Essay On Personal Space

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Personal space is the area surrounding a person in which they psychologically feel safe, for this reason I chose to violate this social norm. Personal space serves as an invisible barrier that people have as a defense zone where they feel safe, protected, private, and it gives the person a feeling that they are in control. There are 4 types of spaces: The intimate space, which is within 1 foot of your body, the second area is the personal space, which is a little longer than arm distance from body. The third social space is anywhere between 4 to 12 feet. The last space is the public space. Everyone responds differently to the invasion of their personal space based on their own personality, the gender of the norm violator, and what the relationship …show more content…

I decided to use my school as the setting due to the variety of people in my age group that I could use for my experiment. I tested 2 female friends, 1 male friend, my direct family, 1 female acquaintance, and 1 male acquaintance. For every one of these people I started out putting my hand on the person 's shoulder, then I continued by getting closer not breaking eye contact and putting my head slightly closer to the subject if I got a response. If I didn’t receive a response, then I continued getting closer until the person responded. If I saw signs of distress I …show more content…

I received the same response from my male friend, however instead of taking a step back he commented about it when I got a bit too close for his liking. The same experiment with my family produced different results. Whenever I got closer to my family, especially with my face the only response I got was a kiss to the cheek and no nervous response at all. When I explained to them what I was doing, they all laughed saying they thought I just wanted a kiss from them. I tested the response from 2 acquaintances last. The result was a bit more drastic of a response from the female, she visibly got a bit nervous and told me to back off, before I could explain what I was doing. She visibly relaxed when I explained and walked off. In the male case, however, he started fidgeting nervously and I backed off and explained what I was

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