Defining Personal Space

How close is too close? In this episode, BrainStuff looks at personal space around the world.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,
it's Christian Seger here. If you like to stand close
to folks when you talk to them, you'll love Argentina.
The South American country is filled with close talkers, people
who stand two point five feet or point seven six
meters away from strangers when they're chatting. But if you

(00:24):
prefer more personal space, make your way to Romania instead.
Their residents like to stand a spacious four point five
feet or one point four meters away from strangers. This
info on personal bubbles comes from a study of preferred
interpersonal distances recently published in the Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology.

(00:47):
While this issue of personal space in different countries has
been examined before, the authors of this study used a
much larger data set than was used in previous studies,
nearly nine thousand people living in forty two countries. Participants
were shown a picture with two figures representing two people

(01:07):
and a line with some distances marked off in between them.
The subjects were asked how close should the two figures
stand together if they are strangers versus close friends, versus
colleagues or acquaintances. The subjects were to assume they were
one of the two figures. The scientists found that residents
of Argentina, Peru, and Bulgaria stand the closest to strangers,

(01:30):
while those from Romania, Hungary, and Saudi Arabia want the
most space. Americans were somewhere in the middle. The researchers
also studied the personal bubbles we draw between ourselves and
family and friends. We're all fine with our family and
friends standing closer to us than strangers, no surprise there,
and our general bubble size with our friends stays consistent.

(01:54):
That is, if we like more personal space, will keep
our friends farther away than those who are fine with
less personal space. But intriguingly, things change when it comes
to close friends or loved ones. The Romanians, who like
a lot of personal space between themselves and both strangers
and colleagues, like their intimate relations to be fairly close

(02:18):
to them about one point five feet or point four
five meters. That is closer than almost any other group
studied in the Norwegians, whose preference for stranger distance is
somewhere in the middle of the forty two countries studied,
want their close friends to be closer to them than
any other group about one point three feet or point

(02:41):
four meters. Scientists say it appears temperature has something to
do with personal space. Those living in colder climates often
prefer to be quite near to their friends, perhaps as
a way to stay warm, and those residing in warm
climates often stand closer to strangers. At least one past
study showed when it's warm, people move in closer to

(03:05):
one another. Today's episode was written by Melanie rad Zeke
McManus and produced by Dylan Fagan. For more on this
and other topics, please visit us at how stuff works
dot com.