Abstract
Research on how invasion of personal distance affects subjects' impressions of male and female invaders is somewhat contradictory. Jones and Davis's theory of correspondent inferences suggests that the context of choice in which a behavior is enacted is an important determinant of how the perceiver evaluates the actor. To test whether choice context would significantly affect subjects' evaluations of invaders, 48 subjects were spatially invaded by confederates in three types of intentional contexts, and their evaluations of the invaders were obtained. Results showed that choice context was a significant determinant of subjects' evaluations, and that as the invasion appeared more intentional and personnally directed, male invaders were evaluated more negatively and female invaders more positively.
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