Changing cultural and societal attitudes towards homosexuality, gender stereotyping and gender roles in recent decades have prompted this study to re-examine the role of gender in spatial relationships and challenge previous research findings. This research reports on a conceptually and methodologically innovative study which sought to measure the influence of gender on interpersonal distance. Poor operational definitions and inadequate measurement methodologies have been the two principal shortcomings of research on personal space and interpersonal distance over the past 30 years. A new methodologythe Digital Video Recording Interpersonal Distance Method (DiVRID) -involving high quality digital video equipment was devised for measuring interpersonal distance. Furthermore, whereas the distinction male/female has usually been employed for measuring 'sex' differences, this study differentiated between biological sex, gender role and gender identity.The importance of a more sophisticated conceptualization of gender has challenged the results of previous research, demonstrating that gender role accounts for more of the variation of IPD than the conventionally reported gender variable, sex.
Context
Key message pointsq Adults have negative attitudes to the sexual behaviour of young people in their community and suboptimal information on local sexual health services.q Adults see themselves as important providers of sexual health information to young people.q Adults are therefore a potential target for sexual health service outreach programmes that aim to encourage service access by young people.
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