Gender,Physical Attractiveness,and Assertiveness

Abstract

This study was an examination of comfortable proxemic distances assumed by the interactants, female Canadian students. Previous studies were consistent with Hall'S (1959, 1966) cultural model only when the interactants were from the same cultural group. When they were from different cultural groups, however, the cultural model was not adequate: The findings were more consistent with a symbolic interactionist interpretation, namely, that a negotiation takes place and the comfortable distance is adjusted to that of both groups. In this study, we held cultural group and sex constant and introduced the problem of the interviewer'S retreat from the original comfortable distance established by the subject. In all cases, the subject re-established a new comfortable distance that was a compromise between the one originally chosen and the distance assumed by the interviewer.