Social approach: Perry et al. (personal space)

Psychology AS · The core studies. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

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The idea

Perry, Mankuta and Shamay-Tsoory (2015) studied interpersonal distance, the personal space we like to keep between ourselves and other people. They asked whether the social hormone oxytocin changes this distance, and whether the change depends on a person's level of empathy.

Male students took oxytocin in one session and a placebo in another, by nasal spray. An empathy questionnaire placed them in a high or a low empathy group. Experiment 1 used a computerised distance scale. Experiment 2 asked them to choose between pictures of rooms.

Oxytocin did not have one simple effect. People with high empathy preferred to be closer after oxytocin, so a hormone and an individual difference work together.

Rules to remember

Aim: to investigate whether oxytocin affects preferred personal space, and whether the effect depends on empathy.
Sample: 54 male university students; empathy was measured by a questionnaire (the Interpersonal Reactivity Index).
Independent variable: oxytocin or placebo (a spray with no active hormone). Each participant had both, about a week apart, in a double-blind procedure.
Experiment 1: computerised Comfortable Interpersonal Distance Scale. A figure (stranger, authority figure, friend or a ball) approaches and the participant stops it where he would feel uncomfortable.
Experiment 2: choosing between pairs of pictures of rooms that differed in features such as the distance between two chairs.
Result: with oxytocin, high empathy participants chose closer distances than with placebo; low empathy participants did not, and in Experiment 1 they preferred more distance.
Evaluation: good controls and two measures, but screen tasks are artificial and the sample was all male students.

Common mistake

Do not write that oxytocin makes everyone want to be closer. The effect depended on empathy: closer for the high empathy group only.

Worked example

A student says: 'Perry et al. show that oxytocin is a drug that makes all people more sociable.' Explain why the results do not support this statement.

The high empathy group chose closer distances after oxytocin than after placebo.
The low empathy group did not show this, and in Experiment 1 they chose a greater distance after oxytocin.
So the same hormone produced different effects in different people.
The sample was also only male students, so the result cannot safely be applied to all people.

Answer: The statement is too general: the effect of oxytocin on personal space depends on the individual's empathy, and the sample does not represent everyone.

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