That's my spot! Examining spatial habit formation in a naturalistic setting

Abstract

AbstractAlthough we are constantly making spatial decisions about where to place our objects and ourselves, few studies in psychology have investigated this phenomenon in‐depth. In the current study, we examined how spatial decisions are made over time by tracking students' seating choices in classrooms over the course of a semester (i.e., 12 weeks). We found that seating choice became more fixed over time (i.e., a decrease in the distance between seats chosen on adjacent days), though this was disrupted by individuals' time of arrival to class; latecomers often sat further away from where they last sat. We also observed a surprising de‐stabilization of this pattern on the last day of class wherein seating choices became more varied. These results suggest that although spatial preference stabilizes over time, this pattern of stabilization may weaken once individuals no longer expect to occupy that space in the future.