Your Personal Space ............................

Your personal space is like an invisible bubble that surrounds you. If people move inside this bubble when they are talking to you, it may make you feel uncomfortable.

On this page we'll look at how big the bubble can be, whether it always stays the same size, how to measure your own personal space bubble, and what effect it can have on how you perceive other people.

Everyone's personal space is different. How close you normally stand to someone else when you are talking to them will depend on who it is you are talking to, and under what circumstances. In our examples here, we will look at bubbles for people in everyday situations, such as at school or at work, where the people know each other fairly well.

Here are some facts about personal space bubbles:

The bubble is larger if you are talking to a stranger.
The better you know the person you're talking to, the smaller the bubble may be.
The bubble is usually larger for two men than for two women.
The bubble may be very small for a man and a women if they are in a relationship.
The bubble may be larger than normal for a man and a women who are strangers to each other.
The bubble size may differ for different cultures.

A female's personal space bubble may be small when talking to another woman. Two men usually don't get this close.

The fact that these two guys are fairly close might indicate that they are brothers, or perhaps they are from another culture where personal space is smaller.

When two people are having an argument, often the first thing one of them will do is move in close, invading the other person's personal space. This is interpreted by that other person as aggression. The term for this, in fact, is 'getting in someon'e face'.

How to Measure Your Own Personal Space
Decide what it is you are going to measure. In this example it will be two friends of the same sex (male). A third person will be needed to make the measurement.

The two participants should begin a conversation while fairly far away from each other, and attempt to concentrate only on what is being said. As they converse, they should move slowly towards one another.

Each person identifies the point at which they feel uncomfortable because the other person is too close, and the distance nose-to-nose is measured.

There are many things that can affect how big a person's personal space is at any given time. As well as the individual factors mentioned above, the circumstances in which you find yourself may also affect the size of your bubble. You might find yourself much closer to a stranger you are talking to at a dance, for instance, or in a line-up at a bank.

You might also have a very large bubble if you are not used to talking to strangers, but have a much smaller bubble if you are an extrovert.

We've already mentioned that culture plays a role in determining personal space. For example, the personal space for people in Japan might be much larger than for people in Italy.

The last point mentioned above leads to some interesting questions. What happens when a person with a very large personal space (who likes to keep people at a distance) interacts continually with people with small personal spaces (who like to get close)? What will the first person's reaction be if these people unknowingly continue to move inside his/her bubble? What will the people with the small bubbles feel subconsciously about the first person? Could conflicts like this this have an effect on how different cultures sharing the same city view each other subconsciously?

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