Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,

I'm doing the Science Investigation of: "Don't Stand So Close To Me! An Investigation into Personal Space" and I turned in the Title, Problem and Hypothesis. I was wondering the other day how I would actually do the tests to my classmates to know what their Personal Space is, to continue with the experiment... If to take two of my classmates and separate or join them to see how they react or... I don't really know any other way but I think mine isn't that great. Then, after thinking what I should do I thought I could get help from someone, and that's why I'm here.

Thanks,
Idel Martínez Ramos

P.S.
- The problem is: "Does the height and gender of a person affect how large or small his or her personal space is?"
- I added the document, just in case.

Hi Idel,

You have picked a very interesting subject to study, but one that is difficult experimentally to test. The Scibuddies project does not offer a method and I was not able to find an explicit description of how to measure personal space on the web. I did find out that it was the social anthropologist Edward Hall who first published a theory of ‘proxemics’ in which he separated space into intimate (0.5-1.5 ft), personal (1.5-4 ft), social (4-12 ft) and public (12-25 ft). He wrote a book about it and if you have access to a university library, you might be able to find a copy and read about how he actually made his measurements of space.

I think, in order to accurately measure personal space, you will have to interview people without telling them that is what you are doing. If they are thinking about the space between you and them, then they may consciously move closer or further away making the experiment invalid. If you ask them if they want to participate in a survey about their TV show preferences or favorite music, or something totally unrelated to personal space then you should be able to get an accurate response.

So, how will you actually measure the distance without them knowing that’s what you are doing? That’s the tough part of the experiment. You could make a video of the interview and try to gauge the distance from measuring it on several of the frames. This might work OK, except it would be hard to tell the actual distance from the image.

My idea is to engage the person in answering a brief list of survey questions while you and they are standing on a tile floor. The tiles would have to be fairly small—say 2 or 4 inches square. You would be holding a clipboard or ipad during the interview and could occasionally look down at the floor and do a quick measurement of the number of tiles between you and them and write it down. I don’t know if this would work. If the person moves around a lot then you won’t be able to get a very good measurement. Also, I would think you would want to change the distance sometimes and see whether the person moves nearer or gets further away. Maybe a combination of video and tile floor would be the best method.

Well, that’s my best suggestion for now. Maybe someone else who has more experience with psychology experiments can post an answer to your question. Please keep posting. I really would like to know what you find out!

Best wishes,

Scibee

SciB wrote:Hi Idel,

You have picked a very interesting subject to study, but one that is difficult experimentally to test. The Scibuddies project does not offer a method and I was not able to find an explicit description of how to measure personal space on the web. I did find out that it was the social anthropologist Edward Hall who first published a theory of ‘proxemics’ in which he separated space into intimate (0.5-1.5 ft), personal (1.5-4 ft), social (4-12 ft) and public (12-25 ft). He wrote a book about it and if you have access to a university library, you might be able to find a copy and read about how he actually made his measurements of space.

I think, in order to accurately measure personal space, you will have to interview people without telling them that is what you are doing. If they are thinking about the space between you and them, then they may consciously move closer or further away making the experiment invalid. If you ask them if they want to participate in a survey about their TV show preferences or favorite music, or something totally unrelated to personal space then you should be able to get an accurate response.

So, how will you actually measure the distance without them knowing that’s what you are doing? That’s the tough part of the experiment. You could make a video of the interview and try to gauge the distance from measuring it on several of the frames. This might work OK, except it would be hard to tell the actual distance from the image.

My idea is to engage the person in answering a brief list of survey questions while you and they are standing on a tile floor. The tiles would have to be fairly small—say 2 or 4 inches square. You would be holding a clipboard or ipad during the interview and could occasionally look down at the floor and do a quick measurement of the number of tiles between you and them and write it down. I don’t know if this would work. If the person moves around a lot then you won’t be able to get a very good measurement. Also, I would think you would want to change the distance sometimes and see whether the person moves nearer or gets further away. Maybe a combination of video and tile floor would be the best method.

Well, that’s my best suggestion for now. Maybe someone else who has more experience with psychology experiments can post an answer to your question. Please keep posting. I really would like to know what you find out!

Best wishes,

Scibee

Hello Scibee,

Thanks for your quick reply, sorry I took so long to reply. Today, my teacher gave me the project again since she already corrected. When she gave it to me she was very curious how I would measure the personal space of someone and thought it can't be measured. I then explained what I would do (thanks to you) and she told me to search for more information or to exchange a project. This is why I am here today: to ask the Science Buddies Community what I should do. I still need a way on how to measure it, meanwhile I will search myself and tell you guys if I found anything.

Thanks,
Idel

Hi Idel,

I would not say there are NO ways to measure personal space--just that the method is not easy. There have been many papers published in peer-reviewed journals exactly defining personal space, so we know it can be done. The question is How can YOU do it. I still like my idea of having the people stand on a floor that has one foot-square floor tiles so you can measure the distance between them that way.

Don't be afraid to call people who do psycho-social research to ask them how you could do this. If you find a paper in the literature from a lab that measured interpersonal distance between people under various conditions, send them an email and ask them how they did it. They may not reply, but in my experience most researchers are happy to help a young student scientist, because they still remember how it was when they were in school and needed help!

Don't give up on this project yet. There has to be a way to do this that is not impossibly difficult or too inaccurate. Check your sources, make some calls, talk to people who know about this sort of thing and get their suggestions. I think they will be happy to try and help you.

Let me know what you find.

All the best,

Scibee