Personal space and density as factors in task performance and feeling of crowding.

The study was an investigation of the effects of density and personal space on simple and complex task performance and on feelings of crowding on 60 female Hindu students in India. A 2 x 2 design was used. Density was manipulated by varying the number of subjects in a fixed room space (social density), and the stop-distance technique was used to measure personal space. Results revealed that complex task performance was adversely affected by a high-density condition and by the personal space of the subjects, leading to a significant interaction effect of the two variables, but no significant main or interaction effect was found for the simple task performance. The subjects with "far" personal space under the high-density condition evaluated the environment of the experimental room as most crowded, more than any other subject did.

[1]  E. Maccoby,et al.  The development of sex differences , 1966 .

[2]  J. R. Aiello,et al.  Social Density, Interpersonal Relationships, and Residential Crowding Stress1 , 1982 .

[3]  Carol M. Werner,et al.  Personal space claims as a function of interpersonal threat: The mediating role of need for control , 1984 .

[4]  R. Gifford.  Projected Interpersonal Distance and Orientation Choices: Personality, Sex, and Social Situation , 1982 .

[5]  Robert A. Karlin,et al.  Crowding and the Role of Interpersonal Distance Preference , 1977 .

[6]  G. Evans,et al.  Behavioral and Physiological Consequences of Crowding in Humans , 1979 .

[7]  E. S. Knowles,et al.  Social physics and the effects of others: Tests of the effects of audience size and distance on social judgments and behavior. , 1983 .

[8]  Leslie A. Hayduk,et al.  Personal space: The conceptual and measurement implications of structural equation models. , 1985 .

[9]  K. Klein,et al.  Disruptive effects of disconfirmed expectancies about crowding. , 1979, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[10]  S. Milgram.  The experience of living in cities. , 1970, Science.

[11]  S. Valins,et al.  Architecture and social behavior: Psychological studies of social density , 1977 .

[12]  James M. Dabbs,et al.  Physical closeness and negative feelings , 1971 .

[13]  Paul M. Ong,et al.  Crowding Perceptions, Attitudes, and Consequences among the Chinese , 1984 .

[14]  J. Fisher,et al.  Situation-specific variables as determinants of perceived environmental aesthetic quality and perceived crowdedness , 1974 .

[15]  Paul B. Paulus,et al.  Density does affect task performance. , 1976 .