Back Up! What Is Cultural Distance & What Does it Mean for You?

Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash

“Back up! You’re getting too close!” the lady yelled at me, putting out her hand as if to say, “Stop!” We sat side-by-side on the park bench.

“Do you have a big body bubble?” I asked jokingly.

Actually, I thought she was kidding. Surely she wasn’t serious that I was getting too close to her. There were still several feet separating us.

“Is it because of COVID? Social distancing?” I asked her.

“No, I just don’t like to get physically close to people,” she replied.

I suddenly had flashbacks of outdoor markets in Morocco, subway stations in France, parks and bull races in Spain.

People . . . crowds of people . . . all smashed together like sardines. No one seemed to mind, other than me, when I could smell unpleasant body odor emanating from someone’s armpit. 

So, what was different about those people, those places, those cultures? Why were they willing to be crammed up against each other in tight spaces? It didn’t seem to be a problem there. Why was it a problem here in my own country and culture?

Cultural Space

These questions made me pause to consider culture and how it influences distance and personal space.

According to the Washington Post, “Personal space — how close we stand to our colleagues, our friends, strangers — varies widely between countries. Our personal boundaries have a lot to do with where we grow up.”

Sociologists have been trying to understand the social norms of personal space for some time. They discovered that gender, age, and culture are all factors that affect our personal boundaries.

The Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology studied 9,000 people in 42 countries. They showed the participants diagrams and asked them to mark where they would stand with various individuals—strangers, acquaintances, and close friends and family. 

As a result, the researchers made a nifty graphic that shows the average “comfort” distance around the world. For example, in Romania, the average “comfort” distance with strangers was 4.6 feet, 3.1 feet with personal acquaintances, and 1.6 feet in close relationships. Argentina, on the other hand, was 2.5 feet, 2 feet, and 1.3 feet respectively. Saudi Arabia was 4.5, 3.5, 3.2. The United States was 3.1, 2.3, and 1.6.

These countries and cultures vary widely in how they define comfort in physical space and relationships.

Photo by Geran de Klerk on Unsplash

‘Contact’ or ‘No Contact’

As a result, these researchers now classify the world into “contact” and “non-contact” cultures. Contact cultures would include South America, the Middle East, and Southern Europe. Non-contact cultures would include North America, Northern Europe, and Asia. In non-contact cultures, people tend to touch each other less and stand farther apart.

For those of us living in North Africa, we can accurately assume that we inhabit a “contact culture.”

“Cultural space tells us a lot,” Kathryn Sorrells, a professor at California State University at Northridge, “It tells us a lot about the nature of a relationship.”

In spite of all of these cultural differences when it comes to distance, research did show that there were some commonalities that crossed cultural borders. For example, women typically prefer to have more personal space with strangers than men. Older people tend to stand farther away, and people in warmer climates usually keep less distance than those in colder climates.

Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

Consider Cultural Contact

As I reflect back on that incident at the park with that lady, I realize that I needed to open my eyes to the various factors playing into our interaction and personal space.

When she told me to back up because I was getting too close to her and invading her body bubble, I needed to reflect on what was happening underneath the iceberg. There were obvious things I was seeing, but underneath the surface, there was a whole lot happening that couldn’t be observed with the human eye.

Was it personality? Was it gender? Was it age? Was it temperature?

Was it culture? 

Most likely, all these factors were involved. However, I can certainly not neglect to consider how our cultures influence how comfortable we are being in contact with others.

After living in North Africa for many years and working in multiple “contact cultures,” my comfort level with close personal space has changed drastically. When I am interacting with Moroccans or Tunisians, it is perfectly and culturally acceptable for me to touch and have close contact with women—even strangers. However, when I am back in my home country, I have to remember that the idea of “comfortable” personal space is not the same. 

Boy, I have a lot to learn about culture—even my own!

Guest author, Marci Renée, along with her French husband and four boys, is a global nomad who has traveled to more than 30 countries and has lived in the United States, France, Morocco, and Spain. She loves to travel, speak foreign languages, experience different cultures, eat ethnic foods, meet people from faraway lands, and of course, write and tell stories. She is a published author of children's picture books, memoirs, short stories, and poetry.

You can find Marci and her books on her website.

"The Cultural Story-Weaver," at www.culturalstoryweaver.com