A Personal Space Encounter I believe today I was unknowingly a test subject in a personal space experiment for a psychology class. I was casually walking down a hallway, when all of the sudden, two females came up behind me and started to walk on both sides of me. I was initially surprised because of their sudden appearance, and close proximity (practically inches away from me). My natural reaction was of threat, but since they were attractive females, the feeling of threat subsided and I became puzzled to their unusual walking position. If two large males invaded my intimate space like these two females, I would instantly feel threatened due to their close proximity and unknown intentions. After I became aware of their presence, I assumed they were friends who were split and decided to go around me. This wasn’t the case because they did not seem to know each other, and walked the same pace as myself. Their sudden appearance at the same exact time created many instantaneous thoughts and reactive behaviors. From my experience and understanding of American social norms, for a male to be walking so close to a female would only mean a very comfortable friendship, or being somehow romantically involved.  All this mental processing happened in a split second, and my subsequent reaction/decision was to slow down to remove myself from this unusual situation. Upon slowing down, they both turned to the left and walked together towards a group sitting on chairs lining the hallway. Walking past the group, I overheard the word, “interesting” and “slowed down”, confirming my suspicion that this was an experiment of social behavior or more specifically, of personal space. This encounter was quite interesting for me as well as them. Our upbringing and environment teach us what is socially acceptable and how we should react accordingly to a situation like this. Very little conscious decision making is involved, as we can only react by what we have been taught. In that split second, I had to decide to either walk faster, slow down, or continue walking at the same place. Walking faster would express fear or perhaps rudeness. Walking at the same pace would not express fear, but if I were to walk with these unknown females in such close proximity, I would appear interested in them or more likely a “creep”. Since I have never met them before or didn’t know what they looked like, I was not interested enough to allow them in my intimate space. The last option and most socially acceptable was to slow down. By slowing down, I respectfully removed myself from both mine and their intimate space as well, as did not show fear of their presence. This begs the question, how would other people (both males and females) react in this situation? The whole concept of personal space is a very predominate factor in our very social lives. We are for the most part not conscious of it, but react keenly to any disturbance to the region that we regard as psychologically ours.  The next time you go walking or sitting in a public space, pay attention to the placement of people in regards to each other. Develop this awareness and knowledge, and you may be able to use it to your advantage.

A Personal Space Encounter

I believe today I was unknowingly a test subject in a personal space experiment for a psychology class.

I was casually walking down a hallway, when all of the sudden, two females came up behind me and started to walk on both sides of me. I was initially surprised because of their sudden appearance, and close proximity (practically inches away from me).

My natural reaction was of threat, but since they were attractive females, the feeling of threat subsided and I became puzzled to their unusual walking position. If two large males invaded my intimate space like these two females, I would instantly feel threatened due to their close proximity and unknown intentions.

After I became aware of their presence, I assumed they were friends who were split and decided to go around me. This wasn’t the case because they did not seem to know each other, and walked the same pace as myself. Their sudden appearance at the same exact time created many instantaneous thoughts and reactive behaviors.

From my experience and understanding of American social norms, for a male to be walking so close to a female would only mean a very comfortable friendship, or being somehow romantically involved. 

All this mental processing happened in a split second, and my subsequent reaction/decision was to slow down to remove myself from this unusual situation. Upon slowing down, they both turned to the left and walked together towards a group sitting on chairs lining the hallway. Walking past the group, I overheard the word, “interesting” and “slowed down”, confirming my suspicion that this was an experiment of social behavior or more specifically, of personal space.

This encounter was quite interesting for me as well as them. Our upbringing and environment teach us what is socially acceptable and how we should react accordingly to a situation like this. Very little conscious decision making is involved, as we can only react by what we have been taught.

In that split second, I had to decide to either walk faster, slow down, or continue walking at the same place. Walking faster would express fear or perhaps rudeness. Walking at the same pace would not express fear, but if I were to walk with these unknown females in such close proximity, I would appear interested in them or more likely a “creep”. Since I have never met them before or didn’t know what they looked like, I was not interested enough to allow them in my intimate space. The last option and most socially acceptable was to slow down. By slowing down, I respectfully removed myself from both mine and their intimate space as well, as did not show fear of their presence.

This begs the question, how would other people (both males and females) react in this situation? The whole concept of personal space is a very predominate factor in our very social lives. We are for the most part not conscious of it, but react keenly to any disturbance to the region that we regard as psychologically ours. 

The next time you go walking or sitting in a public space, pay attention to the placement of people in regards to each other. Develop this awareness and knowledge, and you may be able to use it to your advantage.

Notes

  1. citrusit reblogged this from jinsei
  2. auralust reblogged this from jinsei and added:
    Quite interesting!...probably would have also slowed...as...
  3. bunnyyogi said: lol, did they disclose the experiment/make you sign a release? there is a vast amount of knowledge that can be collected by physical observation- body language, eye contact, physiological changes- these cues relay much more information than words.
  4. lalibertadesdetodos reblogged this from jinsei and added:
    debo estudiarlo mas
  5. jinsei posted this