Burgoon defined personal space as the “invisible, variable volume of space surrounding an individual that defines that individual’s preferred distance from others.”2 She claimed that the size and shape of our personal space depend on our cultural norms and individual preferences, but our space always reflects a compromise between the conflicting approach–avoidance needs that we as humans have for affiliation and privacy. The idea of personal space wasn’t original with Burgoon. In the 1960s, Illinois 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.3 He entitled his book The Hidden Dimension because he was convinced that most spatial interpretation is outside our awareness. He claimed that Americans have four proxemic zones, which nicely correspond with the four interpersonal distances selected by my students:
The part about personal space caught my attention because it shows we all kinda have an invisible bubble around us even if we do not think about it. When someone stands too close or too far it just feels off and changes how we see the interaction. The classroom example made sense because the professor reacted differently to each student just based on distance, not what they said. That shows communication is not only words, it is also space and body position. It explains why someone can feel awkward or rude even when they did not actually say anything bad. So distance affects how we judge people without us realizing it.