Whenever we get into the elevator with a person we don’t know, we get strange feelings and feel nervous. Let’s take a look at the reasons behind this feeling that we all experience almost every day, but that doesn’t come to mind.
We’ve all experienced that “weird” feeling whenever we take the elevator we use every day. If we are talking to someone when someone comes in, that conversation will stop and there will be an awkward silence, then we will behave like playing with our phone or hair. Even in the elevator not making eye contact, putting on emotionless facial expressions, following floor numbers There are even many unwritten rules that everyone does.
The short but strange times we spent in the elevator, which are very interesting places socially, have some explanations under it, although many of us immediately forget. So why do we feel this way and act strangely in such an insignificant situation?
The biggest factor is that we get as close to people we don’t know as we would like to.
One of the biggest reasons we feel awkward in an elevator is that each of us has a “personal space“to be. In our normal life, we are all disturbed when this area is violated and someone gets under our noses. That’s one of the reasons for that feeling when someone else enters the elevator.
Edward Twitchell Hall The “proxemic”, which is called the study of personal spaces and put forward by him, explains this situation in detail. Hall, an anthropologist, determined 4 levels of personal space with this concept he introduced in the 1960s. These areas, which are distributed according to different distances, are as follows;
- Intimate area: From physical contact to 45cm (usually including people with whom we can hug and become very close, such as family and close friends)
- Personal space: Between 45 cm – 1.2 meters (with our friends and people we know)
- Social area: 1.2 meters to 3.6 meters (the area used for more social, formal activities or when meeting someone for the first time)
- public domain: 3.6 meters and above (the area where there is no physical contact and very little eye contact. Examples are public areas such as shopping malls, squares, sidewalks, etc.)
When someone else gets on the elevator, our areas in the first two categories can be violated. The fact that these people are foreigners is also very important in the already small area. to be disturbed why is this happening. In fact, not only in the elevator, but also in the approach of people we do not know in any place has such consequences. Of course, it would not be wrong to say that the fact that we have nowhere to go in the elevator makes us experience this feeling more intensely.
We try not to look awkward to other people in the elevator.
Speaking to the BBC years ago, Dr. Lee Gray is one of those who draw attention to the strangeness of the elevator. Elevators “socially interesting but very strange places” The researcher, who defines it as “they can do whatever they want when they are on their own”; but when someone comes unconsciously certain movements He says he’s showing.
One of these moves is to cross into corners to create the furthest distance. This movement is a direct proof that we need distance. On the other hand, clinical psychologist Prof. Babette Renneberg, on the other hand, told the BBC in the same article that the reason why we do not feel strange in elevators is “You don’t have enough space. Usually when we meet someone an arm’s distance between us It is possible. In most elevators this is not possible. This So it’s a very unusual environment. It is not natural” he explains.
Renneberg, in such a small, confined space, behaving in a way that would not be interpreted as threatening or strange he adds. He states that the easiest way to do this is to avoid eye contact, which is a behavior we all exhibit.
The fact that the elevator is a vehicle that we cannot control and that we are stuck in also makes us feel nervous.
Another reason for feeling weird is being stuck in a big metal box. elevators, we don’t have control, we can’t see the engine and we don’t know how it works Vehicles. These are until our journey is over the thought of being stuck inside It is quite normal to feel a little anxious and nervous when combined with In other words, the restriction of our freedom of movement in addition to our personal space is one of the reasons for the strange feelings we experience.
Of course, elevators are not so scary places; even one of the safest means of public transport I have to say it is. The number of fatal or injured elevator accidents is quite low. So while they’re weird, they’re not dangerous places.
RELATED NEWS