If you find yourself dependent on the kindness of strangers and they look very different from you, take a step back before you ask for anything. That`s what Peter Glick, a psychology professor at Lawrence University, Appleton, Wis., advises.
Glick studied strangers` reactions using two female students, one dressed as punk rocker and the other dressed as a ”preppie.” He found that strangers showed anxiety when their ”personal space” was invaded by someone dressed weirdly.
Though personal space varies, psychologist Edward G. Hall established some standards. He defined ”intimate distance” as being within 18 inches.
”Personal distance” ranged from 1 1/2 to 4 feet, and ”social distance”
from 4 feet on out.
Only one in 15 people interviewed at a shopping mall restaurant agreed to help the punk rocker when she sat next to them at the table. However, their willingness to cooperate increased as the punk rocker moved away from them. When she sat directly across the table, 40 percent of the strangers agreed to help her. And when she moved to a seat diagonally across the table, 80 percent helped.
While the preppie model never got more than 80 percent cooperation, Glick says, she had more success when seated directly across from the strangers.
The message here is two-fold:
First, there is a distance at which most people feel comfortable dealing with those they don`t know. Even the preppie got the cold shoulder when she sat beside the strangers.
Second, in encounters such as these there is something that might be called ”the punk factor.” It may be stated as follows: The distance at which people are comfortable with strangers increases when the person with whom they are dealing doesn`t resemble them.
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS
The Census Bureau reports that response rates to its surveys is declining. When the bureau tried to get every American to answer its decennial census questionnaire, it found a significant number did not. Many of those who failed to respond were poor, inner-city residents. Because federal aid programs usually are based on population size, more than 50 cities have taken the bureau to court, charging that their populations figures were understated. Indeed, test surveys for the 1990 census yielded such low response rates in the poor, black neighborhoods of southern Los Angeles County that the Census Bureau had to scrap the test.
The people most likely to respond to surveys, according to American Demographics magazine, are those with money and education. That`s good news for marketers, not demographers.
ENGAGING STATISTIC
What do parents really want for their children? According to a Better Homes and Gardens magazine survey, they want them to be, in order of importance, happily married, spiritually sound and well-educated.
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