Affective concomitants of the invasion of shared space: Behavioral, physiological, and verbal indicators.

Required 29 male undergraduates to intrude on the shared space of 2 conversing confederates. It was hypothesized that these Ss would experience greater affective arousal and display more agonistic gestures than would 10 control Ss who were not forced to intrude on the space of others. As predicted, Ss in the intrusion conditions displayed more agonistic facial responses and later reported less positive mood ratings on a semantic differential scale than did the control Ss. Differences which had been predicted in cardiovascular activity were not obtained. Interrelations between nonverbal agonistic displays, stress, and human territorial behavior are discussed with special reference to the effects of high population density. (43 ref)