Preferred interpersonal distances: a global comparison

WOS: 000399920900008
Human spatial behavior has been the focus of hundreds of previous research studies. However, the conclusions and generalizability of previous studies on interpersonal distance preferences were limited by some important methodological and sampling issues. The objective of the present study was to compare preferred interpersonal distances across the world and to overcome the problems observed in previous studies. We present an extensive analysis of interpersonal distances over a large data set (N = 8,943 participants from 42 countries). We attempted to relate the preferred social, personal, and intimate distances observed in each country to a set of individual characteristics of the participants, and some attributes of their cultures. Our study indicates that individual characteristics (age and gender) influence interpersonal space preferences and that some variation in results can be explained by temperature in a given region. We also present objective values of preferred interpersonal distances in different regions, which might be used as a reference data point in future studies.
Czech Science Foundation [GACR P407/16/03899S]; Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education: Iuventus Plus grant [IP2014 043773]; Polish National Science Centre ETIUDA scholarship [2013/08/T/HS6/00408]; Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University; Grant Agency of Czech Republic [GAUK 918214]
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Czech Science Foundation GACR P407/16/03899S grant to Jitka Fialova, Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education: Iuventus Plus grant #IP2014 043773 and Scholarship to Agnieszka Sorokowska for years 2013-2016, Scholarships to Piotr Sorokowski for years 2012-2017, Polish National Science Centre ETIUDA scholarship #2013/08/T/HS6/00408 to Agnieszka Sorokowska, Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University Support to Ahmad M. Alghraibeh, and Grant Agency of Czech Republic GAUK 918214 grant to Jitka Fialova.