Burgoon's Theory of "Personal Space" Violations

Well, you have heard me talk about all kinds of fun events from the summer (from Zhu Zhu Pets parties to the Philly Moms Blog Launch to meeting Kelly Ripa in support of Ovarian Cancer Research to meeting Billy Ray Cyrus in support of Feeding America and so much more. Whew.)

Now, it is time to get serious about feeding young minds because I am teaching college and I am supposed to be a little serious about it, you would assume or that is at least my theory (systemic, informed set of hunches) about keeping and expanding my job as a professor.

So, why is a dog man’s best friend? I couldn’t have answered that question until our family decided to take the plunge and get a little brown beagle named Carmel.

In my observation, a dog is man’s best friend because dogs don’t get the meaning of “personal space.” They don’t read your expressions and say, “Whoa, bad day, better back off.” No, they come running and jumping and leaping and licking. By the time they have figured out that you might be in a bad mood, your mood has lightened and you can’t help petting their soft squishy ears – or at least that is the case with my beagle’s ears which are incredibly soft. (In fact, I think my beagle has a ear fetish. She has stopped chewing up whole stuffed animals and will only chew off the ears. Weird, huh?)

I mention this concept because I am teaching Communication Theory right now and we are learning about personal space expectations as expounded upon in Judee Burgoon’s Nonverbal Expectancy Violations Model. Burgoon defines personal space as the “invisible, variable volume of space surrounding an individual that defines that individual’s preferred distance from others.”

Kids are kind of like dogs in that they start off not understanding personal space either – which is what makes them so adorable -- because by adulthood, we have learned all the social norms and punishments for breaking  the rules of personal space. We hold back and follow “the rules” lest we are thought of as “weird” or too personal. Kids and dogs are rule breakers. Sometimes, it is a beautiful thing -- an ice breaker to the stiff traditions engrained in us old codgers. Sometimes, it is a cause for great distress when someone with bad breath or poor body odor gets in your face. Boundaries are useful sometimes.

And then, there are different expectations in different cultures. Edward Hall, an anthropologist in the 60s, coined the term proxemics, or “the study of people’s use of space as a special elaboration of culture.” Apparently, Americans have four proxemic zones:

1.       Intimate Distance – 1 to 18 inches

2.       Personal Distance – 18 inches to 4 feet

3.       Social Distance – 4 to 10 feet

4.       Public Distance – 10 feet to infinity

When we visit my sister’s house for a party, her Italian in-laws all get out of their seat to hug and kiss you on the check –coming in the house and leaving – men and women alike. Despite growing up in the gracious, huggy South, it took me a couple of visits to get used to this. My family weren’t huggers, much less cheek-kissers. This was a new experience in my learned distance boundaries. I could accept it and run with it or start waving from the other side of the room and ducking out before anyone could reach me. For the sake of personal relations, I hug the closest ones and wave across the room to the rest.  I have had to adjust my nonverbal behavior to conform to the communication rules of a loving Italian family.

Ever watch “Leave It To Beaver.” I know, you have to watch reruns on YouTube now. How about Dennis the Menace? Okay, still before the time of young people today but you get the picture. Some kids are annoyingly ignorant of our personal space and for some, we love them and for some, we would rather they just go away. Why? What is it about the way some kids can enter your space and make themselves welcome while others are perceived differently and told to back off? What about other adults?

Burgoon studied these contributing factors to come up with the violation valence and the communicator reward valence:

Violation Valence – The perceived positive or negative value assigned to a breach of expectations, regardless of who the violater is.

Communicator Reward Valence – The sum of positive and negative attributes brought to the encounter plus the potential to reward or punish in the future.

Studying these factors of communication help people think through what might happen if they act in an unexpected way and get either pleasing or unpleasing results. It helps us to sort out the end-result in our minds and decide what we should do next time. As we interact, we have to learn to adapt to and learn to anticipate future interactions when things don’t mesh with our current expectations, needs or preferences.

If I brush off the love of my children, eventually they might stop running up to hug me, which to me would be sad. I don’t want my children to learn not to hug. I want their interaction with me to be positive. BUT, I do need my personal space when I am getting out of the shower and getting dressed, especially as we ALL get older. I love my children, but I am telling you now, that I will yell at them if they enter into my precious moments of silence and private space. Call me an ugly American, but I do have to have some boundaries.

At the same time, if another person’s children come running and hugging me, I have expectations that we have built some sort of relationship with the parents of those children. Again, we go back to dogs and children and how at times it is refreshing when someone (or some dog) is completely unaware of your expectations for personal space. And then, sometimes, they have to learn boundaries – all of which takes time and more interactions to sort through.

I enjoy learning about these theories and their applications because it does help to see where people are coming from and where we are all going with it– which has infinite number of possibilities.