Around each person there is an inviolable personal space, including his bodily shell, inner world (emotions, thoughts, dreams, hobbies, habits, goals) and material and physical conditions that provide his life with the desired comfort (free time from work, intimate things, a secluded corner to restore strength). Violating the boundaries of this space entails serious psychological problems. Such accidental or intentional intrusion is unacceptable both in contact with strangers and in relationships with friends and relatives. Each person is born with the right to personal space and, throughout socialization, becomes familiar with his responsibility to respect the integrity of this spiritual and material value belonging to other members of society.
What is the size of our personal space, and in general, why do we need it?
In addition to water and food, a person needs personal space.
In the 60s of the 20th century, American anthropologist Edward Hall surprised the scientific world by saying that, among other things, a person urgently needs personal space.
He proved that each of us tends to consider a certain area around our body as an extension of ourselves.
But it would be nice to just look!
As it turned out, we get annoyed when a stranger invades our personal area, and are ready to defend ourselves, even with the use of force, if necessary.
The conclusions made by Edward Hall quickly found supporters.
Scientists recalled theories that were once put forward that man is a territorial “animal”: he tends to fence property (plot, house) and “mark” his favorite objects - for example, sign his books, hang his jacket on the back of his favorite chair, put down his glasses and put down a cup to your part of the table.
So why should a person relate to the “cap of air” that surrounds his body?
It was only necessary to find out the size of the area of a person’s personal space, as well as into what “subterritories” it is divided.
What was and was done in subsequent years, experts identified four zones.
Why do people violate other people's boundaries?
Other people's boundaries are most often violated by those people who have problems with their own boundaries.
They do not know how to intuitively determine the distance to which a person is ready to let them approach him. It seems to them that if they are open to the whole world and are always ready to help, then other people should do the same. But such openness is often viewed by others as tactlessness, inappropriate familiarity, or even hidden aggression.
Separately, it is worth noting that some people violate boundaries quite deliberately , their goal is to attack a person and harm him. We are talking about emotional and physical abuse. Such an ill-wisher understands perfectly well that he is invading territory that is closed to himself.
You need to be able to recognize aggression directed in your direction. It is important to distance yourself from such a person and not allow him to disturb your psychological comfort.
Violation of personal space
Personal space of a person:
- Intimate area: from 15 to 45 cm.
We only allow children, lovers, parents, and sometimes other close relatives to be within its boundaries.
- Personal zone: from 46 to 1.2 m.
Observe yourself and those around you. It is at this distance from others that we find ourselves when we come to an official reception or visit friends.
- Social zone: 1.2 m to 3.6 m.
So many meters separate us from the strangers with whom we come into contact - these are salespeople, librarians, plumbers, postmen.
- Public area: over 3.6 m.
At this distance, teachers, bosses, and stage masters prefer to communicate with the audience.
Have you noticed that the numbers defining a person’s personal space fluctuate “from” and “to”? this is because each of us has our own territory, it is different for all people.
The size of personal space is influenced by:
National traditions
It is believed that “children of the south” are more likely than others to violate the personal boundaries of others.
Northerners, on the contrary, strictly observe them.
What to do to protect personal boundaries?
To prevent communication with other people from causing psychological stress, you need to know what “personal space” is, learn to keep your interlocutors at a certain distance and prevent violations of this comfortable zone. In particular, it is necessary:
- Clearly define personal psychological boundaries in order to understand at what distance from the intimate core your territory ends and someone else’s begins.
- Working on developing personal independence will help you not take other people’s “jokes” to heart and find the strength to defend your personal views and the integrity of your personal territory.
- Master the model of correctly refusing people their requests (without guilt or remorse).
- Provide yourself with time for self-realization, which gives you confidence in your own abilities.
- Remind people who often violate your personal comfort zone during communication about the parameters of the optimal distance for maintaining a fruitful dialogue.
- Remind random boundary violators of the rule prohibiting intentionally causing pain to another person and plunging him into conditions of psychological discomfort.
If the violation of personal space takes the form of physical violence, the victim must immediately distance himself from the aggressor and do everything to prevent further attempts of such actions.
what passive aggression and how to recognize it here.
The size of personal space directly depends on several factors
- Place of residence
Where population density is lower (for example, in villages) it increases
And the space that a person is accustomed to consider personal. Residents of megacities, on the contrary, define their intimate zone as a distance of no more than 20-30 cm.
- Position in society
Big bosses, prominent politicians, famous businessmen and artists, as a rule, have wider boundaries of personal space.
- Personal features
The more fears and phobias a person has, the higher the degree of anxiety and the wider the “air cap”
In society, it is customary to respect the boundaries of personal space.
- Therefore, you should not put your hand on the shoulder or touch the palm of an unfamiliar person - you will cause hostility.
- Don't sit too close to your boss when he calls you into his office - this will irritate him.
- Parents should learn to refrain from hugs and kisses if the child, growing up and aware of the boundaries of personal space, wrinkles his nose and rejects hugs.
- If, on the contrary, for some reason you need to “hook” another person, for example, to stir up a self-absorbed colleague, touch him. But the gesture should not be aggressive.
Example:
Dr. Sommer, professor of psychology, described an interesting experiment he conducted in the hospital. He put on a white doctor’s coat and violated the patients’ personal space: he sat next to them, entered their rooms, and sat down near visitors.
These intrusions disturbed patients and forced them to leave their places.
You can easily conduct a similar experiment.
To do this, it is enough to approach any person (preferably a stranger) closer than arm's length. And watch his reaction.
As a rule, a person immediately tries to move away.
The intonation and pace of his speech changes.
Based on materials from the journal “Psychology and Self”
I would like to add a few more words,
Living with personal boundaries
Living with your own boundaries makes it much easier. After all, a person clearly understands what he wants from
life, what or who he does not want to see on his territory. However, determining what is allowed to others requires the concept and awareness of oneself first. In other words, a person must have a clear position on this matter. It is like a state with its borders.
A person who understands and respects his boundaries, loves his physical body, is aware of his own feelings, internal norms, actions, way of thinking, desires, potential. What is significant here are the stated goals of this person.
And he clearly knows the answers to the questions:
- about the place in his life, the importance of partnerships for him;
- about what sacrifices one is willing to make to avoid loneliness and a helpless state;
- about the boundaries of what is permitted for their partners;
- about true importance in your life;
- about what he can refuse.
Boundaries are always associated with certain human values. It is knowledge and understanding of oneself that is key in establishing limited access for others. To do this, you need to know all your abilities, pros and cons. People who have clearly defined their boundaries know their purpose, desires, have their own ideals, interests, principles, needs.
What happens when personal territory is threatened?
Scientists have long proven the cause-and-effect relationship between emotions and bodily ailments, and we are all familiar with the saying “all diseases come from nerves.”
The experiences we hold back turn into muscle tension.
Let’s imagine a situation where we are more cultured than those who dared to take our personal belongings without asking and allowed us to “rummage” through our laptop and photographs. We suppress anger, try to maintain good relationships, we protect the feelings of people who have crossed the line of what is permitted, thereby provoking vasodilatation and muscle tension.
Gradually, the muscles of the body, working incorrectly due to tension, create a load on nearby organs, as a result of which diseases develop. Approximately 500 diseases are triggered by this principle.
How to force respect for your territory? There is only one way out - to clearly define its boundaries.
Failure to maintain your personal comfort zone leads to physical illness
What can happen to the body if you remain silent for a long time, dream about personal sovereignty and try to hide, seclude yourself even for a little while?
1. You slowly turn into a snail or turtle, creating an emotional shell home in which you will feel comfortable. One day, an emotional breakdown and conflict may occur, and the body will respond to this call, but your shell will not grow, but skin problems, such as eczema or psoriasis, may appear. This happens mainly to those who often enter into conflicts over their territory, or try to defend themselves from “invaders”.
2. Another possible result is gastritis or stomach ulcer. This can happen if an insecure person tries to “persuad” his position of living in a house “without a homeland and a flag” and hopes that everything will be crushed, digested... The invasion of personal territory “will not be digested” without manifesting itself in the form of a physical illness.
Therefore, you cannot fence yourself off completely or “digest” the situation; you can only clearly indicate where your personal territory is, the boundaries of which cannot be crossed.
Boundaries of psychological space
The psychological space of a person has its own boundaries. It is they who protect us from invasion attempts and help us to separate ourselves from everything that constitutes our natural background of life. This is how we maintain our own security, freedom and independence. The boundaries of personal space determine our attitude towards society and other people.
They can be rigid and flexible. Rigid boundaries are practically impenetrable to other people - such a person does not allow practically anyone into his life, and accordingly, it can be very difficult to establish close and trusting relationships with him. At the same time, he himself doesn’t really “mess with” anyone either. Blurred boundaries are quite the opposite. Such a person is open to everyone and is able to tell all the intimate details of his life to a new acquaintance without feeling discomfort. He is often pushy with others, demanding the same level of intimacy and openness from them, making it very difficult to communicate with him.
Of course, there is a “golden mean”. Such a person changes the closedness of his borders depending on the situation. He is open with friends and family. Loves guests, but in moderation. Able to maintain distance during formal communication. In general, he is friendly towards other people and feels part of society. Such flexibility is very good in life, since situations are different, and you need to adapt to them all.
But your psychological space is not only your things, home and friends, it is also certain distances to which you allow different people to approach you without experiencing much discomfort. Personal space is a territory where others should not enter without your permission, and each person has his own level of access. In psychology, it is customary to distinguish 4 zones of psychological space:
- Intimate - arm's length zone - 40-60 centimeters from the human body. Only those closest to us - friends, family and loved ones - can enter this zone without feeling discomfort.
- Personal – from 45 to 150 centimeters from the human body. Business and formal relationships are usually established within this zone. It is within this space that the teacher and student prefer to be when teaching.
- Social – from 150 to 400 centimeters. Within this zone, we play certain roles for other people: the role of seller, buyer, driver, etc. ...
- Public – from 400 centimeters. It has no upper limit, so it is the freest. Healthy people practically do not feel any discomfort when invading it (otherwise we would all have died long ago using public transport!).
In conclusion, I would like to say that the need for personal space is as important as the need for food, sleep, safety and comfort. Without them, we turn into sick and twitching creatures, incapable of any productive action. Therefore, keep your space safe and sound and do not hesitate to indicate its boundaries when communicating with other people. But remember to be serious and respectful of other people's personal space, and they will respect you too.
What it is?
Not only humans, but also animals have their own territory. Most of them “mark” it, and feel calm and safe, walking within the confines of their space. In many ways, our behavior is similar to the behavior of an animal: we “mark” the territory of our home with things and design, put a strong door at the entrance to the apartment and put a ring on our husband’s finger.
In essence, a person’s personal space is all those things and events that we highlight from the entire wealth of life as significant for us. It includes your body, things “territory”, relationships with other people and time. All this is filled with a special and only your personal meaning. For example, a pen given to you at work can be just a pen, or it can be YOUR pen - an object into which you attach a certain meaning and to which you are attached. Let's talk in more detail about the components of psychological space.
- Our body is the basis for all other fragments of personal space. This is where the understanding of one’s “I” begins – my arm, leg, etc. ... Through it we establish contact with the world, become attached to people, define our territory and begin to carry out some kind of activity. Our attitude towards our own appearance is connected with the body: we either accept it or reject it.
- “One’s own territory” first appears in the baby’s picture of the world at the moment when he begins to crawl and move from one room to another - he begins to delimit personal space from non-personal space. The child understands that other people exist. “Our own territory” plays an important role in our lives: we control the intensity of communication, the intensity of information coming to us, we protect ourselves from everything unnecessary, we can restore strength and create something. Very often “our territory” is embodied in our home.
- Personal things appear in a person at the moment when he learns to interact with them. They are an allegorical message about who we really are - what our character traits, inclinations and interests are. Thanks to some subjects we can learn, work and create. Other things tell us about our roles and status in society, and help us define our boundaries.
- Personal space in relationships is how we develop and maintain relationships. Each of us determines the circle of close people, as well as those whose opinions are important to her. We can establish relationships of varying degrees of intimacy, even intimate ones. Personal time also manifests itself in relationships - sometimes we want to be alone, and sometimes with someone, and we ourselves decide when these moments come.
How to respond to the invasion?
We need to react to a violation of boundaries every time it happens, showing in every possible way to the person who has “hacked” our personal space (in words, with a little distancing) that it is impossible to do this towards us. Next, we need to try to calmly but firmly explain to our partner (relative, friend) what his behavior means to us, what feelings arise from this. “It’s unpleasant and insulting to me that you yell at me for virtually nothing. It is unacceptable. If you don't like something, you can always express it in words. I urge you not to do this again. This hurts and offends me." “Mom, I love you very much, I know how much you worry about me, but I’ve already grown up. Now I can make my own decisions and take responsibility for my life. I would really like you to support me in my choice to live as I see fit, and not criticize me. It undermines my self-confidence."
| By the way | |
| The concept of “personal boundaries,” or boundaries of the “I,” was first introduced by the Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Paul Federn, one of Sigmund Freud’s students, and has since been widely used in practical psychology. Awareness of boundaries helps a person’s self-identification and allows him to choose certain ways of behavior, self-expression and self-affirmation that do not violate personal freedom. | |
In general, we need to talk through all these moments, talk about our feelings and definitely about what we want to get, what kind of attitude we expect and will achieve.
