Personality correlates of classroom seating position.

Based on evidence that physical space serves to regulate the intensity of perceived threat, and that the experience of threat is mediated by personality characteristics, it was predicted that peripherally seated students in the classroom would have poorer self-concepts and greater personal space needs than centrally seated students. Personality, personal space, and attitudinal measures were administered to nine classes of high school students. Comparisons of extreme sections of the classroom revealed a significant polarization of student traits on three categories of variables dominated by self-concept and class participation issues. Results supported the notion that differential participation and physical isolation are closely related to self-concept. Physical distance has been reliably established as a compensatory regulator of the intensity of threat experienced in an interpersonal encounter (Altman, 1975; Argyle & Dean, 1965; Dosey & Meisels, 1969; Fisher & Cleveland, 1968; Horowitz, 1968; Meisels & Dosey, 1971; Patterson, 1976). In the usual experimental scenario, the impact of a threatening situation upon the subjects is such that the perception of threat elicits withdrawal or an avoidance response by the subject from the threatening stimulus. For this reason, physical space has been conceptualized as a body-buffer zone to which an individual has recourse when protection is needed in a physically or psychologically threatening situation (Dosey & Meisels, 1969; Horowitz, Duff, & Stratton, 1964). Distancing thereby serves as a defensive maneuver that promotes feelings of security because of reduced involvement with the threatening stimulus.