Proxemics: Dealing With Territorial And Personal Space

For my experiment I chose to do proxemics, which dealt with territorial and personal space. Meaning, I had to go out of everyone’s comfort zones and record their reactions. For this experiment, I took other people’s spots at tables, on couches, and in the car. I switched places with everyone and recorded their reactions. I sat in the passenger seat until I was paid to move and it made people uncomfortable for the most part. I did this to my friends and parents and depending on how close I am with that person, the reactions changed, but not by very much. People’s behavior towards my actions and the actions of others ranged from hostile to calm depending on the situation. In different places, the reactions changed slightly, but specifically to fit what was happening at that particular moment. The other part of this experiment was personal space, I tested other people’s boundaries while talking to them. It got pretty awkward, considering most people’s “personal bubble” is at about arm’s length away. I got closer than that, and

I had to be careful with this part of my experiment. Keeping in mind that there are people out there who have high anxiety levels when it comes to their personal space, I decided to play it a little safer. I only did this experiment with people I knew, some better than others just to get differing reactions. I did not get the reactions I hoped for, they were mostly the same thing all throughout. People usually just backed up a bit or asked me why I was getting so close or gave me a weird look. I explained to everyone that it was just an experiment afterwards, to alleviate any awkwardness that I had caused by getting in their bubble. If I had decided to do this experiment on strangers, I think I would have gotten better results overall, because it would have been more random and awkward for people and I could read them