BODY LANGUAGE.
How to read others" thoughts by their gestures.
by ALLAN PEASE.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the following people who have directly and indirectly contributed to this book: Noel Bishop, Raoul Boielle, Ty Boyd, Sue Brannigan, Matthew Braund, Doug Constable, John Cooke, Sharon Cooper, Chris Corck, Brett Davies, Dr Andre Davril, George Deveraux, Rob Edmonds, Iven Frangi, Rex Gamble, Dave Goodwin, Jan Goodwin, Paul Gresham, Gerry Hatton, John Hepworth, Bob Heussler, Gay Huber, Professor Phillip Hunsaker, Dianne Joss, Jacqueline Kent, Ian McKillop, Delia Mills, Desmond Morris, Virginia Moss, Wayne Mugridge, John Nevin, Peter Opie, Diana O"Sullivan, Richard Otton, Ray Pease, David Plenderleith, David Rose, Richard Salisbury, Kim Sheumack, Jan Smith, Tom Stratton, Ron Tacchi, Steve Tokoly, Keith Weber, Alan White, Rob Winch and the Australian Jaycees.
Introduction.
When I first heard about "body language" at a seminar in 1971, I became so excited about it that I wanted to learn more. The speaker told us about some of the research done by Professor Ray Birdwhistell at the University of Louisville, which had shown that more human communication took place by the use of gestures, postures, position and distances than by any other method. At that time I had been a commission salesman for several years and had undergone many long, intensive courses on selling techniques, but none of these courses had ever mentioned anything about the non-verbal aspects or implications of face-to-face encounters.
My own investigations showed that little useful information was available on body language and, although libraries and universities had records of the studies done on it, most of this information consisted of closely set ma.n.u.scripts and theoretical a.s.sumptions compiled in an objective manner by people who had little or no practical experience in dealing with other human beings. This does not mean that their work was not important; simply that most of it was too technical to have any practical application or use by a layman like myself.
In writing this book, I have summarised many of the studies by the leading behavioural scientists and have combined them with similar research done by people in other professions - sociology, anthropology, zoology, education, psychiatry, family counseling, professional negotiating and selling.
The book also includes many "how to" features developed from the countless reels of videotape and film made by myself and others throughout Australasia and overseas, plus some of the experiences and encounters that I have had with the thousands of people that I have interviewed, recruited, trained, managed and sold to over the past fifteen years.
This book is by no means the last word on body language, nor does it contain any of the magic formulae promised by some of the books in the bookstores. Its purpose is to make the reader more aware of his own nonverbal cues and signals and to demonstrate how people communicate with each other using this medium.
This book isolates and examines each component of body language and gesture, though few gestures are made in isolation from others; I have at the same time tried to avoid oversimplifying. Non-verbal communication is, however, a complex process involving people, words, tone of voice and body movements.
There will always be those who throw up their hands in horror and claim that the study of body language is just another means by which scientific knowledge can be used to exploit or dominate others by reading their secrets or thoughts. This book seeks to give the reader greater insight into communication with his fellow humans, so that he may have a deeper understanding of other people and, therefore, of himself. Understanding how something works makes living with it easier, whereas lack of understanding and ignorance promote fear and superst.i.tion and make us more critical of others. A birdwatcher does not study birds so that he can shoot them down and keep them as trophies. In the same way, the acquisition of knowledge and skills in non-verbal communication serves to make every encounter with another person an exciting experience.
This book was originally intended as a working manual for sales people, sales managers and executives and, in the ten years that it has taken to research and compile, it has been expanded in such a way that any person, regardless of his or her vocation or position in life, can use it to obtain a better understanding of life"s most complex event a face-to-face encounter with another person.
ALLAN PEASE.
One.
A Framework for Understanding.
As we approach the end of the twentieth century, we are witnessing the emergence of a new kind of social scientist-the non-verbalist. Just as the birdwatcher delights in watching birds and their behaviour, so the non-verbalist delights in watching the non-verbal cues and signals of human beings. He watches them at social functions, at beaches, on television, at the office or anywhere that people interact. He is a student of behaviour who wants to learn about the actions of his fellow humans so that he may ultimately learn more about himself and how he can improve his relationships with others.
It seems almost incredible that, over the million or more years of man"s evolution, the non-verbal aspects of communication have been actively studied on any scale only since the 1960s and that the public has become aware of their existence only since Julius Fast published a book about body language in 1970. This was a summary of the work done by behavioural scientists on nonverbal communication up until that time, and even today, most people are still ignorant of the existence of body language, let alone its importance in their lives.
Charlie Chaplin and many other silent movie actors were the pioneers of non-verbal communication skills; they were the only means of communication available on the screen. Each actor was cla.s.sed as good or bad by the extent to which he could use gestures and other body signals to communicate effectively. When talking films became popular and less emphasis was placed on the non-verbal aspects of acting, many silent movie actors faded into obscurity and those with good verbal skills prevailed.
As far as the technical study of body language goes, perhaps the most influential pre-twentieth-century work was Charles Darwin"s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals published in 1872. This sp.a.w.ned the modern studies of facial expressions and body language and many of Darwin"s ideas and observations have since been validated by modern researchers around the world. Since that time, researchers have noted and recorded almost one million nonverbal cues and signals. Albert Mehrabian found that the total impact of a message is about 7 per cent verbal (words only) and 38 per cent vocal (including tone of voice, inflection and other sounds) and 55 per cent non-verbal. Professor Birdwhistell made some similar estimates of the amount of non-verbal communication that takes place amongst humans. He estimated that the average person actually speaks words for a total of about ten or eleven minutes a day and that the average sentence takes only about 2.5 seconds. Like Mehrabian, he found that the verbal component of a face-to-face conversation is less than 35 per cent and that over 65 per cent of communication is done non-verbally.
Most researchers generally agree that the verbal channel is used primarily for conveying information, while the non-verbal channel is used for negotiating interpersonal att.i.tudes, and in some cases is used as a subst.i.tute for verbal messages. For example, a woman can give a man a "look to kill"; she will convey a very clear message to him without opening her mouth.
Regardless of culture, words and movements occur together with such predictability that Birdwhistell says that a well-trained person should be able to tell what movement a man is making by listening to his voice. In like manner, Birdwhistell learned how to tell what language a person was speaking, simply by watching his gestures.
Many people find difficulty in accepting that humans are still biologically animals. h.o.m.o sapiens is a species of primate, a hairless ape that has learned to walk on two limbs and has a clever, advanced brain. Like any other species, we are dominated by biological rules that control our actions, reactions, body language and gestures. The fascinating thing is that the human animal is rarely aware of his postures, movements and gestures that can tell one story while his voice may be telling another.
PERCEPTIVENESS, INTUITION AND HUNCHES.
From a technical point of view, whenever we call someone "perceptive" or "intuitive", we are referring to his or her ability to read another person"s non-verbal cues and to compare these cues with verbal signals. In other words, when we say that we have a "hunch" or "gut feeling" that someone has told us a lie, we really mean that their body language and their spoken words do not agree. This is also what speakers call audience awareness, or relating to a group. For example, if the audience were sitting back in their seats with chins down and arms crossed on their chest, a "perceptive" speaker would get a hunch or feeling that his delivery was not going across. He would become aware that he needed to take a different approach to gain audience involvement. Likewise, a speaker who was not "perceptive" would blunder on regardless.
Women are generally more perceptive than men, and this fact has given rise to what is commonly referred to as "women"s intuition". Women have an innate ability to pick up and decipher non-verbal signals, as well as having an accurate eye for small details. This is why few husbands can lie to their wives and get away with it and why, conversely, most women can pull the wool over a man"s eyes without his realising it.
This female intuition is particularly evident in women who have brought up young children. For the first few years, the mother relies solely on the non-verbal channel to communicate with the child and this is believed to be the reason why women often become more perceptive negotiators than men.
INBORN, GENETIC, LEARNED AND CULTURAL SIGNALS.
Much research and debate has been done to discover whether non-verbal signals are inborn, learned, genetically transferred or acquired in some other way. Evidence was collected from observation of blind and/or deaf people who could not have learned nonverbal signals through the auditory or visual channels, from observing the gestural behaviour of many different cultures around the world and from studying the behaviour of our nearest anthropological relatives, the apes and monkeys.
The conclusions of this research indicate that some gestures fall into each category. For example, most primate children are born with the immediate ability to suck, indicating that this is either inborn or genetic. The German scientist Eibl-Eibesfeldt found that the smiling expressions of children born deaf and blind occur independently of learning or copying, which means that these must also be inborn gestures. Ekman, Friesen and Sorenson supported some of Darwin"s original beliefs about inborn gestures when they studied the facial expressions of people from five widely different cultures. They found that each culture used the same basic facial gestures to show emotion, which led them to the conclusion that these gestures must be inborn.
When you cross your arms on your chest, do you cross left over right or right over left? Most people cannot confidently describe which way they do this until they try it. Where one way feels comfortable, the other feels completely wrong. Evidence suggests that this may well be a genetic gesture that cannot be changed.
Debate still exists as to whether some gestures are culturally learned and become habitual, or are genetic. For example, most men put on a coat right arm first; most women put it on left arm first. When a man pa.s.ses a woman in a crowded street, he usually turns his body towards her as he pa.s.ses; she usually turns her body away from him. Does she instinctively do this to protect her b.r.e.a.s.t.s? Is this an inborn female reaction or has she learned to do this by unconsciously watching other females?
Much of our basic non-verbal behaviour is learned and the meaning of many movements and gestures is culturally determined. Let us now look at these aspects of body language.
SOME BASICS AND THEIR ORIGINS.
Most of the basic communication gestures are the same all over the world. When people are happy they smile; when they are sad or angry they frown or scowl. Nodding the head is almost universally used to indicate "yes" or affirmation. It appears to be a form of head lowering and is probably an inborn gesture, as it is also used by deaf and blind people. Shaking the head from side to side to indicate "no" or negation is also universal and may well be a gesture that is learned in infancy. When a baby has had enough milk, he turns his head from side to side to reject his mother"s breast. When the young child has had enough to eat, he shakes his head from side to side to stop his parent"s attempt to spoon feed him and in this way he quickly learns to use the head shaking gesture to show disagreement or a negative att.i.tude.
[image]The evolutionary origin of some gestures can be traced to our primitive animal past. Baring the teeth is derived from the act of attacking and is still used by modern man in the form of a sneer and other such hostile gestures, even though he will not attack with his teeth. Smiling was originally a threat gesture, but today it is done in conjunction with non-threatening gestures to show pleasure.
The shoulder shrug is also a good example of a universal gesture that is used to show that a person does not know or understand what you are talking about. It is a multiple gesture that has three main parts: exposed palms, hunched shoulders and raised brow.
Just as verbal language differs from culture to culture, so the non-verbal language may also differ. Whereas one gesture may be common in a particular culture and have a clear interpretation, it may be meaningless in another culture or even have a completely opposite meaning. Take, for example, the cultural interpretations and implications of three common hand gestures, the ring gesture, the thumb-up and V sign.
The Ring or "OK" Gesture This gesture was popularised in the USA during the early nineteenth century, apparently by the newspapers that, at the time, were starting a craze of using initials to shorten common phrases. There" are many different views about what the initials "OK" stand for, some believing it stood for "all correct" which may have been misspelled as "oll korrect", while others say that it means the opposite of "knock-out" that is, K.O. Another popular theory is that it is an abbreviation of "Old Kinderhook", from the birthplace of a nineteenth century American president who used the initials as a campaign slogan. Which theory is the correct one we may never know, but it seems that the ring itself represents the letter "O" in the "OK" signal. The-,"OK" meaning is common to all English-speaking countries and, although its meaning is fast spreading across Europe and Asia, it has other origins and meanings in certain places. For example, in France it also means "zero" or "nothing"; in j.a.pan it can mean "money"; in some Mediterranean countries it is an orifice signal, often used to infer that a man is h.o.m.os.e.xual.
For overseas travellers, the safest rule to obey is, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". This can help avoid any possible embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances.
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The Thumb-Up Gesture In Britain, Australia and New Zealand the thumb-up gesture has three meanings; it is commonly used by hitch-hikers who are thumbing a lift, it is an OK signal, and when the thumb is jerked sharply upwards it becomes an insult signal, meaning "up yours" or "sit on this". In some countries, such as Greece, its main meaning is "get stuffed", so you can imagine the dilemma of the Australian hitch-hiker using this gesture in that country! When Italians count from one to five, they use this gesture to mean "one" and the index finger then becomes "two", whereas most Australians, Americans and English people count "one" on the index finger and two on the middle finger. In this case the thumb will represent the number "five".
The thumb is also used, in combination with other gestures, as a power and superiority signal or in situations where people try to get us "under their thumb". A later chapter takes a closer look at the use of the thumb in these particular contexts.
The V Sign [image]This sign is popular throughout Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain and carries an "up yours" interpretation. Winston Churchill popularised the V for victory sign during World War II, but his two-fingered version was done with the palm facing out, whereas the palm faces towards the speaker for the obscene insult version. In most parts of Europe, however, the palm facing in version still means "victory" so that an Englishman who uses it to tell a European to "get stuffed" could leave the European wondering about what victory the Englishman meant. This signal also means the number two in many parts of Europe, and if the insulted European were a bartender, his response could be to give an Englishman or an Australian two mugs of beer.
These examples show that cultural misinterpretation of gestures can produce embarra.s.sing results and that a person"s cultural background should always be considered before jumping to conclusions about his or her body language or gestures. Therefore, unless otherwise specified, our discussion should be considered culturally specific, that is, generally pertaining to adult, white middle cla.s.s people raised in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, North America and other places where English is the primary language.
GESTURE Cl.u.s.tERS.
One of the most serious mistakes a novice in body language can make is to interpret a solitary gesture in isolation of other gestures or other circ.u.mstances. For example, scratching the head can mean a number of things -dandruff, fleas, sweating, uncertainty, forgetfulness or lying, depending on the other gestures that occur at the same time, so we must always look at gesture cl.u.s.ters for a correct reading.
Like any other language, body language consists of words, sentences and punctuation. Each gesture is like a single word and a word may have several different meanings. It is only when you put the word into a sentence with other words that you can fully understand its meaning. Gestures come in "sentences" and invariably tell the truth about a person"s feelings or att.i.tudes. The "perceptive" person is one who can read the non-verbal sentences and accurately match them against the person"s verbal sentences.
Figure 5 shows a common critical evaluation gesture cl.u.s.ter. The main one is the hand-to-face gesture, with the index finger pointing up the cheek while another finger covers the mouth and the thumb supports the chin. Further evidence that this listener is critical of the speaker is seen by the fact that the legs are tightly crossed and the arm crosses the body (defensive) while the head and chin are down (hostility). This non-verbal "sentence" says something like, "I don"t like what you are saying and I disagree with you."
Congruence If you, as the speaker, were to ask the listener shown in Figure 5 to give his opinion of what you have just said and he said that he disagreed with you, his non-verbal signals would be congruent with his verbal sentences, that is, they would match or be consistent. If, however, he said he was enjoying what you had to say, he would be lying because his words and gestures would be incongruent. Research shows that non-verbal signals carry about five times as much impact as the verbal channel and that, when the two are incongruent, people rely on the non-verbal message; the verbal content may be disregarded.
We often see a high ranking politician standing behind a lectern with his arms tightly folded across his chest (defensive) and chin down (critical or hostile), while telling his audience how receptive and open he is to the ideas of young people. He may attempt to convince the audience of his warm, humane approach while giving short, sharp karate chops to the lectern. Sigmund Freud once noted that while a patient was verbally expressing happiness with her marriage, she was unconsciously slipping her wedding ring on and off her finger. Freud was aware of the significance of this unconscious gesture and was not surprised when marriage problems began to surface.
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Observation of gesture cl.u.s.ters and congruence of the verbal and non-verbal channels are the keys to accurate interpretation of body language.
Gestures in Context In addition to looking for gesture cl.u.s.ters and congruence of speech and body movement, all gestures should be considered in the context in which they occur. If, for example, someone was sitting at a bus terminal with arms and legs tightly crossed and chin down and it was a chilly winter"s day, it would most likely mean that he or she was cold, not defensive. If, however, the person used the same gestures while you were sitting across a table from him trying to sell him an idea, product or service, they could be correctly interpreted as meaning that the person was negative or defensive about the situation.
Throughout this book all gestures will be considered in context and, where possible, gesture cl.u.s.ters will be examined.
Other Factors Affecting Interpretation A man who has a "dead fish" hand shake is likely to be accused of having a weak character and the chapter on hand shake techniques will explore the reason for this popular theory. But if a man has arthritis in his hands, it is likely that he will use a "dead fish" hand shake to avoid the pain of a strong one. Similarly, artists, musicians, surgeons and those in vocations whose work is delicate and involves use of their hands generally prefer not to shake hands, but, if they are forced to do so, they may use a "dead fish" to protect them.
Someone who wears ill-fitting or tight clothing may be unable to use certain gestures, and this can affect use of body language. This applies to a minority of people, but it is important to consider what effect a person"s physical restrictions or disabilities may have on his or her body movement.
Status and Power Research in the field of linguistics has shown that there is a direct relationship between the amount of status, power or prestige a person commands and that person"s range of vocabulary. In other words, the higher up the social or management ladder a person is, the better able he is to communicate in words and phrases. Non-verbal research has revealed a correlation between a person"s command of the spoken word and the amount of gesticulation that that person uses to communicate his or her message. This means that a person"s status, power or prestige is also directly related to the number of gestures or body movements he uses. The person at the top end of the social or management scale can use his range of words to communicate his meaning, whereas the less educated or unskilled person will rely more on gestures than words to communicate.
Throughout this book, most of the examples given refer to white, middle-cla.s.s people but, as a general rule the higher the person on the socio-economic scale, the less gesticulation and body movement he uses.
The speed of some gestures and how obvious they look to others is also related to the age of the individual. For example, if a five-year-old child tells a lie to his or her parent, the mouth will be deliberately covered with one or both hands immediately afterwards (Figure 6). The gesture of covering the mouth alerts the parent to the lie and this gesture continues to be used throughout the individual"s lifetime, usually varying only in the speed at which it is done. When the teenager tells a lie, the hand is brought to the mouth like that of a five-year-old, but instead of the obvious hand slapping gesture over the mouth, the fingers rub lightly around it (Figure 7).
This mouth-covering gesture becomes even more refined in adulthood. When the adult tells a lie, his brain instructs his hand to cover his mouth in an attempt to block the deceitful words, just as it does for the five-year-old and the teenager, but at the last moment the hand is pulled away from the face and a nose touch gesture results (Figure 8). This gesture is nothing more than the adult"s sophisticated version of the mouth-covering gesture that was used in childhood. This is an example of the fact that, as an individual gets older, many of his gestures become sophisticated and less obvious, which is why it is often more difficult to read the gestures of a fifty year-old than those of a much younger person.
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FAKING BODY LANGUAGE.
A commonly asked question is, "Is it possible to fake your own body language?" The general answer to this question is "no" because of the lack of congruence that is likely to occur in the use of the main gestures, the body"s microsignals and the spoken words. For example, open palms are a.s.sociated with honesty but when the faker holds his palms out and smiles at you as he tells a lie, his microgestures give him away. His pupils may contract, one eyebrow may lift or the comer of his mouth may twitch, and these signals contradict the open palm gesture and the sincere smile. The result is that the receiver tends not to believe what he hears.
The human mind seems to possess a fail-safe mechanism that registers "tilt" when it receives a series of incongruent non-verbal messages. There are, however, some cases in which body language is deliberately faked to gain certain advantages. Take, for example, the Miss World or Miss Universe contest, in which each contestant uses studiously learned body movements to give the impression of warmth and sincerity. To the extent that each contestant can convey these signals, she will score points from the judges, but even the experts can only fake body language for a short period of time and eventually the body will emit signals that are independent of conscious actions. Many politicians are experts in faking body language in order to get the voters to believe what they are saying and the politician who can successfully do this is said to have "charisma".
The face is used more often than any other part of the body to cover up lies. We use smiles, nods and winks in an attempt to cover up, but unfortunately for us, our body signals tell the truth and there is a lack of congruence between our body gestures and facial signals. The study of facial signals is an art in itself. Little s.p.a.ce is devoted to it in this book and for more information about it I recommend Face Language by Robert L. Whiteside.
In summary, it is difficult to fake body language for a long period of time but, as we shall discuss, it is good to learn and to use positive open gestures to communicate with others and to eliminate gestures that may give negative signals. This can make it more comfortable to be with people and can make you more acceptable to them.
How To Tell Lies Successfully The difficulty with lying is that the subconscious mind acts automatically and independently of our verbal lie, so our body language gives us away. This is why people who rarely tell lies are easily caught, regardless of how convincing they may sound. The moment they begin to lie, the body sends out contradictory signals, and these give us our feeling that they are not telling the truth. During the lie, the subconscious mind sends out nervous energy that appears as a gesture that can contradict what the person said. Some people whose jobs involve lying, such as politicians, lawyers, actors and television announcers, have refined their body gestures to the point where it is difficult to "see" the lie, and people fall for it, hook, line and sinker.
They refine their gestures in one of two ways. First, they practise what "feel" like the right gestures when they tell the lie, but this is only successful when they have practised telling numerous lies over long periods of time. Second, they can eliminate most gestures so that they do" not use any positive or negative gestures while lying, but this is also very difficult to do.
Try this simple test when an occasion presents itself. Tell a deliberate lie to an acquaintance and make a conscious effort to suppress all body gestures while your body is in full view of the other person. Even when your major body gestures are consciously suppressed, numerous microgestures will still be transmitted. These include facial muscular twitching, expansion and contraction of pupils, sweating at the brow, flushing of the cheeks, increased rate of eye blinking and numerous other minute gestures that signal deceit. Research using slow motion cameras shows that these microgestures can occur within a split second and it is only people such as professional interviewers, sales people and those whom we call perceptive who can consciously see them during a conversation or negotiation. The best interviewers and sales people are those who have developed the unconscious ability to read the microgestures during face-to-face encounters.
It is obvious, then, that to be able to lie successfully, you must have your body hidden or out of sight. This is why police interrogation involves placing the suspect on a chair in the open or placing him under lights with his body in full view of the interrogators; his lies are much easier to see under those circ.u.mstances. Naturally, telling lies is easier if you are sitting behind a desk where your body is partially hidden, or while peering over a fence or behind a closed door. The best way to lie is over the telephone!
HOW TO LEARN BODY LANGUAGE.
Set aside at least fifteen minutes a day to study and read the gestures of other people, as well as acquiring a conscious awareness of your own gestures. A good reading ground is anywhere that people meet and interact. An airport is a particularly good place for observing the entire spectrum of human gestures, aspeople openly express eagerness, anger, sorrow, happiness, impatience and many other emotions through gestures. Social functions, business meetings and parties are also excellent. Having studied the art of body language, you can go to a party, sit alone in a corner all evening like a wallflower and have an exciting time just watching other people"s body language rituals! Television also offers an excellent way of learning nonverbal communication. Turn down the sound and try to understand what is happening by first watching the picture. By turning the sound up every five minutes, you will be able to check how accurate your non-verbal readings are and before long it will be possible to watch an entire program without any sound and understand what is happening, just as deaf people do.
Two.
Territories and Zones.
Thousands of books and articles have been written about the staking out and guarding of territories by animals, birds, fish and primates, but only in recent years has it been discovered that man also has territories. When this is learned and the implications understood, not only can enormous insights into one"s own behaviour and that of others be gained but the face-to-face reactions of others can be predicted. American anthropologist Edward T. Hall was one of the pioneers in the study of man"s spatial needs and in the early 1960s he coined the word "proxemics" (from "proximity" or nearness). His research into this field has led to new understanding about our relationships with our fellow humans.
Every country is a territory staked out by clearly defined boundaries and sometimes protected by armed guards. Within each country are usually smaller territories in the form of states and counties. Within these are even smaller territories called cities, within which are suburbs, containing many streets that, in themselves, represent a closed territory to those who live there. The inhabitants of each territory share an intangible allegiance to it and have been known to turn to savagery and killing in order to protect it.
A territory is also an area or s.p.a.ce that a person claims as his own, as if it were an extension of his body. Each person has his own personal territory which includes the area that exists around his possessions, such as his home which is bounded by fences, the inside of his motor vehicle, his own bedroom or personal chair and, as Dr Hall discovered, a defined air s.p.a.ce around his body.
This chapter will deal mainly with the implications of this air s.p.a.ce and how people react when it is invaded.
PERSONAL s.p.a.cE.
Most animals have a certain air s.p.a.ce around their bodies that they claim as their personal s.p.a.ce. How far the s.p.a.ce extends is mainly dependent on how crowded were the conditions in which the animal was raised. A lion raised in the remote regions of Africa may have a territorial air s.p.a.ce with a radius of fifty kilometres or more, depending on the density of the lion population in that area, and it marks its territorial boundaries by urinating or defecating around them. On the other hand, a lion raised in captivity with other lions may have a personal s.p.a.ce of only several metres, the direct result of crowded conditions.
Like the other animals, man has his own personal portable "air bubble" that he carries around with him and its size is dependent on the density of the population in the place where he grew up. This personal zone distance is therefore culturally determined. Where some cultures, such as the j.a.panese, are accustomed to crowding, others prefer the "wide open s.p.a.ces" and like to keep their distance. However, we are mainly concerned with the territorial behaviour of people raised in Western cultures.
Status can also have an effect on the distance at which a person stands in relation to others and this will be discussed in a later chapter.
Zone Distances The radius of the air bubble around suburban middle cla.s.s white people living in Australia, New Zealand, England, North America and Canada is generally the same. It can be broken down into four distinct zone distances.
1. Intimate Zone Intimate Zone (between 15 and 45 centimetres or 6 to 18 inches) (between 15 and 45 centimetres or 6 to 18 inches) Of all the zone distances, this is by far the most important as it is this zone that a person guards as if it were his own property. Only those who are emotionally close to that person are permitted to enter it. This includes lovers, parents, spouse, children, close friends and relatives. There is a sub-zone that extends up to 15 centimetres (6 inches) from the body that can be entered only during physical contact. This is the close intimate zone.
2. Personal Zone Personal Zone (between 46 centimetres and 1.22 metres or 18 to 48 inches) (between 46 centimetres and 1.22 metres or 18 to 48 inches) This is the distance that we stand from others at c.o.c.ktail parties, office parties, social functions and friendly gatherings.
3. Social Zone Social Zone (between 1.22 and 3.6 metres or 4 to 12 feet) (between 1.22 and 3.6 metres or 4 to 12 feet) We stand at this distance from strangers, the plumber or carpenter doing repairs around our home, the postman, the local shopkeeper, the new employee at work and people whom we do not know very well.