Personal space Increases during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Response to Real and Virtual Humans

Holt, Daphne J.; Zapetis, Sarah; Babadi, Baktash; Tootell, Roger B. H.

doi:10.1101/2021.06.09.21258234

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…One potential explanation is that COVID-19 specifically impacted active approach, as people were encouraged not to get too close to others in order to protect their own health as well as that of others. There is some preliminary evidence that the preferred interpersonal distance potentially increased during the COVID-19 pandemic [73,74]. Additional research is required to deepen the understanding of the dynamics related to interpersonal distance preferences following COVID-19.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposing Association of Situational and Chronic Loneliness with Interpersonal Distance

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Loneliness is a prevalent condition with adverse effects on physical and mental health. Evolutionary theories suggest it evolved to drive people to reconnect. However, chronic loneliness may result in a negative social bias and self-preservation behaviors, paradoxically driving individuals away from social interactions. Lonely people often feel they are not close to anyone; however, little is known about their interpersonal distance preferences. During COVID-19, many experienced situational loneliness related to actual social isolation. Therefore, there was a unique opportunity to examine both chronic and situational (COVID-19-related) loneliness. In the present study, 479 participants completed an online task that experimentally assessed interpersonal distance preferences in four conditions—passively being approached by a friend or a stranger, and actively approaching a friend or a stranger. Results show that high chronic loneliness was related to a greater preferred distance across conditions. Intriguingly, by contrast, high COVID-19-related loneliness was related to a smaller preferred distance across conditions. These findings provide further support for the evolutionary theory of loneliness: situational loneliness indeed seems to drive people towards reconnection, while chronic loneliness seems to drive people away from it. Implications for the amelioration of chronic loneliness are discussed based on these findings.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposing Association of Situational and Chronic Loneliness with Interpersonal Distance

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The authors have no disclosures to report. A preprint of a portion of these results is available on medRxiv (Holt et al, 2021;…”

Section: Acknowledgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authors have no disclosures to report. A preprint of a portion of these results is available on medRxiv ( Holt et al, 2021 ; https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.09.21258234v1 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Personal space increases during the COVID-19 pandemic in response to real and virtual humans

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Personal space is the distance that people tend to maintain from others during daily life in a largely unconscious manner. For humans, personal space-related behaviors represent one form of non-verbal social communication, similar to facial expressions and eye contact. Given that the changes in social behavior and experiences that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, including “social distancing” and widespread social isolation, may have altered personal space preferences, we investigated this possibility in two independent samples. First, we compared the size of personal space measured before the onset of the pandemic to its size during the pandemic in separate groups of subjects. Personal space size was significantly larger in those assessed during (compared to those assessed before) the onset of the pandemic (all d > 0.613, all p < 0.007). In an additional cohort, we measured personal space size, and discomfort in response to intrusions into personal space, longitudinally before and during the pandemic, using both conventional and virtual reality-based techniques. Within these subjects, we found that measurements of personal space size with respect to real versus virtual humans were significantly correlated with one another (r = 0.625–0.958) and similar in magnitude. Moreover, the size of personal space, as well as levels of discomfort during personal space intrusions, increased significantly during (compared to before) the COVID-19 pandemic in response to both real and virtual humans (all d > 0.842, all p < 0.01). Lastly, we found that the practice of social distancing and perceived (but not actual) risk of being infected with COVID-19 were linked to this personal space enlargement during the pandemic (all p < 0.038). Taken together, these findings suggest that personal space boundaries expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic independent of actual infection risk level. As the day-to-day effects of the pandemic subside, personal space preferences may provide one index of recovery from the psychological effects of this crisis.

show abstract

“…Michael Bull's (2005) concept surrounding the conscious separation of physical and conscious space illustrates how features of boundaries in the digital dimension function, which has ramifications for online work and school. From the ensuing disruption of school, work and non-workrelated boundaries emerged a perceived lack of physical space experienced by families during the pandemic which reflects a pattern similar to the individual separation of meanings for space created by members of urban structures in the pre-pandemic era and associated with contemporary mandates for social distancing (Bull, 2005;Hall, 1963;Holt et al, 2021;Nia, 2021). Social distancing requirements have impacted perceptions of personal space so that they are now more closely attached to perceived rather than actual risk of infection due to a hyper-awareness of privacy and space attributed to new standards for pandemic proximity which have in turn, resulted in a conspicuous enlargement of both the boundaries of personal space in the metaphysical realm and in virtual environments (Holt et al, 2021;Mehta, 2020;McNeilly & Reece, 2020;Welsch et al, 2021).…”

Section: Spatial and Temporal Organization Of The Homementioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the ensuing disruption of school, work and non-workrelated boundaries emerged a perceived lack of physical space experienced by families during the pandemic which reflects a pattern similar to the individual separation of meanings for space created by members of urban structures in the pre-pandemic era and associated with contemporary mandates for social distancing (Bull, 2005;Hall, 1963;Holt et al, 2021;Nia, 2021). Social distancing requirements have impacted perceptions of personal space so that they are now more closely attached to perceived rather than actual risk of infection due to a hyper-awareness of privacy and space attributed to new standards for pandemic proximity which have in turn, resulted in a conspicuous enlargement of both the boundaries of personal space in the metaphysical realm and in virtual environments (Holt et al, 2021;Mehta, 2020;McNeilly & Reece, 2020;Welsch et al, 2021). Therefore, these shifts in the spatial and temporal organization of the home point to a reconfiguration of family roles that have further blurred the boundaries between technology and the work-family context (Schieman & Badawy, 2020;Leichter, 1979).…”

Section: Spatial and Temporal Organization Of The Homementioning

confidence: 99%

Blurred Boundaries

Gao

Kenyon

Choi

et al. 2022

CICE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The unprecedented social disruptions resulting from the COIVD-19 Pandemic have resulted in rapid change within the family and home. This paper uses semi-structured interviews with parents around the globe to examine the following reserach questions: 1. How have the spatial and temporal organizations of learning and working in the home been altered throughout the COVID-19 pandemic? 2. What are the alterations in the educational processes and the role of the family in response to the changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic? We found that typical boundaries, those between the roles of family members, between work or school and home, and between leisure time and work time have been fundamentally blurred. While some of these boundaries are more porous than others, families report fundamental shifts, temporary and permanent in the way they organize their home and family, spatially and temporally, and the roles they take on within the family.

show abstract

Personal space Increases during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Response to Real and Virtual Humans

Cited by 3 publications

References 17 publications

Opposing Association of Situational and Chronic Loneliness with Interpersonal Distance

Opposing Association of Situational and Chronic Loneliness with Interpersonal Distance

Personal space increases during the COVID-19 pandemic in response to real and virtual humans

Blurred Boundaries

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About