Territorial protection

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An excerpt from "The communication Man"


... the communicative relations go beyond that. And a clear example of it can be found in the territorial organization. The term of proxemics we will often use refers to the organization of the space and distances.

The space is defined as the territory where an animal establishes its zone of defense and hunting. Every man needs his space –both individually and as part of a group–, as it happens with the animals. There is a very known example.

A jacket was placed on a chair in a bar in the first hour in the morning. It was observed that nobody sat down, neither on that chair, nor at that table. In spite of the fact that the bar was crowded, nobody was daring to enter the space this garment was marking.

We have also conducted this experiment in the cafeteria in a department store in Spain, and the result is confirmed.

Here, the participant who participated in the experiment invoked that it was not possible to know if the jacket belonged for instance to one of his bosses; and the last thing that could be appealing for him was having breakfast with the boss.
Beyond the jocular aspect, what does this anecdote tell us?

Penetrating a bit deeper, it turns out that beside marking territory we don’t have any information about the owner of the above-mentioned garment. We do not know if that person is territorial, social, or a mixture of both.

As a consequence, we tend to avoid a possible conflict should the owner suddenly pop up. Another possibility is that if it happened we knew to whom the garment belonged, even just thru a glimpse in the distance, we, simply thru his non-verbal language, would perceive if he can turn out to be a threat –or even just a definite bore–.

Another classic and very well known example is the following one. In a library in the south of France, it was observed that the assiduous clients of a library always tended to sit at the same place. If that seat was occupied, they took the book to read it at home. This has to deal with our Comfort Zone.

But the most curious part of the experiment was when readers see someone sitting down on a close chair, most of them start feeling uneasy and they choose, in the majority of the cases to leave the place. If they stay, their capacity of concentration decreases.

This also happens in the case of the animals –we will later talk about Proxemics, but also of the ProxemiKs, which is basically the manipulation of the Proxemics in our favor–.

You can carry out this experiment in the Paris or London underground, it also works.

Frase del día:
5. An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
Simon Cameron