To really understand personal space you have to understand where it comes from. To be aware of the physical space around our bodies has been vital for our survival for millions of years. You can see this very well in various wild animals : you wouldn't dare to get too close to a lion, would you? He would react fiercely to your intrustion and possibly attack you! What about a deer? It would probably run away as soon as you get into it's personal space.
Humans basically still function the same way. If someone we don't know well enough (or someone we don't really like that much) gets too close to us, our bodies survival mechanism kicks in. Unconsciously we are preparing to either fight the intruder or run away from him. This reaction has been labeled "Fight or Flight" by Walter Cannon in 1915. Knowing about this natural instinct sheds some light on our sometimes extreme behaviour concerning our personal space.
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| Fight or Flight! |
People around us are constantly categorized by our brain. If someone appears friendly, has nothing to hide (e.g. showing the palm of his hands, keeping eye contact) he is more likely to be allowed into our personal space than some shady character we are not sure about. Since we would need enough time to react to a potential attack we should be thankful that our body keeps such a steady state of awareness of potentially life threatening situations. The "uneasy" feeling that you get when someone you don't know gets too close is actually the adrenaline pumping through your body, raising your heart rate, breathing and redistributing the blood to your limbs to prepare for fighting or running away.
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| Different Zones |
Our personal space can be divided into four different zones : intimate space, personal space, social space and public space. Even though the actual size of the personal space can vary greatly from person to person, the zones itself are usually reserved for different categories of people :
The intimate space: good friends, partners, close family, people who we really, really like and trust
The personal space : all of the above, co-workers we get along with really well (but are still considered co-workers and not friends), people we meet and immediately feel a connection with
The social space : formal contacts, customers, co-workers, people we just met, social gatherings
The public space : everyone else who's still considered to be in our personal space, very little verbal communication cause of the distance but it can happen anyway (our neighbour we don't like, possibly with a fence between us...)
Here is how it usually works : the second we see someone he is instantly considered either threatening or non-threatening by our brain. If he passes that first crucial test he may enter our social space and communicate with us. If everything goes well and we like each other we may (depending on our personality) signal the other person that he/she is allowed to close the distance between us. We most likely do this by open body language, eye contact, signs of interest, smiling or in flirting scenarios even touching. He/She is now in our personal space and thus enjoys a certain degree of our trust and a connection with us and vice versa.
If we don't like someone on the other hand we will try to get as much distance between us as is possible and socially acceptable (without being rude). This might be accompanied by closed off bodylanguage, crossed arms, chin pointing downwards, body orientation towards somewhere else (feet pointing, whole body pointing somewhere else) and every kind of barrier we can imagine and use to keep ourselves safe from a potential attack. The crossed arms and pointed down chin serve as a protection to our vital organs and the feet pointing allows for an easy escape if we should be attacked. In some situations of course we might even react aggressive to an intrusion of our space and even attack the other person, shoving them away to keep our personal space safe. This could especially happen when we are (male...) drunk and more likely to behave aggressively ;-).
All in all this should give you a good overall view of our personal space. There is a lot more to discover and I will write more about personal space and our specific behaviours. If you want to know about something in particular concerning body language and communication just write me a comment and I will write an article about that as well.
Marc
