Space Invaders

Week 06: Personal Space Differences

Sometimes we feel slightly uncomfortable around someone when we’re talking to them. Our conversation partner might seem intimidating, flirtatious, or standoffish. The way we feel about a person or social situation is often directly influenced by how close or far away we are.

We tend to have different personal space boundaries based on who we’re interacting with and how we’re doing so. We stay farther away from strangers than friends when talking with them, but sit next to them if there’s no room on a subway or in a theater. Doctors get physically closer to patients than anyone except spouses in examinations but definitely aren’t allowed that intimacy in any other situation. Parents invade their young child’s personal space all the time.

Everyone has some kind of personal space boundaries, even animals. Heini Hediger, a zoo director, made extensive observations of animal space boundaries. He found that seagulls would stand even distances apart when on the same object. Animals step away or flee when predators enter their spaces. We humans have physiological responses to our boundaries being invaded, too.

The curious thing is that while every human has layers of boundaries, where those boundary points are is a cultural construct. This means that a person’s optimal comfort spacing might be closer than that of the person they’re interacting with if they’re from separate cultures. Person A might keep stepping towards Person B to feel more comfortable. Person B might keep stepping away for their comfort. They will likely develop conflicting feelings about their encounter since their boundaries don’t match up. The unfortunate part is that they frequently won’t know the cause.

When it comes to interacting with people from different cultures, it’s important to give them some social leeway. Don’t necessarily write someone off after an awkward or uncomfortable first encounter. Now, creeps will be creeps in any culture, so we should still be careful, but most people mean well. A little bit of tactful input on spatial discomfort might be very helpful to someone who comes from a different social climate. To paraphrase a saying I read once, “Ignorance causes far more problems than malice.”

“...Misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (translated from German)