Keep Your Distance: The Effect of Gender, Religiosity and Personality on the Interpersonal Distance Preference

Background and Aim: Interpersonal distance is an important aspect of human nonverbal behavior. Both situational and dispositional factors have been found to play roles in interpersonal distance preference. Methods Forty-six university students watched fourteen ۳۶۰-degree video clips via a virtual reality headset. In each video-clip, a male or a female actor spoke toward the camera from a particular distance and participants rated the appropriateness of each distance. Results: In the present study, we investigated the effect of gender, religiosity, and Big Five personality factors on the interpersonal distance preference in an Iranian sample. Conclusion: Results showed that at the middle-range distances, religious individuals exhibited a gender bias by rating their distance from the same gender actor more favorable than the same distance from the opposite gender actor. Furthermore, openness to experience was found to be correlated with the favorableness of the middle-range distances. These findings can be justified by the dominant Islamic values in Iran and specific characteristics of openness to experience.

کلیدواژه ها:

Interpersonal Distance ، Personal Space ، Nonverbal Behavior ، Personality ، Religion ، Virtual Reality