Environmental topic 6 - Territory and personal space Flashcards
Background - Altman’s types of territory
Primary - high - owned permanently by occupant and others - extensively personalised; the owner has complete control and intrusion is a serious matter
Secondary - moderate - not owned but occupant perceived as one of the users - the mark of space and not to be used by others - personalised to some extent during occupancy
Public territory - low - not owned, control is difficult and occupants percieved as large number of possible users - personalised temporarily, little likelihood of defence
Background - Felipe and Sommer’s - procedure
aim: invasion of public space - effects and consequences
- field, university library - females sat by themselves without consent
- 5 experimenter conditions, one controlled
1. first condition - experimenter sat next to them, if the participant tried to move away they would move closer, timed how long remained on the table and behaviour
2. other conditions, varied with the experimenter sitting further away
3. control - observation from afar and observed for a thirty-minute period
Background - Felipe and Sommer - results and conclusions
Results:
- participants in the first condition left after a shorter time than other conditions
- prevents invasion by barriers against the experimenter
Conclusions:
- invading public territory had disruptive effects and barriers not working, the reaction is to escape the situation
Background - Hall’s proxemics theory
Intimate (15-46cm) - whispering, embracing
Personal space (46-120cm) - family and friends interact with you
Social space (1.2 - 3.7m) - acquaintances should stay out here
Public space (upwards of 3.7m) - The rest of the public can be here
Try to maintain personal space to avoid over- stimulation and arousal of the autonomic nervous system
Background - Middlemist - procedure
aim: investigate the proposal that invasion of personal space provides an increase in physiological arousal
- field - men’s lavatory (containing 3 urinals) - ideals as norms of privacy were already in place
- sixty participants were assigned to one of three conditions:
1. The experimenter stood immediately next to the participant
2. The experiemtnnter stood at the other end of the urinal to the participant
3. the experimenter was absent
Measures of how quickly urinating and time taken, done from tiny camera inside a cubicle
Background - Middlemist - results
- closer experimenter stood, longer to urinate, less time to complete urination
- the invasion of personal space produces physiological changes and associated with arousal
Key research - Wells - aims and sample
Aims:
1. do men and women personalise their workplaces differently?
2. is the personalisation of the workplace associated with enhanced employee well-being?
3. Is personalisation important to women’s wellbeing more than men’s?
4. is company personalisation policy associated with organisational wellbeing?
Sample:
338 office workers from 20 companies in Orange County, California - volunteered
Follow up sample: 23 employees from different companies (15 women and 8 men)
Key research - Wells - procedure
- self-report - 661 surveys handed out, 50% returned
- made up of 7 sections:
1. workplace personalisation
2. satisfaction with the physical working environment
3. job satisfaction
4. Wellbeing
5. employee perceptions of organisational wellbeing
6. personality traits
7. personal demographic information
Follow-up study: tape-recorded structured interview, open questions - 15mins, followed by observation of workplace
Key research - Wells - gender differences in personalisation of workplace results
- mean items displayed - women 11 and men 7
- women used symbols of family and home
- men used symbols of achievements and sports paraphernalia
- self-report - women personalise for identity, men for status
Key research - Wells - personalisation associated with employee wellbeing results
- personalisation associated with satisfaction with the workplace environment and helped positive outcomes
- an indirect relationship between personalisation and employee wellbeing
Key research - Wells - gender differences in perceived importance of personalisation to wellbeing results
- personalisation wasn’t more important to women than men
- The interview suggested that it may be ‘just to look at pictures of kids faces, are all worthwhile - stress reliever’
- another - that she wouldn’t work for a company with personalisation prohibited as it is too strict and none of their business
Key research - Wells - companies policies associated with employee personalisation results
- companies with more lenient policies, reported a more positive atmosphere, social climate, greater level of employee morale and reduced staff turnover
Key research - Wells - evaluation
Strengths:
- Ethical
- population validity high - 99% of USA employees represented
Weaknesses:
- Ethnocentrism - Orange County companies
- social desirability from structured questions - low face validity
- reduction of internal validity - lacks usefulness of employees
- determinism - doesn’t evaluate social factors
Application - Appel - Meulenbroek
- some workers enjoyed aspects of activity-based working - removing territorial behaviour, more than others
- workers’ productivity is reduced when the format isn’t used properly
Application - Aiello
- gender influences with male- male pairs needing more personal space compared with female-female pairs
