4 Personal Space

The School of Athens

One of the best known works of art by the Renaissance master Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino) is called “The School of Athens”. It depicts many philosophers, mathematicians, and thinkers of the Classic period. It is a fresco painted on a wall in a room in Vatican City. Above the painting is a depiction of a cherub along with the phrase “Seek Knowledge of Causes”.  We know that the two figures in the center represent Plato and Aristotle. They are the Classic philosophers most connected to creating a system of logically determining causation. It is they who were most interested in understanding how we come to know why something happens. Beyond that, however, art historians must make inferences about who all the rest of the figures are supposed to represent. Raphael left no notes that have survived regarding who all these people are supposed to be. However, we can make inferences because Raphael included in the painting an implicit understanding of how people use space to manage their social interactions. As he imagined all these people interacting at the same time (in some cases, their births differ by hundreds of years and thus they could never have been in the same room with each other) he used his understanding of how people use space to imagine how everyone would be grouped together.

Let’s begin our study of the painting with a look at the figures in the lower left section.

Notice how all these figures are standing closer to one another than they are to many of the others in the painting. This creates a sense that these people are supposed to be a group. Also notice how some people are closer to each other than others. Art historians believe this is meant to depict some of these people’s ideas being more connected to each other than to others. In some cases, they might be students and mentors. In other cases, one may have built their scholarship off of the other’s ideas. Regardless, art historians have settled into a general agreement that all these people are supposed to be mathematicians. The primary group of four in the most lower left of the painting are believed to be Archimedes – who creating a mathematical equation to predict when an object would float in water, Pythagoras – famous for his Pythagorean Theorem used in geometry (a² * b² = c²), Averroes – a Muslim scholar who applied philosophy and logic to the study of astronomy (among many other wide ranging interests), and Anaximander – an early proponent of using observation to understand the natural world and possibly a teacher of Pythagoras. The two figures off to the right are believed to be people somewhat connected to the mathematicians but notice that Raphael has included space between them to represent that they are not as connected as the four are to each other. The figure wearing purple is believed to be Heraclitus, a philosopher who advocated that mathematics and observation proved that everything is changing all the time. The quote “It is not possible to step into the same river twice” is often attributed to him. Notice how he has his back turned to the figure wearing yellow and blue. This figure is believed to be Parmenides who used mathematics and observation to argue that change is impossible and reality is timeless. Here space and bodily orientation are used to depict that the ideas of these two individuals have a similar source, but that they are fundamentally at odds with one another.

There are many other such groups in this painting which art historians use to make inferences on the identity of the figures. However, we will focus only on one other, the figure laying on the stairs wearing blue just below the central two.

Notice how no one is interacting with this person. In fact, they aren’t even looking at him. This is believed to be Diogenes, one of the founders of the philosophical school of Cynicism. Diogenes was a piece of work. He believed in being an extreme non-conformist against society and social norms. He would act in ways that were considered rude and strange, both for the time and today. It is said he slept in a ceramic jar in the Athens marketplace. He believed Plato was wrong about Plato’s interpretation of the philosophy of Socrates (Plato was Socrates’s student and worked closely with Socrates for years while Diogenes was not and did not). Supposedly, Diogenes and would show up at lectures Plato was giving and deliberately distract the audience. Some sources say he would show up with food and encourage the audience to eat during the lecture. Others say he would interrupt Plato’s lecture and argue with the philosopher. There is a statue of Diogenes in Sinop, Turkey (possibly Diogenes’s home town) showing him holding a lamp because stories say he would carry a lamp around during the day, walk up to people, and hold the lamp up to their face explaining that he was looking for an honest man. He would always say he had not yet succeeded.

He is also known for mocking Alexander the Great to his face when Alexander visited Corinth. Take a moment to imagine who this guy is and think if you have ever interacted with a person like this before. His house is a jar, he tells everyone around him that they are deceitful and corrupt, and he is noted for walking up to not one, but two of the most prominent historical figures of his era – people whose names are still known 2,300 years later – and being distinctly rude to them. It should come as no surprise that Raphael believed that no one would want to interact with this man. Raphael uses spacing, gaze direction, and body orientation to indicate that Diogenes is very much off on his own. He is nearby Plato, one of the central figures of the painting, but they are by no means in conversation with one another or even tolerating each others company. Perhaps Diogenes is waiting for Plato to descend the stairs so he can disrupt Plato’s philosophizing some more.

Proxemics

The next four chapters deal with four interrelated topics – personal space, crowding, territoriality, and privacy that all make up the sub-field of proxemics. Proxemics refers to how people use space. As we live our lives, we need to operate within an environment. Throughout our lives, we have learned thousands of rules about how close is appropriate to get to one another, under what situations space can be designated as “ours” vs. “someone else’s”, and whether we feel comfortable approaching someone or being approached. The sub-field of proxemics is the study of these and other rules and how people use these rules to manage the spaces in their lives.

Interpersonal Space

We will use the term interpersonal space to refer to the general topic area of how much space feels comfortable to give other people when we interact with them. It’s possible you have heard the term “personal space” to refer to this topic. However, we will use the term interpersonal space because as the term “personal space” will be used in a more specific way. So, interpersonal space will refer to the general topic and personal space will refer to a specific amount of space given with specific people. More details about this will be provided below.

Interpersonal space is the most researched topic in the field of proxemics. However, most studies on interpersonal space seek to answer smaller scale questions about individuals. They ask questions like “Does interacting with particular people feel uncomfortable if you are at one distance vs. another?” and “How do our feelings of comfort differ if we change either the person we are interacting with or the distance we are interacting from?”. To date, we do not have a large-scale, integrative theory about why we have interpersonal space. We know how individuals tend to exist within interpersonal space and the important contexts that can alter and adjust the rules people follow when interacting with others. However, we do not know many of the whys about interpersonal space.

The first rule of interpersonal space is: Who Matters. Whom one is interacting with changes how much space people feel they need to feel comfortable. There tend to be four zones of space and we tend to move to the edges of each zone depending on whom we are interacting with. Within each category, a general range of how much space is used for each one is given but note that these are ranges are flexible. We will discuss the reasons for this flexibility later in the chapter.

Intimate Space: Intimate space is the amount of space we give to our closest relationships. Generally, only intimate partners, close family, and pets are allowed within intimate space. If anyone else were to come into this space, we tend to feel uncomfortable and mildly upset. Intimate space tends to be between 0-0.5 feet.

Personal Space: Personal space refers to the amount of space we give to close friends. We tend to stand much closer to our close friends than we are to conversation partners we don’t know. Personal space tends to be between 2.5-4 feet.

Social Space: Social space is for anyone we are engaged with in a back-and-forth interaction. We may not know the people we engage with in these interactions, but we are open to conversations with these people. Many business interactions are conducted in social space. We might be bothered by a random stranger that we don’t want to interact with entering our social space, but generally most people are welcome. Social space exists between 4-12 feet.

Public Space: Public space is for anyone in the general public. Public speakers talking to a general audience tend to use this level. We tend to not be bothered by anyone coming into our public space. Public space exists anywhere between 12 and 30 feet.

The second rule of personal space is that different cultures have different levels that the zones of space exist in. Some cultures are referred to as contact cultures. In contact cultures, the zones of space tend to be smaller and closer together. Public space might be 6 feet, Social 3, Personal 1, and intimate 0. In some Middle Eastern cultures, it would be viewed as strange to be in conversation with someone and not be in direct, physical contact with them. Other cultures are referred to as non-contact cultures. In non-contact cultures, space is extended. Public space might be 12, Social 6, Personal 3, and Intimate 0.5. In these cultures, close contact can be uncomfortable, even among close relationships. Even interactions like being in line at the grocery store might become uncomfortable with people from non-contact cultures. This distinction is often a source of misunderstanding when people from a contact culture interact with people from a non-contact culture. For example, I was born into an extreme non-contact culture (the Upper Great Plains of North America). However, during graduate school, I encountered many people who were born into contact cultures but were advancing their educations abroad. There was a master’s student from Qatar whom I would drink tea with once a week. Subconsciously, he would grip my elbow during conversations before remembering that I found such contact extremely uncomfortable for an informal affiliation based around work. To me, that was a very intimate space type of interaction, but to him it was a social space interaction.

We don’t know much about why a culture develops into a contact vs. non-contact culture. We do know that there seems to be a correlation with geography, but why that correlation exists is still a mystery.  Contact cultures tend to develop closer to the equator and non-contact cultures tend to develop at latitudes further away from the equator. This can be seen in that most Middle Eastern, northern African, southern European,  tropical Asian, Central American, and Mexican cultures are contact cultures. On the other hand, the United States and Canada as well as north Asian, northern European, and Australian cultures tend to be non-contact. This relationship does not hold in every single situation, however, most notably with southern African cultures tending to be contact cultures. However, without an understanding of why that correlation might exist, we don’t have a way of understanding or contextualizing that relationship. It could be a spurious relationship that doesn’t mean anything, it could be just a curious quirk of cultural development, close contact could be somehow beneficial to survival in environments closer to the equator, or avoiding close contact could benefit survival in environments further from the equator. No one is sure at this moment.

The third rule of interpersonal space is that interpersonal space moves with the person. Our zones of interpersonal space are always centered on us. Interpersonal space is tied to our  physical bodies. However, interpersonal space is shaped in an odd way. We tend to require less interpersonal space around our feet, want more interpersonal space around our hips and want the most interpersonal space up toward the head. The shape could be visualized as a cone with the narrow end at the feet that moves up to the hips and then the sides go mostly straight up from the hips to the head. This can be seen when people get too close to someone and that person feels uncomfortable. The person who is having their space invaded tends to lean back at the hips but leave their feet stationary. This is because the person feels most uncomfortable with the closeness to head and hips. Closeness to the feet is not nearly as bothersome.

Summary

Interpersonal space refers to how much space we are comfortable giving others given our relationship with them. There are four zones of interpersonal space, public space, social space, personal space, and intimate space. Who is welcome in each zone depends on our relationship with that person. Different cultures also tend to adjust the ranges of which relationships are welcome in which spaces. Finally, interpersonal space is centered on a person’s body and tends to be shaped like a cone or inverted birthday hat with the pointed end at the feet.