boundaries of Personal Space, or individual distance may be less than the boundaries of Personal Space – sitting next to someone on a piano bench is within the expected distance but also within the bounds of Personal Space and may cause discomfort to the player. If there is only one individual present, there is infinite individual distance, which is why it is useful to maintain a concept of Personal Space, which has also been described as a portable territory, since the individual carries it with him wherever he goes although it disappears under certain conditions, such as crowding.” (p. 27). Sommer describes how alternative layouts influence people’s behaviour in hospitals, in offices, in prisons, in airports, and in schools and colleges, and he shows how the type of interaction may even affect the choice of seating positions at tables (see Figure 15.4), but he emphasizes that as well as Personal Space, design values such as variety, flexibility, and the ability to personalise space also must be emphasized. To support this view, Sommer (1974) distinguishes “hard” architecture, characterised by building designs which reflect an impermeable, impersonal, and impregnable mentality; and “soft” architecture, where emphasis is placed on the personalisation of places, on providing an individual with personal control over changes to this, and where the environment can become a legitimate extension of an individual’s personality

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  Life Space Management

  • P S Siwach(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd

    (Publisher)

  “Proximity helps people to relate people to activities and to each other.” (Harrison and Dourish, 1996). In examining the impact of interrelation between place/space and social interaction, an interesting result is that physical settings, constraints, social interactions and conversely those interactions modify space. (Nicolas Nova, September 2003). The way people stand or are seated thus appears to influence the interaction patterns of the group (Hare & Bales, 1963). A study of proxemics by Edward T Hall too reveals the same. The simplest example is that in a gathering, participants of a group generally welcome one into the group by repositioning themselves to form a circle thereby including the new member. Division of labour is another social function supported by spatiality. Indeed, Harrison and Dourish (1996) state that “distance can be used to partition activities and the extent of interaction”. These details have been amply elaborated later while dealing with the subject of proxemics.

  Sir Isaac Newton regarded absolute and real space in the sense of Euclidean geometry. According to Newton, space was a self-subsistent reality, a container inside which all objects are placed; it was as per him “God’s boundless uniform sensorium.” (Pinhas Ben- Zvi, Internet, November 2005). Space, in Euclidean Geometry, is a concept which is independent of the attributes of our human minds and senses. The word Geometry is derived from Greek words; geo “earth”, and metron “to measure”, namely “earth measurement”. With such semantic-conceptual roots Pinhas Ben- Zvi further elaborates that its hardly conceivable that Euclid regarded Geometry as divorced from an objective independent space. Space being all encompassing cannot be viewed in Euclidean Geometry terms alone. This would mean that a larger meaning of space be understood.

  Psychological Space

  Psychological space though basically a figure of speech is a conceptual metaphor which connects or fuses the two conceptual unrelated domains of Psyche and Space, or Mind and Body, or Spirit and Matter.

  If one is accustomed to speak of psychological facts as something essentially non spatial, one thinks first of physical space. An essential characteristic of this physical space is that it is thought of as a single coherent space which includes the totality of all physical facts that exist at a certain time in this whole physical world.. The facts of psychology, i.e., these facts which psychology must recognize as real, have, according to the teaching of physics, no place within physical space. This is equally true of economic or aesthetic or other facts.

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  The Geography of Meanings

  Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Place, Space, Land, and Dislocation

  • Salman Akhtar(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The contemporary work of Bion (1977b) and Lacan (Fink, 1997) was less well known outside the United States. Working in parallel, these two theorists embarked on an ambitious reworking of Freudian theory. Each made extensive use of spatial models. Bion (1977b) constructed the "Grid"; Lacan, the "schema L" (Evans, 1996). These complex diagrams were designed to reveal the logic behind diverse clinical phenomena. Bion applied a Euclidian model of multidimensional space to the problems of psychopathology. Lacan followed a non-Euclidian approach, initially experimenting with topological objects, such as Mobius strips, Klein bottles, and the "cross-cap". Later in his work, topological models gave way to a study of Borromean knots.

  Human space

  Psychoanalysis does not deal with the space found in nature, and certainly not die vast expanse of "outer space". For analysis, space does not exist outside a context of human objects. Human space is produced by the objects that dwell within it, in their character, and in their various arrangements. Human space is structured by definition, whether we speak of "interior space" (the space of the mind) or ordinary, external space. A human being requires a place to "dwell". We call this place by a number of names: one's own little corner of the world, home-base, or the place where one lives with oneself.

  A beautiful short poem by Wallace Stevens (2005) shows the humanization of space. In the poem's inaugural act, a person who says "I" places ajar atop a hill in Tennessee. In so doing, he or she adds a human, subjective element to the landscape. The placement of the jar immediately redefines the area as a human space. The jar works as a single point of orientation. Everything in the surrounding landscape can now be seen in relationship to the jar. Nearness and remoteness may be assessed and experienced. Pre-jar, the wilderness was uncharted; postwar a human space is established.

  The issues of human space must be addressed by all human cultures. Each culture creates a human space that adapts to its environment and embodies its values. Because of the isolation of rural societies, a premium is placed on gathering places like churches and meeting-halls. And the home must compensate for a lack of near neighbours. In any society today, you can walk into a home and see immediately that you are in a human space even if you don't recognize the significance of the objects that constitute it.

  Rural societies thus are able to domesticate a portion of the natural world. Domestic plants and animals are drawn into the human realm. But such societies must also confront the larger, wilder space of Nature—the Nature beyond the hill in the Wallace Stevens poem. Since ancient times, humans have divided Nature into sea, sky, and land. Of these three expanses, the sea is the true terra incognita

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  Human Factors in Project Management

  Concepts, Tools, and Techniques for Inspiring Teamwork and Motivation

  • Zachary Wong(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Jossey-Bass

    (Publisher)

  chapter NINE

  Personal Space

  The goal of project management is to meet the project’s objectives. It usually means completing the project on time, on spec, and within budget, the old mantra of project management. We have been taught that getting to that point requires strong skills in planning, execution, and control. Yet in today’s competitive environment, getting results is not good enough. Superior project management is about getting desired results over and over again to sustain high performance over the long run. To be successful over the long term, organizations must be successful in meeting people’s goals. It is the inspiration, motivation, and human energy of people who make or break projects, not plans, process, or control. We have learned from Chapters Three to Eight that content, process, and behavior are essential ingredients for good teamwork. However, individual motivation and inspiration require much more than that. We need to understand people’s expectations and give them hope and confidence that their expectations can be met or exceeded. After all, we all want the same things in life: to feel needed, valued, and fulfilled. Believing that those desires can come true is a powerful force that motivates and inspires all of us. Knowing what our desires are and how to fulfill those desires reside in our third space of human factors: Personal Space.

  Personal Space is the most complex and least transparent of the three spaces. It is a space that defines who you are and what you do. I have defined Personal Space as the inner self, a place where internal interactive thinking occurs and human factors are formed. External information is internalized in Personal Space and intellectually and emotionally processed through internal dialogue. Internal dialogue occurs as people mentally process new information, interpret its meaning against their human factors, and express those perceptions in their behaviors. Personal Space can generate enormous desire and human energy. Deep inside, it contains the things that people believe in: their personal values. Personal values guide their thinking, judgment, feelings, and behaviors. Values are at the core of human factors.

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