Psychology of Personal Space and Empathy

The tendency for individuals to maintain a certain physical distance from others, influenced by factors like familiarity and empathy.

A research method where participants are unaware of the true purpose of the study. It can be used to prevent participants from altering their behavior due to knowing the study's goals.

The ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It plays a crucial role in interpersonal relationships and social interactions.

A type of medication that is used for treating various medical conditions, including anxiety and depression. It can also have effects on social behavior.

A type of research design where participants are randomly assigned to different groups, and then observed or compared. This helps to control for extraneous variables and ensure that differences between groups are due to the independent variable.

A statistical interaction effect occurs when the effect of one independent variable on a dependent variable depends on the level of another independent variable. In other words, the effect of one variable is not the same across all levels of another variable.

A method of gathering data that involves presenting participants with a realistic scenario and observing their responses.

The extent to which a study's findings can be generalized to other settings and populations. A study with high ecological validity is more likely to reflect real-world situations.

A research design where different groups of participants are exposed to different levels of the independent variable. This design is suited for exploring the effects of a naturally occurring characteristic, like empathy, on an outcome.

A research design where the same group of participants is tested under all levels of the independent variable. This design is useful when comparing the same group's reactions to different treatments.

A variable in an experiment that is manipulated by the researchers. It is the 'cause' in a cause-and-effect relationship.

A variable in an experiment that is measured to see the effect of the independent variable. It is the 'effect' in a cause-and-effect relationship.

A variable that is not manipulated by the researchers, but rather naturally occurring. It is often a characteristic of participants, like their level of empathy.

A variable that is intentionally changed or manipulated by the researchers. It is often a treatment or intervention being studied.

A method used in experiments to ensure that neither the participant nor the researcher knows which treatment group a participant belongs to. This helps to avoid unintended biases.

A measure of a person's ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It is often used in research to assess individual differences in empathy.

The way in which the researchers manipulated the conditions of the experiment to test the effects of different independent variables on the dependent variable. For example, in this study, the researchers manipulated the type of person participants imagined approaching (friend, stranger, authority, or ball) to see how it affected their preferred distance.

A type of experiment that uses computer-based simulations to study how people react to different scenarios. Participants imagine themselves in a virtual environment, making choices within the simulation. This allows researchers to study psychological phenomena in a controlled setting.

A measure of the closeness or distance a person feels comfortable with when interacting with another person. In this experiment, it was measured by the percentage of distance participants chose to maintain between themselves and the imagined person.

A type of experiment in which participants make choices about the physical environment they'd prefer to be in. This study specifically focused on participants choosing furniture arrangements and distances for a room they would later be in with another person. The experiment compared different conditions like distances between chairs, angles of chairs and furniture, and the position of a table and a plant.

A research design technique used to control for the order effects of multiple treatments in an experiment. In this study, half of the participants completed Experiment 1 (CID) first, followed by Experiment 2 (Room Choice), while the other half did the reverse. This helps ensure that the order of the experiments doesn't influence the results.

A type of research study in which the researcher manipulates independent variables to see their effect on the dependent variable while controlling for other factors. The goal is to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the variables.