Volume 82, August 2015, Pages 185–187
Short Communication
- School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, 12a Priory Road, Bristol BS8 1TU, United Kingdom
- Received 6 January 2015, Revised 26 February 2015, Accepted 16 March 2015, Available online 14 April 2015
Highlights
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- Individuals vary in preferred physical proximity to others, or personal space.
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- Personal space may serve disease-avoidance functions.
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- Disgust sensitivity was found to predict personal space.
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- This effect was specific to human-contaminant disgust sensitivity.
Abstract
How far do people prefer to stand from others during interpersonal interactions? Individuals vary in what has been termed personal space,
and this variation appears to be systematic. For instance, personal
space tends to be larger among more introverted individuals. The present
study investigated whether personality variables relevant to threat
perceptions may predict personal space. One type of threat that may be
neutralized via physical distancing is infectious disease. This study
examined whether individual differences in pathogen-relevant disgust
sensitivity (particularly with respect to other humans) may predict
personal space. In a study employing a behavioral measure of personal
space (N = 134), human-contaminant disgust sensitivity (but not
nonhuman-contaminant disgust sensitivity) was found to predict personal
space while controlling for trait anxiety and introversion.
Introversion was found to exert an independent predictive effect.
Keywords
- Behavioral immune system;
- Disease avoidance;
- Disgust;
- Introversion;
- Personal space
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