So, I was going through my old papers when I found this gem about interpersonal communication. Specifically nonverbal communication. I’ve recently been working on the Great Course about Understanding Emotion, which talks a lot about communication studies, so I’ve been thinking about these classes I used to take. My poor family and friends have had so many papers including them over the years… :D
Conceptions of Space
Katy Hannah
Leap Day/2012
Our conceptions of space are absolutely fascinating. The fact that standing a foot apart from someone that you are talking to means different things in different circumstances is ridiculous, yet completely understandable. Being on a subway packed tightly with other people is deemed “normal,” but coming up and sitting directly beside someone on a couch in the student lounge is “abnormal.” Or at least uncomfortable.
In Knapp and Hall, they discuss defense mechanisms to deal with crowding (Knapp and Hall145). People adapt to situations where they are forced to be in a high density area. For instance, when we take the subway, we block inputs as a coping mechanism. We block the discomfort we feel at having to sit next to someone, and perhaps we even block our discomfort at actual physical touches, because we know that neither us nor the person next to us can avoid the touch, as much as we would like to.
It is also interesting how we treat public areas which are not particularly crowded. The studies by Russo in our Nonverbal Communication textbook are equal parts hilarious and fascinating (Knapp and Hall 141). In his experiment, he goes up to female college students in a library and tests their reactions -- their physical and verbal reactions to his approach, whether or not they leave, and if they do leave, how quickly they left. I think the study says something interesting about Russo, because he had discomfort to overcome simply in doing the experiment. We do not want to invade other people’s territory. It is even in the code of ethics with which we are raised. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” We would not want people invading our space, so we subconsciously and consciously avoid invading other’s space. Of course, this varies from person to person.
My dad is a key example of this. He is a fascinating human being when it comes to his nonverbal communication. There is his chair in the living room, and it is “his” chair; however, when someone sits in the chair before him, he rarely makes them move unless he is sitting down for the night to watch one of his Masterpiece shows. My family is odd in that we do not have a set way in which we seat ourselves when we watch television. Most of my friends and other family members have a sort of unspoken seating arrangement in their houses. I have some friends whose family members have their territory is so clearly marked out, that they would not even sit in someone else’s seat if the other was out of the house! These people even feel uncomfortable when their guests sit in their “father’s” chair, regardless of the fact that he is at work at the time.
My family may have our own territorial areas of the house, but none of us is particularly perturbed when those areas are disturbed. I am not sure why this is the case, it was not exactly like this when I was a child. When I was younger, I would freak out if my brother went in my room. A classmate mentioned in class that in her culture, the parents room even remains a locked and “forbidden” place in the house for children. I find this odd and confusing. I suppose that my parent’s philosophy about raising us in an honest household spilled into the way that they treated their and our territories. Everything, including both territory and knowledge, is shared in our home. We eat dinner at a round table where there is no “head” to the table.
But back to my dad. He is weird about public territory. When one goes to parties, ones generally finds a place to sit, and that becomes their seat for the night, but my dad tends to move around and find various places to sit throughout the night, regardless of who may have been sitting there before. Of course, he does not do this at a dinner party where you sit and use the utensils in that one area, but he does this for most any other party. You may say, well he must be very social, very interested in meeting new people if he is moving from place to place. Nope. My father is, if not antisocial, not outgoing. He is very much an introvert like myself.
Also, he frequently talks about meetings at work where he moves to a different seat for every meeting. Apparently it drives his colleagues crazy, because he never sits in the same place twice. I can imagine that they would “dread” coming into a meeting, because they never know if they will be able to sit in “their” seat. He simply thinks it is hilarious; says it “keeps people on their toes.” My dad has actually encouraged me to try it in class, and I must say it sounds tempting, but I do not want people to think I am weird. Also, if I move around from place to place, I feel as if I will not have a particular rapport with anyone in my classes. This type of behavior is not consistent with making friends because it defies norms. I think that it offers my father a distinct disadvantage in his workplace to move around from place to place during meetings, because it may give his colleagues a poor impression of him when they come into a meeting and perceive that he is in “their” seat.
It is not something that we think about, but our use of territory and our treatment of other’s territory makes an impression on how others see us. For instance, when I sit in the student lounge in the Engineering building, I will frequently take a small round table to myself to study, and I know that this will be deemed acceptable, because it is common behavior. However, I am very careful not to take more than one armchair, because these are separate pieces of territory. This is how the armchairs are arranged:
ABC
D
(Except that chair D is facing right instead of at you.) I find that people will look poorly on me if someone is occupying chair D, and I sit in chair B, because this closes off chairs A and B from being comfortably occupied. If I sit in chair A, however, I am sitting too close to the person in chair D, so this is a wrong choice, also. The only option, then is to sit in chair C, which is uncomfortable for me, because it is right next to the door, and facing away from it. This instance, however, has occurred more than once, and instead of sitting in chair B, which would be the most comfortable option for me, I will sit in chair C to appear as polite as possible. Of course, the location of the wall outlets is also a problem, so if I need to charge my computer, the only correct option is B, because the wall outlet is directly behind chair D, and my cord will not reach all the way to chair C, but I should still not sit in chair A because it is too close to the occupant of chair D. Therefore, I will sit in chair B, and no one will think me rude, because they will see my short tether to the wall.
I find territoriality to be a very interesting field of nonverbal communication because it certainly affects us more than we care to say. Common courtesy is very often based upon how we use space. For instance, holding the door for someone while standing in the doorframe and expecting them to go under your arm is considered rude or odd, even though the gesture may be meant as a kind one. Instead, we know that when we open the door for someone, we open it fully and stand back so they can get through. It is a nonverbal signal that they may go in front of us, and in the process, it may disrupt the flow of traffic and others must adjust their personal territories by slowing down or distancing themselves psychologically from those around them by looking away and withdrawing into themselves.
It is also fascinating, because the way we use territory directly affects what people think about us and how we react to each other in everyday encounters!