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The Interacting Effects of Men’s Height and Shoulder-to-Hip Ratio on Comfort Distance: A Virtual Reality Study

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Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objectives

Previous studies have shown that body size and height affect one’s perceived optimal distance during social interactions. This current study is built up on the previous research that found a relationship between men’s height and comfort distance but failed to find any effect of men’s shoulder-hip ratio (SHR) on one’s comfort distance. The current study investigated the combined effect of SHR and height to eliminate methodological issues that prevented from establishing an effect of SHR in the previous study.

Methods

In this study, a total of 49 participants (both men and women) reported their comfort distance in relation to 63 male avatars that differed in height from 150 to 190 cm (9 values) and in SHR from 1 to 1.3 ratio (7 values).

Results and Conclusion

The result of this study showed that both genders had an increment of their comfort distance as the height of the avatar increased. The effect of SHR on comfort distance was only evident with extreme SHR measurements; demonstrating that height is a better indicator of establishing comfort distance during interactions.

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Funding

This work was supported by grants to AK from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (2016–04319), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (435-2019-0749).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, V6T 1Z4, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Farid Pazhoohi, Sumaiya Binte Hassan & Alan Kingstone

Authors
  1. Farid Pazhoohi
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  2. Sumaiya Binte Hassan
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  3. Alan Kingstone
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Contributions

Conceptualization, F.P. and A.K.; data collection, S.B.H. formal analysis, F.P.; writing—original draft preparation, F.P.; writing—review and editing, F.P., S.B.H. and A.K. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Farid Pazhoohi.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Behavioural Research Ethics Committee of the University of British Columbia.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

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Pazhoohi, F., Hassan, S.B. & Kingstone, A. The Interacting Effects of Men’s Height and Shoulder-to-Hip Ratio on Comfort Distance: A Virtual Reality Study. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology 9, 172–181 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-023-00216-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-023-00216-z

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