Preferred interpersonal distances: a global comparison

Agnieszka Sorokowska, University of Wroclaw, Poland
Piotr Sorokowski, University of Wroclaw, Poland
Peter Hilpert, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Katarzyna Cantarero, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sopot, Poland`
Tomasz Frackowiak, University of Wroclaw, Poland
Khodabakhsh Ahmadi, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Ahmad M Alghraibeh, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Richmond Aryeetey, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
Anna Bertoni, Catholic University of Milan, Italy
Karim Bettache, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
Sheyla Blumen, Pontificia Universidad Católica Del Perú, Lima, Peru
Marta Blazejewska, University of Wroclaw, Poland
Tiago Bortolini, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Marina Butovskaya, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAS, Moscow, Russia
Felipe Nalon Castro, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil
Hakan Cetinkaya, Ankara University, Turkey
Diana Cunha, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Daniel David, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Oana A David, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Fahd A Dileym, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Alejandra del Carmen Dominguez Espinosa, Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico
Silvia Donato, Catholic University of Milan, Italy
Daria Dronova, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAS, Moscow, Russia
Seda Dural, Izmir University of Economics, Izmir, Turkey
Jitka Fialova, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Maryanne Fisher, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Evrim Gulbetekin, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey
Aslihan Hamamcioglu Akkaya, Cumhuriyet University, Sivas, Turkey
Ivana Hromatko, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Raffaella Iafrate, Catholic University of Milan, Italy
Mariana Iesyp, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine
Bawo James, Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Benin City, Nigeria
Jelena Jaranovic, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Feng Jiang, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China
Charles Obadiah Kimamo, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Grete Kjelvik, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Firat Koc, Cumhuriyet University, Sivas, Turkey
Amos Laar, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
Fivia de Araujo Lopes, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil
Guillermo Macbeth, National University of Entre Rios, Concepción del Uruguay, Argentina

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal Of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Abstract

Human spatial behavior has been the focus of hundreds of previous research studies. However, the conclusions and generalizability of previous studies on interpersonal distance preferences were limited by some important methodological and sampling issues. The objective of the present study was to compare preferred interpersonal distances across the world and to overcome the problems observed in previous studies. We present an extensive analysis of interpersonal distances over a large data set (N = 8,943 participants from 42 countries). We attempted to relate the preferred social, personal, and intimate distances observed in each country to a set of individual characteristics of the participants, and some attributes of their cultures. Our study indicates that individual characteristics (age and gender) influence interpersonal space preferences and that some variation in results can be explained by temperature in a given region. We also present objective values of preferred interpersonal distances in different regions, which might be used as a reference data point in future studies.

Publication Date

22-3-2017

Publisher

Sage Journals

Volume

Vol.48

Issue

Iss.4

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