Unit 4 - Personal Space and Territoriality Flashcards
Define personal space. What are the characteristics of personal space?
The dynamic spatial component of interpersonal relations. It is represented in the changing distance and angle of orientation between individuals as they interact.
Operates in conjunction with closely related aspects of social interaction such as angle of operation (face to face vs. side to side) and eye contact - is more of a gradient then a clear boundary.
It is ‘me -centered’ with no physical aspect other then the persons own body.
Define territoriality. What are the characteristics of territoriality?
Territoriality: is a pattern of behavior and attitudes held by an individual or group related to the perceived, attempted, or actual ownership or control of a definable physical space, object, or idea; it may involve habitual occupation, defense, marking, and personalization of a space, object or idea.
Marking: means placing an object or substance in a space to indicate ones territorial intentions - serves control needs
Personalization: marking in a manner that indicates one’s identity.
Territoriality usually serves two positive functions: it reduces conflict and it increases commitment to a setting.
Helps fulfill three important needs: for efficacy (to be efficient and competent), for self-identity, and to have a
place of ones own.
Territories usually are fixed physical places
Think of personal situations in which you would use each of Hall’s eight phases of interpersonal distance.
- Intimate: (near 0-15cm and far 15-45cm) +activities such as whispering, wrestling, and love making. Near would be wrestling lovemaking, far would be those who are on close terms.
- Personal distance: (near 45-75cm and far 75-120cm) - for those who are familiar with each other. Encompasses talking distance of close couples and friends. couples near/ friends far
- Social Distance: (near 1.2-2m and far 2-3.5m). Distance is used for unacquainted individuals or those conducting business. -being introduced for someone’s mother or so on. Business distance would be far and meeting someones mother would be near
Public Distance: (near 3.5-7m and far is over 7m). Used by speaker and their audiences/lecturer and so on. -farer would be meeting important figures.
Compare Irwin Altman’s system of classifying territories with Lyman and Scott’s system. Explain the basis for such classifications.
Altman System: The key element is the degree if privacy, affiliation, or accessibility allowed by each type
Primary territories are spaces owned by individuals or primary groups, controlled on a regular basis and central to their lives. - high psychological importance
Secondary Territories are less important then primary ones - possess moderate significance to their occupants and is more likely to be shared by others.
Public Territories are open to anyone in good standing with the community - open to everyone except those specifically excluded
Lyman and Scott’s System: Proposes two types of territory that are not directly comparable to Altman’s system:
Interactional Territories: Are spaces temporarily controlled by a group of interacting individuals - little overt marking of these territories may occur, yet entry into them is perceived as interference, rudeness, or ‘crashing’.
Body Territory: Not the same as personal space, because the boundary is at one’s skin rather than at some distance away. Bodies may be entered with or without permission and are often marked and personalized as well as controlled and defended.
Do you consider objects, ideas, and human bodies to be human territories? Explain your answer.
Objects meet some criteria territories: people mark, personalize, defend, and control objects. Relationships to objects like car’s match up to Altman’s types of territories. Number of territory markers on the car and attachment to the car were significant predictors of aggressive driving.
Ideas are defended like territories by their creators through patents and copyrights.
Human bodies may also be considered territories as we protect ourselves from foul play and react when others our personal space. Additionally, we mark and personalize ourselves the same we would territories.
Therefore, it is useful to consider objects, ideas, and human bodies as human territories as our approaches to protecting these are the same as traditional territories.
Outline three types of infringement of territories. Think of examples of such infringements from your daily life.
Invasion: Where a person (or group) physically enters the personal space or territory of another without permission, often (in the case of territories) with ownership as a goal. - i.e. taking over a colony
Violation: Where the goal is not so much ownership, but rather annoyance or harm. - vandalism, burglary, hit and run etc.
Contamination: Where infringers foul someone else’s territory by putting something awful in the territory, usually without entering themselves. -i.e. playing loud music, leaving waste, or pesticide drift
Outline the types of defense that territory holders take against infringement. Think of examples of such defenses from your daily life.
Defenses are usually divided into two general types:
Prevention Defenses include markers such as signs and fences, but perhaps also sunglasses, ear buds, or covering one’s face in a book may also qualify. Prevention defenses anticipate infringement and act to stop it before it occurs.
Reaction Defenses are responses to infringement after it actually happens. May include a dirty look, physical striking, or legal action.
Another type, Social Boundary Defense is used at the edge of interactional territories and consists of a ritual engaged in by hosts and visitors. - May include passwords, particular greetings, or customs office at a national border.
-social boundary defenses serve to separate the unwanted visitors from wanted visitors through social interaction.
Outline three general ways of measuring personal space. What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of each method?
Simulation Methods: Involve placing small felt figures on felt boards or marking marks on paper were used, but had limitations =
1. Research participants are not in real -person-to-person interactions when their personal space is being measured and therefore must adjust for scale
2. Participants must remember distances from pervious (or actual) encounters
3. Participants are quite conscious of the distancing process.
To the extent these methods measure the cognitive aspects of personal space, they may be useful measures of beta personal space (subjective component), but not alpha personal space (the objective component).
Stop-Distance Technique: Allows for more realistic measure of alpha personal space.
Participants are usually studied in a laboratory, but in a real encounter. The participant is sked to stand some distance away and then to walk slowly toward the experimenter and to stop at the point of discomfort. - The resulting interpersonal distance is taken as a measure of alpha personal space.
- This method is very reliable and tends to yield similar distances each time personal space is measured
-Additionally, has the advantages of validity, by having the participants themselves take part, and need not rely on memory of participants
-Has the disadvantage of having the participant aware of the distancing process
Naturalistic Observation can be technically difficult and often does not allow the investigator to distinguish among different possible reasons for variations in personal space.
-Although theoretically has the advantage of controlling for participant awareness, having real person-person interactions, and does not require memory for distances.
How does the nature of territoriality limit research methods used in studying human territoriality? Compare the methods used to measure territoriality.
It is difficult to study in a laboratory as it often takes time to develop and people need to have a sense of ownership; participants in laboratory studies usually spend an hour or less in the lab.
-conclusions about the causes and effects of territoriality are therefore difficult to draw.
Methods used to Measure Territoriality Include:
Field Experiments - attempts to overcome issues associated with controlled environments, while also having experimental control and random assignment of participants. i.e. measuring territoriality through controlling debate in a persons location over another ones.
Field Studies - several variables are measured but not controlled by the researcher, and random assignment to the experimental conditions or settings is not used. i.e. measuring territoriality through sunbathers on the beach,
Self-Report: These methods have the disadvantage that respondents may not be able or willing to report their behavior accurately,
However, They have the advantages that the researchers resources can be stretched to include a much larger number of individuals in the study, and the opinions, beliefs, feelings, and other cognitions of respondents can be studies.
Summarize how the following three types of factors can influence the size of our personal space:
a. personal factors
b. social factors
c. physical factors
A - Personal Factors : Gender and gender differences contribute to distances between persons with male-male persons keeping the largest distances.
- Personal space generally increases with age until at least early adulthood.
- Personality determines personal space as those who are more extraverted have smaller personal space zones, whereas those who are colder and more quarrelsome have larger personal space areas. Additionally, anxiousness and Type A personalities has consistently been linked to larger personal space.
- Self-Construal of either being independent or interdependent predicts size of personal space.
- -Those with psychological disturbances have unusual distances such as schizophrenics sometimes choose either much greater or smaller distances, those with insecure attachments have more permeable personal space boundaries (tolerating greater intrusions), whereas those who have been abused have larger personal space preferences
B Social Factors :
Attraction - draws us physically closer, may also include pleasantness of manner.
Emotion - Women who either see happiness or sadness in the face of another move relatively close, however men move closer to happiness then sadness. Both genders choose larger distances when they see fear in another’s face, dislike and anger lead to larger distances, larger spaces when people feel unsafe and closer distances after feelings of insecurity, greater distance for those who unfamiliar
Cooperation-Competition - Closer distances and side by side when cooperating vs greater distances and face to face when competing
Status - Generally others perceived to be of higher or lower status are kept at a greater distance, the greater the difference in status the greater the interpersonal distance.
C Physical Factors : Close distances are more uncomfortable when lighting is dimmer, smaller distances seem to be preferred in wide or narrow rooms, individuals use more space in corners of rooms than in the center. The general conclusion appears to be that we prefer more space between us when the overall supply of physical space is low.
Is there any solid research evidence for cultural differences in the size of personal space? Explain your answer.
Observation comparing personal space distances between Arabs and Americans showed noticeably greater personal space for Americans. - research indicates that personal space does vary with culture but not in simple ways.
Variations of cultural influences on personal space may be dependent on language spoken, gender (as in Arab women rather then men), and religion (Pairs of Muslims use smaller interpersonal spaces then Christians).
-Personal space may also be influenced by legal means such as restraining orders.
Testing shows that acting more like the other culture (such as use of personal space) increases likeability.
- People begin to attribute negative characteristics to those who interact with them at inappropriate distances - this can, and indeed has, contributed to negative culture stereotypes. *
Describe reactions to the invasion of personal space. Recall an instance in which your personal space was invaded. How did you feel?
Only when our personal space is invaded do we realize the importance of spatial behaviour in our lives. For example, when someone is sitting too close to us, we feel uncomfortable and might move or turn away from that person, or even leave. When someone stands too close or too far away during a conversation, we adjust our interpersonal distance by moving closer to or farther away from that person.
How is personal space related to attraction and arousal?
Attraction - draws us physically closer, may also include pleasantness of manner. - female attraction is better facilitated by sitting in front of rather then across.
Arousal - Inappropriately close interpersonal distance is often viewed as an invasion, makes us feel uncomfortable and increases physiological arousal.
How is personal space related to social behaviours, such as attribution, impression formation, helping others, and working in small groups?
Maintaining a personal space serves several adaptive functions:
to protect us from any physical or emotional threat;
to regulate the amount of sensory information we receive from other people, so that we can maintain an optimal level of stimulation;
to communicate and regulate the amount of involvement with other people.
Attribution/Impression Formation: Participants evaluated confederates more negatively at larger distances, more rejecting, and more aggressive.
Defensive nonverbal behavior is perceived as guilty by police
Participants chose smaller interpersonal spaces when the expected person was said to be friendly and warm - observers see pairs of individuals as closer will attribute intimacy to their relationship.
Helping Others: Interpersonal distance seems to affect the desire to help others, but the relations are not simple. - pedestrians were less likely to help when their space was invaded, but maybe more like when asked.
But at far distances those who pled more were less likely to get help but those who pled less were more likely to receive help
Working in Small Groups: Face to face interaction seems to lead to cooperation rather then competition.
Performance for competition is better at far distances then close ones, but performance on cooperative tasks was better at closer distances.
When cultural differences in personal space come together in a workplace, issues may occur.
Summarize how the following three types of factors influence territoriality:
a. personal factors
b. social factors
c. physical factors
A. Personal Factors -
Age - As people grow older they may want territory of their own
Gender - Males claim larger territories then females - although research shows some confusion over territory in the home (pg.138)
Other Influences - Territoriality at work seems to vary with employee’s need for control. More intelligent residents marked off larger areas for themselves, those who came from larger homes marked off larger areas for themselves, and so on.
B. Social Influences -
Social Climate - In Baltimore districts, congenial social climates were associated with improved territorial functioning such as ability to distinguish neighbors from intruders, fewer issues of territorial control, more responsibility for neighborhood space.
Social Class - Homeless try to create primary territory from what most see as public territory, young adults who may have space at parents homes but cannot engage in some activities they value at home - may use cars as primary territories, etc. - Generally, higher social class has larger territory.
Competing for Resources - Studies of Bushman show greater territoriality when resources are scarce but cost-benefit theory for animals argues that territoriality is stronger when resources are abundant.
Legal Ownership - Appears to increase homeowners territorial behavior, morel likely to personalize and so on.
Task - People may become more territorial when in a public territory but completing a task (taking longer at public telephone when another is waiting for it).
C. Physical Influences - Defensible Space theory proposes that certain design features, such as real or symbolic barriers to separate public territory from private territory will increase residents sense of security and decrease crime in the territory.
Convivence stores and banks - Those with more surveillability bigger parking lot, not selling gas etc. are more likely to get robbed.
Residences - Surveilibility protected houses from getting robbed but actual barriers (fences and locks) did not. Burglars found houses with symbolic barriers (extra decorations) to be more vulnerable.
Streets and Disorder - When streets are less confusing more people use them and this discourages crime. - enables natural occurring surveillance.
