Human Ethology

One of the pitfalls of interdisciplinary studies is that the researcher may be unaware of relevant work already accomplished on the other side of the traditional disciplinary barrier. Thus, I recently initiated studies of human personal space and flight distance, with the rather naive impression that I would be introducing social scientists to a unique perspective while providing biologists with a wholly new study species, homo sapiens. I was unaware of the work of Robert Sommer and his students and of the concern already lavished on problems of human personal space (see Leibman, 1970 for a recent review of the burgeoning literature). The following results are therefore presented as a wholly independent corroboration of certain earlier studies (notably Felipe and Sommer, 1966) as well as