Environmental Process - Human Spatial Behaviour

Current Social Issues

Environmental Process - Human Spatial Behaviour

-by Smita Ramachandran-

Anthropologist Edward T. Hall (1966) argues that a "hidden dimension" shapes much of our behaviour. What is this hidden dimension? Space. How do people use the space around them to regulate their social interactions? This is one of the questions asked by environmental researchers, who use the term proxemics to refer to the study of human spatial behaviour (Hall, 1959). A key idea is that individuals try to achieve an optimal degree of involvement and physical closeness with other people, depending on the specific situation. In other words, people use space to influence their interaction with other people (Richmond, McCroskey & Payne, 1991). Two important aspects of spatial behaviour are personal space and territoriality.

Personal Space

Suppose you are standing by yourself in a physician's waiting room, and the nurse walks up to you. How close does the nurse actually come? Three inches? Ten inches? Two feet? Suppose you are sitting on a park bench, and a well-dressed man sits down immediately next to you. How does that make you feel? Would you feel differently if he sat five feet away? How close to other people do you usually stand? Does it make any difference if they are friends, strangers, or members of your family? Does it make any difference if you are in an elevator, standing at a party, or in line at the post office?

As these examples suggest, people have various preferred distances for social interaction, depending on whom they are with and the activity. People treat the physical space immediately around them as though it were a part of them; this zone has been called personal space. According to Sommer (1969), "Personal space refers to an area with an invisible boundary surrounding the person's body into which intruders may not come. Like [porcupines], people like to be close enough to obtain warmth and comradeship but far enough away to avoid pricking one another". In social interactions, people try to maintain an acceptable balance between being too close for comfort and being awkwardly distant.

People prefer to keep some space between themselves and others. This personal space provides a boundary that limits the amount of physical contact between people. This boundary extends farther in the front of the person than behind, but the individual is always near the centre of this invisible buffer. Personal space is portable, but actively maintained and defended. When someone violates our personal space, we tend to take steps to correct this problem (Aiello, 1987). The term personal space is something of a misnomer, since the process actually refers to distances that people maintain between one another. Hence, it is an interpersonal space (Patterson, 1975). Some people seem to require more space than others, but as we will see, our spatial processes operate across a broad range of people and situations.

The physical distance a person maintains from others often measures personal space. However, personal space involves much more than physical distance. At very close distances, we can touch and smell another person, talk in hushed whispers, and see their features very clearly. At far distances, we may need to talk loudly, and we have quite different possibilities for social contact.

Interpersonal Zones

Different group activities require different amounts of personal space. Hall, in describing these variations, proposes four interpersonal zones. The intimate zone is appropriate for only the most involving and personal behaviours, such as arm wrestling and whispering. The personal zone, in contrast, is reserved for a wide range of small-group experiences, such as discussions with friends, interaction with acquaintances, and conversation. More routine transactions are conducted in the social zone. Meetings held over large desks, formal dining, and professional presentations to small groups generally take place in this zone. The public zone is reserved for even more formal meetings, such as stage presentations, lectures, or addresses. The book by Forsyth adds a fifth zone to those described by Hall. In the years since Hall proposed his taxonomy of interpersonal zones, groups have begun to meet more frequently in the remote zone. In this zone, group members are physically separated from each other but communicating with each other through such technologies as radio, telephone, and computers. Intimate and personal distances are typically used for informal interactions with friends, family, or close associates. Social and public distances are used for more formal interactions among casual acquaintances or strangers.

As Hall's theory of interpersonal zones suggests, small distances tend to be associated with friendlier, more intimate interpersonal activities. As a result, cohesive groups occupy smaller spaces than non-cohesive gatherings (Evans & Howard, 1973); extraverted people maintain smaller distances from others than do introverts (Patterson & Sechrest, 1970); people who wish to create a friendly, positive impression usually choose smaller distances than less friendly people (Evans & Howard, 1973); and groups of friends tend to stand closer to one another than groups of strangers (Edney & Grundmann, 1979). Physical distance has little impact on remote groups, although individuals communicating via computer respond differently when their interface includes facial information as well as verbal information (Kiesler, Sproull, & Waters, 1996).

Research has generally supported Hall's thesis, and the idea of distinct zones of interpersonal interaction is now widely accepted by researchers (Aiello, 1987; Burgoon, 1991). For instance, friends prefer to stand closer together than do strangers (Ashton, Shaw, & Worsham, 1980), and people who want to appear friendly choose smaller distances (Patterson & Sechrest, 1970). People who are sexually attracted to each other also stand close Allgeier & Byrne, 1973). Although people do not usually think much about personal space, they are nonetheless aware of the unwritten rules about space use in their particular cultures. Research on cultural differences in the use of space is discussed in this Cultural Highlight.

Cultural Highlight - "too close for comfort"

If you have travelled much, you have no doubt noticed that people in other countries differ in how close they like to be while talking. People in some cultures stand and sit closer together than you are accustomed to, whereas people in other cultures maintain a greater distance (Richmond,