Personal Space

Intimate Zone — ranges from actual physical contact to two feet.

Personal Zone — ranges from approximately two-four feet.

Social Zone — extends from nearly four-twelve feet.

Public Zone — stretches from twelve feet away to the limits of hearing and sight.

People are not necessarily conscious of the importance of maintaining these distances until violations occur. How you feel about people entering these different zones depends upon who they are. You might feel quite uncomfortable and resentful if a business associate entered your Intimate or Personal Zone during a conversation. If the person were your spouse, however, you would probably feel quite good, even if he/she were so close as to touch you. People can generally be classified into two major proxemic categories — contact and non-contact. According to author Edward Hall, Americans and Northern Europeans typify the non-contact group due to the small amount of touching that takes place during their transactions. On the other hand, Arabs, Latinos, and people in the Mediterranean countries normally use much contact in their conversations. In addition, although Americans are considered a non-contact group in general, there are obviously significant numbers of Americans who are “contact” people. When these two major patterns of proxemic behavior meet, their interaction normally ends in a clash. The contact people unknowingly get too close or touch the non-contact people. This leads to discomfort, tension, distrust, and misunderstanding between the two. A commonly used example is that of the South American and North American businesspeople interacting at a cocktail party. For the South American, the appropriate zone for interaction is Personal to Intimate and includes frequent touching to make a point. This is about half the distance minus touch that the North American needs to be in his/her comfortable Social Zone. The South American would step closer, and the North American backward, in a strange proxemic dance until both gave up the relationship as a lost cause because of the other’s “cold” or “pushy” behavior. Contact and non-contact people have conflicting perceptions of each other based solely on their proxemic behavior. The non-contact people are seen as shy, cold, and impolite by the contact people. On the other hand, non-contact people perceive contact people as pushy, aggressive, and impolite. Often people are bewildered by interactions with others displaying different proxemic behaviors. When a proxemic violation occurs, a person generally has a feeling that something is not right but may not be able to focus directly on the cause. Attention usually focuses on the other person and why the other person is not behaving in the “proper” manner. Attention may even be focused on yourself, causing you to become self-conscious. In either case, attention shifts to the behavior of the two transactions and away from the conversation at hand and interferes with effective communication.