Violating the personal space or controlled territory of an individual has been shown to 'have a disruptive effect and can produce reactions ranghg from flight at one extreme to antagonistic display at the other' (Felipe and Sommer, 1966: 211). Such disruptive effects of violations of personal space may, in part, be determined by the individuals' expectations. Specifically, high status persons expect and obtain larger spaces than persons of lower status (e.g., Hall, 1966; Sommer, 1969). Similarly, there are studies that suggest that women have smaller personal spaces than men in our society and that their space may be more frequently violated (Dabbs, 1972;Heshka and Nelson, 1972;Pedersen and Heaston, 1972).
The present investigation tests the hypothesis that women expect their space to be violated more than men and, therefore, are less surprised and upset than men by spacial invasions. Specifically, male and female confederates violate the space of male or female persons in a naturalistic field setting. It is predicted that (1) males will have a more negative reaction to these invasions (either flight or attempts to defend his 'territory') than females, and (2) persons will attribute sexual intent when the invasion is made by persons of the opposite sex (i.e., such invasions will be seen as attempted 'pick-up's' to a greater extent than same sex invasions). In addition, since males are 'expected' to invade the personal space of females more than vice versa, such invasions will be accepted more than when females invade males.