"Personal Space" Reflected by Culture?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I’m in the grocery store today, once again standing at the express lane with my arms full, as I “didn’t need a basket”.

The lady in front of me is standing at the cash, with her empty basket between us. I contemplate for a second resting my stuff on the handle of her basket, as it was empty. I then nix that idea, as I figure it would somehow be “invading her personal space”.

I’m usually comfortable with an arm’s length worth, between people. Though Montrealers are infamous for our “two cheek kiss”, once the kiss is over, back up. And I don’t like it when people touch my arms or back when they speak to me. It completely side-tracks me from the conversation at hand and I think: “OMG, s/he’s touching me!” If you come close to my face (and you’re not a very close friend, hairdresser or doing the two-cheeker), I almost duck.

I finally get the chance to put my stuff down, and wait for the lady ahead of me to finish up. Behind me is a Chinese woman. She proceeds to push her elbows into me as she places her stuff onto the conveyor belt (there was plenty of room on the belt, that’s not the problem). I would never actually SAY something in this case. At my boldest, I would turn around and see what’s pushing into me, which is what I did today. I admit, the first thing that popped into my mind was, “Why is it always the Chinese people who push you?”

Keep in mind, I live in a suburb of Montreal where Chinese immigrants are so prevalent that our ATM machines are trilingual (French, English and Chinese). I also worked at the Montreal Casino for 10 years; Asians are big gamblers. So in some way, I’ve probably had more experience with them than the average Quebecoise.

Instead of leaving it at that, I got a flash! Maybe MY idea of adequate personal space is different from theirs, due to the fact that I’ve lived my whole life in the second biggest country in the world (next to Russia), which only has 5.1% of the world’s population. It doesn’t even rank in the top 20 most populated countries in the world. (China, btw, ranks #1).

So my question is: Is it possible that the distance we feel comfortable with as “personal space” is directly related to the culture we have lived in for most of our lives?

2

Absolutely.

At a fund manager I used to work at, there was a guy who had recently immigrated from Macedonia. If he wanted to speak to you, he’d step up to you, shoetip to shoetip, and start speaking. The first instinct was to step a metre and a half (or so) away. He would then close in again. Rinse and repeat until the conversation was over.

We used to call it the Vlado Two-step. We had a ‘new age’ office, with free standing ‘meeting pods’ on the middle of the floor. Once I saw Vlado march someone backwards around a pod one and a half times.

3

I agree with BigNik that our concept of personal space is culturally inculcated, but I’m hard pressed to accept that it is a function solely of population density. In my experience Arabs perceive a much smaller personal space than do North Americans, yet they come from a less densely populated society. I think the issue is more complex.

4

I’m from Chicago, from a multicultural background, and I always give people a arms length distance, at least.
It always seems to be the Polish/Eastern European immigrants out here that ride up your back when your at the ATM, grocery checkout, service desk.
I usually tolerate about 1-2 minutes of this at most, then I do an about-face, cock my head to the side and look at them like they MUST have just asked me a question. I have yet to have someone not appreciate my idea of personal space after that.

5

Absolutely it is a learned cultural behavior. It can lead to many misunderstandings and hard feelings. Those whose personal space is “up close and personal” may be perceived as pushy or rude. Those of the opposite persuasion may be perceived as cold, standoffish, untrustworthy and rude.

Doesn’t make it any less annoying when you’re the one who wants just a bit more room and somebody’s infringing on your space. But it’s something to keep in mind if you travel to another country and need to be perceived as polite for business purposes, for example.

6

When I was in high school my psych teacher decided to conduct a little experiment- and arranged to have a few students from another class come in on pretend errands (unbeknownst to us) to see how close they could get to people before they got uncomfortable; afterwards we decided what we considered our own requirements for comfort. People in just one class had a wide range of what they considered comfortable. Most people prefered strangers be an arms length away, but others required significantly more or less space for their comfort. Cultural may have something to do with it, but it can’t be the only thing at work.

7

The study of personal space is called proxemics. There is definitely a cultural component to the amount of space an individual needs. This Salon article says, “because Mediterranean and Asian countries are more densely populated, their personal space zones are much closer to the body than those of Americans and Northern Europeans,” which seems to confirm the theory of the OP.

8

And within our own culture we give certain people/occupations permission to be closer than would normally be considered comfortable…a tailor or a barber comes to mind.

9

shudder…anyone know why the person who measures your “inseam” is typically the last person on earth you would want within a mile of your inseam?