Going up or down?

“You're invading my personal space!” sounds familiar right? Maybe you have heard this from someone caught in a situation where his personal space was threatened.

What is personal space anyway? Burgoon defines personal space as the “invisible,variable volume of space surrounding an individual that defines the individual's preferred distance from others”(Griffin).
Proxemics is part of communication. Illinios Institute of Technology anthropologist Edward Hall coined the term proxemics to refer to the study of people's use of space as a special elaboration of culture(Griffin).

We had a fun activity in class last Thursday. We were asked to act as if we were in a real life situation, in this case in an elevator. It was not realistic though but I really enjoyed it. It was funny how my classmates and I behaved. We were like a bunch of children playing their favorite game. In that kind of situation, there was one observation that when a person or a group of people stepped inside that limited space, they preferred to stay at the corners. It was because they want to keep their personal bubbles. After the activity we discussed EVT.

Expectancy Violation Thoery by Judee Burgoon has been used to explain and predict attitudes and behaviors in a wide variety of communication context(Griffin).

Through that theory, I have learned the whys and hows of our demeanors inside a limited space like in an elevator. I have also learned that people value their personal spaces but they tend to ignore other's personal bubbles.
Relationship,culture,gender,and age are some of the determinants of how near or far a person is from another when they interact.

However, though people try so hard to keep their distances, there are still instances where their expected interaction range is violated. When someone violates another's expectancy, whether the act was negative or positive, the person(whose expectancy was violated) examines if he have gained or lost something during the said interaction. The person's reaction depends on whether he liked the act of violation or not.

The thoery of Judee Burgoon may not be applicable to all situations. It is a case-to-case basis. Nevertheless, it added flavor to the theory.

So guys do not be afraid to take risks in communicating, violating one's expectancy may lead to a good outcome. Unless you hear that person say “You're invading my personal space!'” then you know the next thing to do. Keep your distance!