STUDIES of social spacing in man and other animals have recently increased in number. Hediger (1964) initially defined two intraspecific spacing measures: personal distance, referring to the distance maintained between individuals of a species, and social distance, referring to the distance from its peers which, if exceeded, an animal apparently begins to feel uncomfortable. These spacing concepts have been extended and applied to other forms of behaviour in animals by many workers (Leyhausen, 1965;Chance, 1967; McBride, 1968a, b, etc.). McBride (1968a, b) examined space available and group size effects on spacing behaviour per se, but other studies have focused on "density"-related behavioural and physiological responses, e.g. effects on territory size and changes in dominance hierarchy, frequency and inteasity of .social (particularly agonistic) encounters, adreno-cortical functioning, and population growth and movement (Snyder, 1961;Theissen, 1961Theissen, , 1964Southwick, 1967; McBride, 1968a, b; Myers (undated) ). Many of these investigators conclude with speculations about human responses to increasing human population size in presently available spaces. Yet empirical evidence on variables affecting human spacing behaviour remains sparce. This is so even though an array of studies incorporating Hediger's (1964) spacing concepts exists, forming a good empirical i")ase for further investigations. For instance, Hall (1962Hall ( , 1965 investigated human "proxemic" behaviour, i.e. behaviour referring to "spatial relationships between individuals and between individuals and surroundings". Later he refined these spatial relationships into four precisely defined social distances (intimate, personal, social and public) and related them to cross-cultural differences in inter-individual spacing (Hall, 1966). Sommer (1959Sommer ( , 1969 and Felipe and Sommer (1966) investigated the effects of "invasions" of personal space on subsequent social interaction. Horowitz et al. (1964) studied comfortable limits of inter-individual approach; these distance limits defined an area around each individual, the "body-buffer" zone. Horowitz (1968) investigated the size, shape and penetrability of the body-buffer zone in psychiatric in-patients; Kinzel (1964) studied its variability in violent and non-violent prisoners. Machotka (1965) described five conspheric spatial zones surrounding the human body.Comparison between existing studies which involve "density" and spacing behaviour in humans are difficult, as there is little agreement on definitions and numbers of variables involved. This is evident in studies of children's spacing behaviour. King's (1966) study of approach distance in pre-school children depends upon undefined "friendly" and "unfriendly" acts. Other studies oi personal space in
Observations of children’s spacing behaviour were made during nursery school introduction and after integration into the group. Children showed rapid adjustment of interpersonal proximity within a few days at the same time as the group’s initial high interest in them waned. Newcomers had settled into stable, normal spacing patterns by the time of the follow-up observations after 30 + days of nursery experience. Several factors such as presence of older sibling, weekday of introduction, and sex of newcomer were examined, and parallels with similar nonhuman primate studies were considered.
A programmed instruction approach to race relations training in the United States Army involved the development of the technique (culture assimilator) and its field test. In the development phase 65 black officers, 90 black enlisted men, 65 white officers, and 90 white enlisted men participated; in the field test 84 white junior grade officers and 85 black junior grade officers participated. Results indicated: (a) the sample of problems used in the assimilator represents a set of events far more familiar to black officers than the white officers; (b) blacks obtain higher scores on the assimilator (indicative of greater knowledge of the black perspective on race relations in the army) than whites; (c) significant evidence of learning of acculturative materials on the part of white officers was obtained; and (d) there was significant improvement on an independent test of intercultural understanding.
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