ABSTRACT
This chapter describes several studies of invasions of personal space that took place over a 2-year period. Personal space is sometimes described metaphorically as an invisible snail shell, a soap bubble, or breathing room. The need to maintain such a space is apparently deeply rooted in the human personality, even though the volume of space varies between cultures and for different persons and situations in the same culture. The concept of personal space was first formulated by Georg Simmel in the early 1900s and was investigated empirically by social psychologists in the 1930s, but it has received its most extensive development much more recently. The invasions of personal space took place both indoors and outdoors. Conversational distance is affected by many things including room density, the acquaintance of the individuals, the personal relevance, the cultural backgrounds of the individuals, and the personalities of the individuals.
