Use of Comfortable Interpersonal Distance Scale in High School Students: Replication

Abstract

To study the developmental aspects of psychological distance or personal space (2, 3, 4), the present authors developed a paper-and-pencil technique to assess the effects of differential stimuli on preferred interpersonal distance (1). Results indicated that persons of different races were always kept at greater distances than stimulus persons of the same race and that opposite-sex stimuli, in the adolescent population, were permitted to come closer than stimuli of the same sex. These sex differences, using the group-administered Comfortable Interpersonal Distance scale, were not unlike those previously reported (4). The present paper reports a replication using a different population of high school students. It was expected that findings would be repeated. Ss were 31 males and 31 females, aged 14 and 15 yr., from the student body of a suburban high school in the Southeast. The method was that described by Duke and Nowicki (1). Stimulus persons were black and white and male and female. Ss were required to indicate the distance at which they would feel comfortable with a stimulus person's closeness. Analysis of variance of distances indicated that, as in the first study, stimulus type significantly affected Ss' distance (P = 84.87, df = 3/180, p < ,001). When Neuman-Keuls' analyses were applied to these data, same sex-same race stimuli were held significantly farther away than stimulus persons of opposite sex but same race (M of 45.29 mm. and 15.87 mm. respectively); blacks of the opposite sex were held farther away than blacks of the same sex (M of 57.67 mm. and 46.43 mm. respectively, p = .05). These results replicate those observed in the original sample. Also, the interaction of sex of S by race was also significant (F = 5.21, df = 3/180, p = .01) . Males tended to keep aU stimuli farther away than females with the exception of persons of opposite sex-same race, i.e., white females. Again, this replicates an earlier result. The only finding which did not hold was direction of approach. In the initial sample, Ss preferred significantly greater distances when the stimulus persons approached from behind them and out of their field of vision. This effect did not occur for the present sample. Meisels and Guardo (4) have reported that this is a developmental phenomenon which begins to appear in adolescence. It may be that the variance of differences in developmental levels in the present sample washed out any consistent effects. Generally, the Comforrable Interpersonal Distance scale produced reasonable data from this sample. Study of different age groups may help determine whether the stability and validity of the measure makes it tenable for more extended use.