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This study was an examination of comfortable proxemic distances assumed by the interactants, female Canadian students. Previous studies were consistent with Hall's (1959, 1966) cultural model only when the interactants were from the same cultural group. When they were from different cultural groups, however, the cultural model was not adequate: The findings were more consistent with a symbolic interactionist interpretation, namely, that a negotiation takes place and the comfortable distance is adjusted to that of both groups. In this study, we held cultural group and sex constant and introduced the problem of the interviewer's retreat from the original comfortable distance established by the subject. In all cases, the subject re-established a new comfortable distance that was a compromise between the one originally chosen and the distance assumed by the interviewer.

This study investigated the relationship of distance to eye contact and perception of possible physical threat by interrelating Argyle and Dean's (1965) compensatory hypothesis with Dosey and Meisels' (1969) perception of personal space as a ' body buffer zone.' Forty male and 40 female Canadians between 18 and 59 years of age served as subjects. Settings were classified as either potentially threatening or nonthreatening. The degree of eye contact was varied by having experimenters wear or not wear sunglasses. As expected, there was support for Dosey and Meisels' theory that in situations perceived to be potentially threatening, people react by standing farther back and using personal space as a buffer zone. Argyle and Dean's hypothesis was not fully supported because in the potentially threatening situation, the lower the degree of eye contact, the farther the distance of interaction between respondents and experimenters. The findings reemphasize the importance of respondents' perceptions for creating meaning within a particular social context.