This activity requires you to observe how people use space in a particular setting and to note reactions to violations of spatial expectations. Select a supermarket, department store, college bookstore, or some other common setting in which people shop for things and then pay for them on a checkout line. Observe the interaction distances that seem usual between salesclerks and customers, between customers as they shop, and between customers in the checkout line.

a. What are the average distances between the people you observed?

b. How do people respond when one person comes too close to another or when one person touches another? How do people react to these violations of their space? How could they avoid violating each other’s personal space?

c. Try to observe people from a culture other than your own in this store. Describe their use of spatial distance. If this is not possible in the store, think back to a foreign film or a film that contains interaction between North Americans and people of another culture, as well as people from that same culture.