Breaching Experiment: Personal Space

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Breaching Experiment: Personal Space
Description
In every society, there exist some expectations on how personal space should be given to
people we interact with in our daily activities. In every society, personal space is valued, the
personal space that should be given to someone mainly depend on the degree or the closeness of
their relationship. For instance, in a public setting like eating establishments and restaurants
people who sit together in a table are often comfortable and familiar with each other hence
having close proximity to each other. The people who sit together possibly are either friends,
family members or people who are enthusiastic to know each other. It is very hard for a person
to sit voluntarily near someone who is a stranger. The act of providing a personal space was so
captivating to me; hence I decided to do research on the importance of personal space
(Brinkmann and Svend 520-533). In order to carry out my research, I decided to break this social
normative in a public restaurant in Toronto.
I carried out the research when I was at The St. George Campus of the University of
Toronto at the Chestnut Dining Hall where many of the students have their meals throughout the
day. The normative of the cafeteria was that people sat near other people that they were familiar

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with and hence they were ready to open their personal space to them. But in case someone did
not find anyone he/she was familiar with, then he/she would prefer sitting by herself/himself. I
decided to break this norm by intentionally sitting around people who did not recognize me. I
experimented with a young female student and a man in his early fifties. The young female was
an African-American who had her headphones on and sat by herself. I finally dropped my plate
of the meal on the table and sat facing at her side, on noticing my action she looked and I could
tell by her facial expression that she seemed to be surprised at what I did. Judging from her facial
expression, I recognized that she was very shocked at my action and probably wondered how a
stranger could sit next to her. I continued to talk to her and asked her how her day was, at first
she hesitated to answer, but finally she replied and answered that it was fine and continued to eat
her meal and look down.
During the evening I also went and sat around a man who was sitting around with his five
colleagues who seemed of similar age, I went and sat beside the man who was an American
when they were having their meal. I sat at close proximity with the man, and I could tell from
looks of the other colleagues that they were shocked at my behavior. The man with a lot of
shocks looked at me directly into my eyes and said, “Do you mind giving me my personal
space?” and I hesitated but I finally replied “sure!” and then stood up as the man was watching
me and he replied and said, “thank you.” I went and sat on another table and had my meal
(Felipe et al 458-468).
Analysis
In almost every society people abide by the culture and many unwritten rules that govern
how people interrelate and interact with each other. Culture involves the social behavior, ideas,

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and customs of a particular society or people. For instance, according to American ‘s the act of
respecting the other people personal space is a social normative while in Chinese it is acceptable
to break a personal space or they don’t care about respecting other people personal space. The
unwritten rules usually involve the behaviors, folkway and culture that society upholds and are
usually understood but not specifically recorded (Mondada and Lorenza 1-5). One should
specifically keep a standard distance when in public or even when around friends with respect to
the other people. Almost every person dislike when his/her personal space is invaded, and hence
every person reacts in his/ her way depending on the approach used in invasion and person’s
preference (Taylor et al).
When conducting the destruction experiment, I had a feeling that I was violating the
social norm of other people. I felt skeptical and awkward and had a lot of thoughts on how other
people could react to my behavior. I sometimes felt that invading other personal space especially
a stranger in a public place was so rude. Even thou I did not receive any sanction for my actions,
I felt like apologizing to the man I invaded his personal space with his friends (Reinharz and
Shulamit). We are all expected by society to carry ourselves and act in a definite way by
observing the societal norms. Violating people’s space mostly indicates something unwanted or
negative. The fact that norms help in exercising social control by aiding people to avoid
unnecessary conflict and also help in teaching people consideration, hence violating norms is
something unwanted (Turowetz et al 387-410.).
Understanding the concept of personal space is vital since it helps in giving people a
sense of security because nobody will easily violate it. I felt so uncomfortable while invading
the personal space of people especially the stranger and since it was in a public setting. A society
without rules would be characterized by a lot of chaos and destructive actions hence not able to