!!! Territory And Personal Space Flashcards
Wells- office clutter or meaningful personal space.
Sample: at least 15 employees from 20 companies in orange county. California e.g. car dealerships, real estate. Sample of 55% men and 41% women. 4% don’t know. 69% white 25-44 yrs.
Procedure: Self report surveys included mostly rating scales and included-
-workplace personalisation (number of items).
-work environment satisfaction.
-well being e.g. health
-personal info
Case studies: structured interview lasted 10-15 mins, workplace was photographed. Questions about items displayed and whether personalisation affects job satisfaction.
No difference found but interview says different
data: women personalise more than males.
Women- 11.12 items
mostly items that represented family and pets. ‘Just to look up to their faces… makes it all worthwhile’
‘I wouldn’t work for them!… it’s none of their fucking business’.
Men- 7.68 items
mostly displaying symbols of their achievements and sport interests.
Strong association between personalisation and work satisfaction.
Companies more lenient with personalisation reported more positive organisational climate, greater staff morale and less staff turnover.
Applications: allow personalisation, no hot-desking (picking desk when entering everyday), include bookshelves, tackable surfaces, boards.
Smith-territorial behaviour on beaches.
Data gathered on beach in West Germany, the USA and France.
Short interviews conducted where nationality ,size of group and how long they would be at the beach were established. Data also gathered on area of space taken up and territorial markers used (how many and items used).
It was found that west Germans were the most territorial. ‘A mans home is his castle’ while gesturing at his castle and 1/5 of Germans had ‘reserved’ signs.
Men took up more space than women.
The French didn’t grasp the idea of territoriality no matter how much explanation was given.
Hall- zones for personal space
Personal space can be divided into 4 zones according to white middle class Americans:
- Intimate 0-1.5 feet (for intimate contacts e.g. comforting, sex or physical sport).
- Personal 1.5-4 feet (for close friends and everyday interactions with acquaintances)
- Social 4-12 feet (for impersonal 1business contacts)
- Public 12+ feet (for formal contacts between an individual and the public e.g. politicians)
Middlemist
Whether personal space invasions create psychological arousal.
In a men’s lavatory in a university in America there were 3 urinals. A stooge would occupy the urinal on the opposite end (moderate distance), next to the participant (close distance) or there would be no stooge (control condition).
Using a periscope buried by a pile of books, the researcher timed how long it took for the participant to start urinating and for how long they urinated for.
It was found that in the close condition the participant took more time to start urinating (5-10 secs) and urinated less.
Personal space invasion has psychological arousal effects.
Sommer and Ross
The effects of seating distance and orientation on small group behaviour investigated in male and female 4 person groups. L shape caused more posture adjustments and longer pauses than the facing orientation (circle shape).
