Personal space, anger-arousal, and psychological defense

Personal space was hypothesized to function as a defense mechanism The strength of intrapsychic defense against anger expression was first assessed in 160 college students by the TAT and Word Association Test, and personal space usage was then measured under anger-arousing versus control conditions and under two types of instructions Results were that instructions accounted for a large proportion of the personal space variance, that under one anger-arousing condition some subjects apparently counterattacked by invasion of the experimenter's territory, and that, in that condition, subjects with stronger defenses against anger expression employed larger spatial distances These results suggest that larger distances are used for defensive purposes only under conditions in which closer distances imply impulse expression     

Personal space invasions in the lavatory: suggestive evidence for arousal.

The hypothesis that personal space invasions produce arousal was investigated in a field experiment. A men's lavatory provided a setting where norms for privacy were salient, where personal space invasions could occur in the case of men urinating, where the opportunity for compensatory responses to invasion were minimal, and where proximity-induced arousal could be measured. Research on micturation indicates that social stressors inhibit relaxation of the external urethral sphincter, which would delay the onset of micturation, and that they increase intravesical pressure, which would shorten the duration of micturation once begun. Sixty lavatory users were randomly assigned to one of three levels of interpersonal distance and their micturation times were recorded. In a three-urinal lavatory, a confederate stood immediately adjacent to a subject, one urinal removed, or was absent. Paralleling the results of a correlational pilot study, close interpersonal distances increased the delay of onset and decreased the persistence of micturation. These findings provide objective evidence that personal space invasions produce physiological changes associated with arousal.     

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.     

Personal Best

No abstract available for this article.     

Personal Best

No abstract available for this article.     

A Personal Recollection

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

Platonic Personal Immortality

I argue that Plato distinguishes between personal immortality and immortality of the soul. I begin by criticizing the consensus view that Plato identifies the person and the soul. I then turn to the issue of immortality. By considering passages from Symposium and Timaeus, I make the case that Plato thinks that while the soul is immortal by nature, if a person is going to be immortal, they must become so. Finally, I argue that Plato has a psychological continuity approach to personal identity. Thus, for Plato, a person becomes immortal by avoiding reincarnation and securing for themselves psychological continuity forever.