the role of observational learning in the development of personal space

THE ROLE OF OBSERVATIONAL LEAR~NG IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONAL SPACE

MIRIAM FONSECA Pant~~~~a Universidade Cardlica do Rio de Janeiro

Considerable research has been done on personal space, its determinants, methods of measurement, and traits of personality related to it. It is quite certain that personal space aspects are learned, and this accounts for the cultural differences found. This study was an attempt to consider the role of vicarious learning in establishing and changing children’s personal space. A second purpose of the experiment was to gather some data on Brazilian boys and girls’ personal space dimensions. Subjeczs: Forty-eight boys and 48 girls attending fifth grade with a mean age of I 1 years and five months. Method: Personal space of subjects was measured twice using the Pedersen Personal Space Measure (a simulated pencil and paper measure of personal space). Between the two measurements subjects were submitted to one of the four experimental conditions: Group I saw a model being punished for invasion of personal space; Group II saw the model being rewarded; Group III saw no consequences happen to the model; and Group IV had no exposure to models. Results: The differences between the first and second measurements of personal space revealed that the four groups differed significantly: Group I increased personal space; Group II and group III decreased it; While group IV did not change. The hypothesis that vicarious learning influences the formation and modification of personal space was thus confirmed. As for the exploration on Brazilian children’s personal space, it was found that although there were no differences due to sex of the subject, both boys and girls kept significantly smaller distances from girls than from boys, probably revealing social influences.

The first most intensive studies on human personal space were conducted by Hall ( 1955, 1959, 1963), who presented it as a second frontier beyond the physical one and whose limits are difficult to be established. Since then various definitions have been proposed, and although the subject is a complex one, the authors seem to agree on the most important aspects (Little, 1965; Dosey & Meisels, 1969). Sommer (1973) defined personal space as an area with invisible limits immedi- ately surrounding the individual and where others are not allowed to enter. This area was not necessarily spherical, nor stretched equally into all directions. It was also Sommer (1959) who distinguished personal space from territoriality, pointing that while the latter is defined by fixed

284 International Journal of Intercultural Relations/Fall 1978

points of geographic reference, the former moves around with the individual, contracts, and expands according to different conditions.

There have been various researches trying to find the relations between an individual’s spatial behavior and psychological variables, but the results have been quite inconsistent (Evans, 1973). Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny that someone’s personal space varies considerably according to the environmenta and individual conditions, and it seems that there is a great need for well-controlled studies in order to discover precisely which psychological factors are important in determining personal space modifications.

Considering the results of the greatest part of the studies on this field, it is possible to draw some conclusions:

1. The sex of a person influences his personal space. Hartnett, Bailey and Gibson (1970), Kuethe (1962), and Kuethe and Weingartner ( 1964) found that women have smaller zones of personal space than men and heterosexual pairs require smaller interaction zones than same-sexed pairs. Pairs of women need smaller personal zones than male pairs (Sommer, 1959, 1967, 1973; Peilegrini & Empey, 1970).

2. Personal space is influenced by culture. Cross-cultural studies reveal that people from Northern Europe have larger personal space than North Americans, whose personal space is larger than that of Latin Americans and Arabs (Hall, 19.59, 1966; Little, 1965, 1968).

3. Stressing conditions lead to an increase in personal space (Dosey & Meisels, 1969).

One of the irn~~~t aspects in the study of personal space refers to the consequences of its invasion, since the main function of personal space is to keep both the individuaI’s balance and unity and to protect him against conditions that may be threatening to his existence and welfare. Any attempt to invade someone’s personal space evokes behavioral and emotional reactions not only in the subject whose space is invaded, but also in the invader (Cheyne & Efran, 1972). When an individual has his personal space invaded, his most usual reactions are avoidance of eye contact, leaning away from the intruder, and body-blocking responses. McBride, King, and James (1965) used the GSR (galvanic skin re- sponse) as an indicator of the emotional arousal caused by the invasion of personal space. The conclusions indicate that frontal invasions are the most arousing, followed by lateral invasions. Greater GSRs were obtained with invaders of different sex.

There is a lack of studies concerning the developmental influences in

Fonseca 285

TABLE 1 Summary of Analvsis of Variance for Changes in Personal Space

Source SS di MS F - - - -

Between 138.02 3 46.01 8.95*

Within 472.85 92 5.14

Total 610.87 9.5

*E < .Ol

personal space, and the available results are not sufficiently consistent. Guard0 (1969) noted that children around I2 years old had already learned some of the patterns typical of adults’ personal space. The subjects were sixth graders, and at that age children were able to establish quite well a clear relationship between physical and psychological closeness. Other researchers (Meisels & Guardo, 1969; Bass & Weinstein, 197 1) indicate that it is around the third grade that children learn the patterns of personal space typical of their culture, and from then, boys show greater personal space than girls. Nevertheless, Jones and Aiello ( 1973) obtained opposite results, and Pedersen ( 1973) found greater personal space among sixth grade girls, although up to the fifth grade boys had larger personal space.

Studies concerning the size of children’s personal space in relation to adults’ seem to indicate that whenever other variables are controlled, an increase in personal space is found with age (Guardo, 1969; Bass & Weinstein, 197 1; Guard0 & Meisels, 1971; Lemer, Karabenick, & Meisels, 1975; Lomranz, Shapira, Choresh, & Gilat, 1975; Tennis & Dabbs Jr., 1975). There have also been some contradictory results (Meisels & Guardo, 1969), but it is certainly possible that the apparent inconsistency may be greatly due to different variables considered in each study, since all seems to indicate that developmental changes in personal space are a result of interacting effects of variables such as sex, age, and degree of acquaintance.

Learning is one of such variables which seem to influence personal space and which could account for differences found among cultures. Kuethe (1962, 1964) found that there is a great regularity in the social schemata produced by normal adults when performing a silhouette placement task, and he inputted this regularity to the fact that individuals belonging to the same culture have similar experiences related to the organization of social schemata.


A better understanding of the fluctuations in personal space may be achieved if other socialization processes are taken into account. This is

the case of sex-role identity, which could explain the decrease in boys’ personal space toward threatening mates, since it has always been expected of boys to freely express their aggression and control their anxieties (Kagan, 1964).

The formation of a sex-role identity also helps to understand the fact that girls keep less interpersonal distances than boys and that depending on the age of the interacting members, heterosexual pairs keep the smallest distances (Pedersen, 1973; Lerner, Venning, & Knapp, 1975). Even fluctuations found in the personal space of girls around puberty and adolescence become more understandable when taking into consid- eration the socializing influences operating at that period.

There are still other evidences that personal space patterns are learned and subject not only to temporary changes, but also to lasting ones, such being the case of children with emotional disturbances (Weinstein, 1965) or even with school problems (Fisher, 1967). A more dramatic result was obtained by Spinetta (1974) who found that personal space of leukemic children increased as they approached death.

There seems, therefore, to be a general agreement that personal space development is subject to many influences, but there is also a lack of researches specifically planned to isolate which precise processes are involved in the acquisition and modification of personal space patterris.

The present research has been conducted to investigate the effects of observational learning in the formation of personal space. The very young child takes no knowledge of any kind of space belonging to others, but as he grows older he starts to perceive the existence of a minimal distance which must be kept from others in order to avoid being repelled. As it has been found to happen in relation to other behaviors (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961, 1963), it is expected that not only through direct learning but also through observation, children learn to respect others’ personal space and to establish their own boundaries.

An experimental procedure similar to those used in studies of vicarious learning (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963) was then devised in order to expose the child to situations in which a model was either punished, rewarded, or suffered no consequences after invading a child’s personal space. The subsequent changes in the personal space of the observer were then registered. Another purpose of this study was to make a first approach to the understanding of Brazilian children’s personal space, which had never been attempted.

Fonseca 287

TABLE 2 Summary of Analysis of Variance for Personal Space of Boys and

Girls

MS - F -

Between Subjects 1944.28 95

A (sex of subject) 0.03 1 0.03 Cl

Subjects within groups 1944.25 94 21.22

Within Subjects 724.99 96

B (sex of other) 137.77 1 137.77 22.40**

AxB 9.5 1 9.5 1.54*

B x Subjects within groups 577.72 94 6.15

* n.s.

** E c.01

HYPOTHESES

Hypothesis I: There will be a differential change in the personal space of subjects exposed to different consequences to a model:

A.

B.

C.

D.

Children who see the invasive model being punished will increase their personal space. Children who see the invasive model being rewarded will decrease personal space. Children who see no consequences happen to the invader will decrease their personal space. Children not exposed to models will not change their personal space significantly.

Hypothesis 2: This additional hypothesis considered probable trends in Brazilian fifth graders’ personal space, based on the results with Ameri- can children that age:

A. Girls will have smaller personal space than boys. B. Same-sex pairs will have greater personal space.


METHOD

Subjects

Ninety-six fifth graders (48 girls and 48 boys) who attended two public schools in Rio de Janeiro. They were all white and came from middle-class families; their ages ranged from 10 to 13 years, with a mean of 11 years and five months.

Apparatus

1. Six black-and-white videotapes each lasting around two minutes (an AKAI VT-l 10 was used to make the tapes).

Three of the films were shown to the girls (the actors were all girls the same age as the subjects) and the other three to the boys (the actors were boys the same age as the subjects). The films were identical for both sexes, except for the sex of actors. For each sex, there was a film in which the model was punished for personal space invasion, another in which the model was rewarded, and another in which there were no consequences to the model.

2. Pedersen Personal Space Measure (PPSM), children’s form (Peder- sen, 1973).

Although the original test asked the child to make 12 silhouette placements, Qnly six were used in the present research (those which asked the child to place himself in relation to either a boy or a girl who stood with either his back, front, or side towards the subject).

The abridged version of the test consisted of six 20, 5 cm x 29 cm pages placed horizontally. On the left side of each page, a 5 cm standing profile of a child was printed 5 cm from the left and 7.5 cm from the bottom. A line on which the profile was standing extended 18 cm to the right. A moveable profile of a child was attached to the upper right hand corner of each page. The profiles represented another child (the printed one) and the self (the moveable one).

3. A puzzle.

Procedure

It was told to the subjects that they would participate in a study on perception and that they could refuse if they wanted (no one did).

Each subject was then taken to room A where the experimenter asked him to perform the PPSM. It was clearly explained to the subject that the

Fonseca 289

silhouettes represented himself and another child his own age whom he didn’t know. The experimenter asked the subject to place the profile representing himself in any place along the line to the right of the fixed silhouette. He should choose the distance in which he would feel better. The order of presentation of the plates was varied among the subjects.

The child was then conducted to room B, where another experimenter explained that while waiting for the first experimenter he could watch a short film on the television. The second experimenter projected one of the films according to the experimental condition; the subject was then asked to move to room A, where a third experimenter conducted the postest with the PPSM.

In the case of the control group (no exposure to model), instead of showing the tape to the child, the second experimenter asked him to solve a simple puzzle during two minutes and then led him to room A,

where he was administered the posttest.

RESULTS

The personal space of each child was measured in centimeters, taking into account the distance between the two silhouettes (representing himself and the other). There were two personal space scores: one for the pretest and the other for the posttest.

To test Hypothesis 1, the data considered were the differences between the mean personal space in the first and in the second administration of the PPSM (pretest minus posttest). It then found one score for each child, and they were submitted to a one-way analysis of variance with four levels.

There was a significant treatment effect, thus confirming Hypothesis 1. The mean differences for the four treatments followed the expected predictions:

A. Mean difference for punished model condition: -0.43 cm. B. Mean difference for rewarded model condition: 2.66 cm. C. Mean difference for “no consequence to the model” condition:

1.96 cm. D. Mean difference for “no exposure to the model” condition: 0.56

cm.

In order to test Hypothesis 2, only the pretest scores of personal space were considered. The data were submitted to a two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures in one factor.


There was no significant effect due to sex of self and thus Hypothesis 2A was not supported. Sex of the other figure produced a significant effect. Both boys and girls placed themselves closer to girls than to boys (Table 3).

DISCUSSION

The significant F found for treatment effects revealed differential changes in personal space as a function of exposure to different consequences to the invading model.

The greatest change occurred in the rewarding condition where there was a mean decrease of 2.66 cm in the personal space of children who saw the model being rewarded. There was also a large decrease (I .96 cm) in the no-consequences condition, and a t-test between the two conditions reached no significant level. This result is in accordance with Bandura’s observation that learning can occur through simple observation, with no need of reinforcing either the subject or the model (Ban- dura, 1971).

The punishing condition showed an increase of 0.43 cm in personal space, and although this group was significantly different from the control, t(48) = - 2.08, p < .02, the amount of change was not as great as expected. A possible explanation for this result may lay in the extent of the punishment inflicted to the model that may have been too weak. It had been assumed that if a child were overtly repelled for invading another’s personal space, that would be perceived as a kind of punishment. But it seems that the subjects perceived the brisk moving away of the invaded as the right thing to do in order to defend his personal space and not as an offending act towards the invader. It is expected that a stronger way of punishment should evoke greater increase in personal space than the one presently obtained.

The small decrease in personal space in the no-film condition (0.56 cm), although not significant, may be due to some degree of familiariza- tion with the test in the second administration.

Considering the second purpose of this study, related to an exploration of Brazilian children’s personal space, some unexpected results were found. First of all, it seems that boys and girls do not differentiate in the amount of personal space they need, but they approach same and other sex children differentially. Both sexes get closer to girls than to boys. Two possible explanations may be offered and both in terms of social factors. It may be that girls are traditionally thought of as less

Fonseca 291

TABLE 3 t Test Between Personal Space Relative to Boys and GirIs

Mean Personal Space Mean Personal Space 2

toward boys towards girls

Boys 6.55 4.48 5.45**

Girls 5.99 4.93 2.54*

aggressive and therefore are considered to support greater proximity. It may also be that boys are willing to show their heterosexual interests and girls are more shy so as to reveal little interest in boys. In fact, this result seems to be in accordance with daily observations of fifth grade girls who usually act timidly towards boys as if they were discovering their feminine role; fifth grade boys, on the other hand, are assuming their male identity and want to make it clear.

CONCLUSION

As it was expected from the results obtained with researches concerning other behaviors, personal space is shown to be subject to the influences of vicarious learning. Although Brazilian fifth graders show no variation in persona1 space due to sex, they get considerably closer to girls than to boys, probably revealing social influences.

When evaluating these results it must be kept in mind that the measure of personal space employed was a simulated one, and it is suggested that the investigation be repeated with the aid of a direct measure.

NOTE

Requests for reprints should be addressed to Miriam Fonseca, ~ep~amento de Psicologia, Pontificia Universidade Cat&x, Rua Marques de Sao Vicente 209, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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ABSTRACT TRANSLATIONS

EL ROL DEL AP~ND~AJE POR MEDIO DE OBSERVACI~N EN EL DESARROLLO DEL ESPACIO PERSONAL.

Se ha realizado mucha investigation sobre el espacio personal, sus dete~inantes, metodos de medir y sobre 10s rasgos de personalidad relacionados al mismo. Es bastante seguro que 10s aspectos relatives al espacio personal son aprendidos, lo que explica las diferencias culturales que se han hallado. Este trabajo intenta tomar en cuenta el rol de1 refuerzo indirect0 en el aprendizaje paraestablecer y modific;arel espacio personal de 10s nii’ros. Un Segundo objet0 de este experiment0 es el de realizar comparaciones entre 10s niiios y nihas barasileros en lo que respecta adimensiones de espacio personal asi coma para obtener information sobre estudiantes de quint0 aiio respect0 a su espacio personal con relacidn a otros comp&eros de1 mismo u otro sexo. Sujetos: 48 varones y 48 niiias que asisten a So ano escolar con una edad media de 1 I anos y cinco meses. Mktodo: Se utilize’ la Medida Pederson de Espacio Personal dos veces (La medida es una prueba simulada escrita de espacio personal). Entre las dos medidas, 10s sujetos fueron some- tidos a una de cuatro condiciones experimentales: El Grupo I vii, a un modelo siendo castigado por haber invadido el espacio personal. El grupo II vid que el sujeto era recom~nsado, el Grupo III vid que la invasidn no traia consecuencias y el grupo IV no fue’expuesto a modelo alguno. Resultados: La diferencia de la medida la y 2a de espacio personal reveld que existen diferencias significativas entre 10s cuatro grupos. El Grupo I aumentd el espacio personal, 10s Grupos II y II lo disminuyeron, mientras que el G IV no modified. Se confiid la hipdtesis de que el aprendizaje con refuerzo indirect0 influye la formacidn y modificacidn de1 espacio personal. En lo que respecta a la investigation sobre el especio personal de fos estudiantes brasileros, no se destacaron diferencias debidas al sexo def sujeto. Tanto 10s varones coma las niiias mantuvieron distancias menores de las nifias, lo que probablemente revelo’iaexistencia de influencias sociales.

294 International Journal of Intercultural ~elations~all 19%

LE R&E DE L’APPRENTISSAGE ~BS~~VATr~N~~ DANS LE D~V~L~PP~~E~T DE L’ESPACE PERSONNEL.

Get article constitue une tentative pour ettudier l’appr~nt~ssage vicariant pour e’tahlir et changer I’espace personnel des enfants. Un deux~~me but de I’exp&ience est d’effectuer une premiere comparaison entre les dimensions de I’espace personnel des filles et des garc;ons. SujE‘r.s: 48 garGons et 48 filles d’environ 1 I am. Mdthorlr: l’espace personnel etait mesure deux fois en utilisant la mesure de Pedersen d’espace personnel. Entre Ies deux mesures les sujets etaient soumis i quatre conditions experiment&s: groupe I a VU un mod& puni pour avoir envahi l’espace personnel, groupe II a vu le modele r~com~ns~, groupe III a vu qu’aucune consequence arrivait au mndiie et le groupe IV n’etait pas expose’ i des modeles. ~~~~~~~f~~ les differences entre la premike et la deuxieme mesure etaient significatives. Gr. I a accm son espace personnel, Cr. II et Gr. III I‘a diminue et Gr. IV no changea pas. L’hypathese que l’apprentissage vicariant influence la formation et la modification de l’espace personnel &it ainsi confirmee. Bien q~‘aucun~ difference due au sexe a ete’ not&, les garGons et les filles maintenaient moins de distances avec les filles qu’avec les gar$ons.

the role of observational learning in the development of personal space

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