Chapter+3+Keeping+Your+Distance

 CHAPTER THREE KEEPING YOUR DISTANCE

The Theory //Introduction// This study began by analyzing the responses of people who used computer-mediated distance education as they solved problems and resolved concerns. Additional responses from people outside of the substantive area of distance education confirmed a distinct pattern of social psychological behavior. A general theory of a basic social process emerged. What follows is the elucidation of that theory using the "conditions and consequences" model. These are not "findings" but an integrated set of hypotheses. Illustrations and examples are from data collected in this research and are provided for the purpose of establishing imagery and understanding. These illustrations and examples are for the purpose of making the theory clear and should not be considered as proofs or descriptions of the process used to derive the theory. References to theoretical work “by others” is not necessarily intended to seek verification of this theory or to try to verify another theory. To avoid interrupting the flow of the reader in this section I will make extensive use of footnotes as recommended by Glaser (1978, p. 9).

//Overview// People respond to conditions in their world in idiosyncratic ways but display patterns of behavior that have common elements. Analysis of data in this study discovered one such pattern of behavior identified as //Keeping Your Distance//. As I considered my collected data the main objective was to consider the concerns or issues people were working on? [1] The analysis discovered that people expend considerable effort to //keep their distance// from hurt, trouble, interference and energy loss while still engaging and interacting with other people. In circumstances where none of these problems were overwhelming, the distance was adjusted for closer contact but the default position was one of distance.

Much of the language we use in daily interactions reflects a dimension of distance. People talk about being "far from perfect", "nearer to God", "leg room", "distant past", "elbow room", "breathing room", "keeping someone at arms length", "building bridges to somewhere or nowhere or between people" “from away”. The term "keep your distance" it self is commonly used in every day speech. [2] The persistent thread of "distance" and efforts to deal with distance on concrete and conceptual levels, runs through many realms of human experience. This concern with maintaining distance is a deeply imprinted pattern with a long evolutionary history. [3] This suggests that k//eeping your distance// explains fundamental social processes that have been of interest to scholars and laypersons alike.

//Keeping Your Distance// is a theory about a pattern of behavior people use in their social interactions and engagements with others. Essentially, people arrange their world in such a way as to have physical and emotional control of their circumstances by maintaining distance in various realms. Arranging for physical in the spatial or geographical distance is the most obvious response but symbolic distance is often used as a proxy for physical distance. People use physical distance to ensure safety, autonomy and emotional control and to preserve energy while engaging with the world. Seeking to create physical distance may be a response to a perceived physical threat, but physical distance may also be used to mitigate perceived emotional and existential threats. People develop and employ a repertory of techniques to maintain a symbolic distance, even when in physical proximity to others. Techniques used are most often a combination of behaviors or strategies. [4]

People //keep their distance// in response to conditions that arise in various settings in their everyday lives. They employ purposeful strategies design to ensure an optimal distance and these strategies have outcomes. In //keeping their distance// people use complex systematic processes to adjust for changes in conditions and to adjust for the effect of previously applied strategies. The //keeping your distance// process is recursive and in most instances does not result in a completely satisfactory outcome. The drive for optimal outcome is balanced by the energy required by the strategic responses. People may be able to tolerate a less than optimal distance if there are mitigating factors. Mitigating factors of //keeping your distance// include a personal coefficient of preferred distance.

//Keeping your distance applies across contexts.// The tendency to engage in //keeping your distance// persists across contexts although the strategies may vary. Strategies that a person uses in their everyday exchanges with family may be different from those used in pursuit of education, career or other social contexts. In a family relationship, physical contact is usually regarded as a necessary ingredient. Parents and children are hugged, friends embraced, lovers caressed, all requiring direct physical contact. In these circumstances more discrete //keeping your distance// methods are employed. Even the most loving relationship requires some distance. People need to allow distance in any relationship and respect the subtle //keeping your distance// cues that others display. In many family relationships //keeping your distance// is ritualized and built into such things as the boys' night out or girls' night out. These are accepted mechanisms of ensuring that relationship boundaries and distances are observed in the most intimate family relationships. Collegial observations offered the example of the distance that an adolescent establishes and maintains from parents as a necessary component of developing maturity. [5]

//Keeping your distance// strategies applied in an education setting would not be appropriate in a family context, just as intimate exchanges appropriate in a family relationship are inappropriate in an education context. Numerous respondents provided examples of such scenarios and discussed the dilemmas that arose. Perhaps the most telling of these examples was related by a professor who reported that she often had to remind herself that in her professional capacity she was not a parent or necessarily a friend. The strategies that she employed to keep her distance from her children were less restrictive than those she used to maintain distance from her students.

//Keeping your distance// is a basic pattern of social behavior that is expressed in the activities of individuals but is also manifest in interactions with institutions and communities. People use //keeping your distance// collectively and the outlines of the basic pattern can be seen in communities and companies as easily as with individuals. Ideologically distinct communities such as religious or political groups manifest the //keeping your distance// impulse most clearly but all communities employ methods of creating distance for their membership. Every community, geographic, professional or social has a repertory of techniques designed to keep members close and non-members at a distance. A physical community (in the geographic sense) may erect a gated wall to keep others at a distance.

Professional communities use licensure, credentialing and communication controls to ensure that non-members are kept at a symbolic or physical distance. Social communities use strategies for member identification, communication and sanction which ensures that members in good standing are in the inner circle and non-members are out of the loop. My own personal experience and the experience related to me by a number of respondents bears this out Lave and Wenger (1991) examined the way that expert status was developed in communities of practice. One of their principle observations was that distance was employed physically and symbolically when participants were inducted into established communities. Newcomers began the process by being legitimate peripheral participants. As their status changed they moved from the periphery to the center of the community.

Many incidents were recorded in data of //keeping your distance// in the work context. In traditional hierarchical work places, highly bureaucratic agencies evoke a range of human psychosocial responses and present a number of complex problems that people must deal with on a routine basis. Respondents described a broad range of strategies that they used to function in the workplace, many of them referring to distance. An illustration of this was the observation of a receptionist who that used desks and office equipment to erect a barrier to maintain distance between her and the clients that she was employed to serve. //Keeping your distance// is often a prominent feature of a workplace survival response set used to maintain distance between superiors, co-workers and difficult situations. Beleaguered workers at one education facility eagerly anticipated their relocation to a campus at a distance from administrators. Their perception was that the distance thus gained would enable them to perform their jobs efficiently and without constant unreasonable demands and undue threats to their workplace autonomy from administrators who were perceived to be mostly interested in exercising arbitrary authority. //Keeping your distance// was also credited with motivating adaptive responses where an individual who finds him or herself in an intolerable situation will use discontent to energize a program of professional development that will allow them to create the desired distance. People make career change choices based on their //keeping your distance// strategy set. One respondent offered that that reason they were engaged in education was to improve their employability skills to get away from crappy jobs, working for ignorant people.

//Keeping your distance accounts for changes over time.// One of the tests of a theory is persistence over time. People experience change over time and their responses, the strategy sets, the triggering conditions and the intensity of response may vary with time and experience but //keeping your distance// accounts for a basic tendency that persists. The behavioral expression of a person’s //keeping your distance// strategy may change over time but the propensity to use //keeping your distance// strategies remains comparatively constant over time. A shy person may learn, with time and experience, to appear less shy in public but still feels shy. A person may also learn, with time and experience, to function with less than optimal distance but the propensity to prefer more distance persists. A respondent reported that while he had been teaching for some time in a face to face situation and had adapted reasonably well, he was pleased to be able to teach by distance as his natural preference was for more distance. His natural preference for what he considered an optimal distance had not diminished with time. Another contributor spoke of the discomfort they experienced appearing in public and the distance related strategies that they employed to reduce exposure to public scrutiny. They recognized that the strategy was career limiting and attempted to try a different approach by enrolling in a public speaking club. While they became adept at public speaking over time they recognized that their lasting preference was to keep their distance from such occasions.

//Systems thinking informs the theory of keeping your distance// Systems theory informs the discussion of keeping your distance. More specifically keeping your distance constitutes a cybernetic system where actions and consequences have feedback loops and mutual and reciprocal effects. [6] Each action taken creates a new set of conditions that sets up a new response and consequence. Reflection allows people to adjust their strategies to obtain optimal outcomes but the theory of keeping your distance suggests that a systematic bias exists. People want/need to keep their distance and they "err" on the side of distance. As people accumulate life experience, they increasingly value "distance" to maintain personal autonomy and control. Indicators of this were taken from reports of older people contemplating placement in senior citizens facilities where their autonomy and personal control would be constricted. Similar indicators were revealed in the reports of people who elected to work out of their own homes and maintain distance from a restrictive work environment.

Degrees of constraint and freedom are continually being calculated for best results but //keeping your distance// can justify forgoing what might otherwise be considered optimal. Each of the conditions that evoke //keeping your distance// has consequences that cause problems for people if they do not have an adequate response. Simmons 2006 described the ambitions of grounded theorists with respect to systems: "An important thing to understand about grounded theory in relation to its suitability for studying and understanding systems is that, rather than being focused on verifying relationships between limited numbers of preconceived variables, it is designed to discover // all //relevant variables including those that may be discovered later or in other settings. Not only does this provide the ability to study whole systems, not just parts of systems, it enables the theory to be modified as new data emerge or as new data are collected from other settings." (p.488)

In proposing the grounded theory of keeping your distance I have a similar ambition, to explain a complete system of social behavior patterns in a way that allows for modification and the emergence of new data.

Conditions that Evoke Keeping Your Distance [7] Conditions that evoke the //keeping your distance// response may be outward actions or internalized mental/attitudinal states. From the data collected in this analysis the main conditions under which people respond with //keeping your distance// are perceived threats to personal safety, personal autonomy, emotional stability, and psychic integrity. [8] Keeping your distance is also used to preserve physical and emotional energy under conditions of unacceptable demands. Similarly, the consequences of a chosen //keeping your distance// strategy may be manifest externally but are more likely to be internalized and not readily apparent to casual observers. The theory of //keeping your distance// provides a theoretical foothold to understand the systematic way that people use distance for control in their lives.

Explanations of these patterned responses are often not clearly articulated for various reasons. In a number of instances respondents appeared to be providing properline data, possibly from recognition that their strategies might be perceived as anti-social. They offered elaborate rationales for such patterns of behavior. In situations such as these the analyst must use abduction to try to discern the most likely explanation for a given pattern of behavior. Glaser (2007) suggests that properline or even obviously distorted data are not necessarily rejected from a grounded analysis. Because grounded theory produces abstractions not descriptions, “distortions are just more variables to conceptualize and make part of the data” (p. 4).

Consequences of the Conditions What happens if people do not effectively employ strategies to preserve optimal distance? The conditions of perceived threat to optimal distance have consequences for people that make it necessary to adopt //keeping your distance// strategies. Collegial discussions with informed observers suggest that individuals who do not employ effective strategies experience a lack or loss of physical safety, emotional control, and or personal autonomy. They may also feel that they are wasting precious resources on unproductive interactions. Further observational data suggests that inadequate responses may give rise to defensive reactions that exacerbate conditions.

Dimensions of Keeping Your Distance: Exposing the Latent Patterns People use //keeping your distance// in distinct patterns of behavior as they solve common problems or concerns in their everyday lives. This analysis suggested that the patterns can be organized into categories, each pattern providing a slightly different perspective on the core variable. Each category has elements and strategies that are unique but also have essential commonalities.

Interpersonal contact and relationships are the essence of the human experience. At the same time these interactions and relationships bring a myriad of problems that must be dealt with in a systematic fashion. One of the main ways that people resolve problems in relationships is to maintain distance. That distance may be emotional, psychological or symbolic but often creating actual physical distance is a significant component of systematic relationship management. When creating physical distance is not possible, people use symbolic or psychological strategies that represent physical distancing.

//Distancing for Physical Safety// The most basic pattern of behavior for //keeping your distance// is the commonly observed pattern of creating physical distance to avoid interactions that could have real of perceived harmful physical effects. If you have been to a medical clinic as most people have, you will have observed many instances of people attempting to use distance to separate themselves from others who are coughing or sneezing of manifesting open sores. A natural impulse is to increase distance in the interests of self-preservation. [9] Even if a threat is not physical, the response is to physically create distance by moving away. I have watched as people physically distance themselves from a person who expresses a seemingly inappropriate comment, behaves in an unconventional manner or wears inappropriate clothing. In my work with physically, emotionally and mentally challenged people I have observed people seek to create the maximum allowable distance between themselves and someone who appears “different”. I have made similar observations at political events when someone has made a statement that challenged the status quo. People visibly moved away from the challenger. The best explanation for this behavior is that people believe that they can use distance to avoid the contamination of association with someone who is displaying behavior or appearance that is likely to attract censure. //Keeping your distance// is still important in physical safety. People manage their distance with various strategies to preserve physical safety. For example, on campus incidents of sexual assault have made remote technology-mediated education a much safer option, particularly for women. One of the incidents that indicated this concept was a description provided by a woman who moved from a rural center to a major city to pursue higher education. In moving to the urban center she was thrust into social circumstances that included gang activity and drug culture. These constituted a physical threat and emotional turmoil. She subsequently adjusted her behavior to attend university by distance, with the intention of avoiding these perceived threats. Her //keeping your distance// strategy included activities that were designed to preserve her physical safety. [10]

Social groups appear to use //keeping your distance// strategies on a many scales. Consideration of historical data suggests quarantine and isolation are ways that a distance is created and maintained to preserve mainstream society from exposure to disease and contagion. The historical record shows that Leper colonies and tuberculosis sanitariums were designed to protect society from the real and perceived harmful effects of association with infected individuals. (Cosgrave-Mather, 2003; Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007). I have worked in a number of psychiatric facilities most of which have been built in comparatively isolated settings. One of the motivations was to prevent contagion of insanity. Examination of an historical account of a fire in an insane asylum showed that while many people behaved heroically and generously, a concern of some towns-people was that the displaced inmates should be prevented from entering the town and kept at a distance (Refvik 1991). This sort of attitude is now considered anachronistic but vestiges remain and are revealed in casual comments by people unfamiliar with psychiatric disorders. One such conversation suggested that a local setting frequented by individuals who appeared to have psychiatric disorders be avoided because it was like an open air asylum. While societies are considerably more enlightened with respect to the treatment of disease the notion of using distance has a long history and remains a default mechanism for dealing with problematic social issues. Distance has the effect of reducing a sense of responsibility for problematic situations as evidence by reports of the response of governments to deadly conflicts in foreign lands. One of the leading rationales for the US Bush administrations war against Iraq was to fight terrorism over there so we won’t have to fight them over here. Bageant (2007) points out that perceived distance allowed people to disassociate from their governments’ questionable practices.

//Distancing for Emotional Control// This pattern is apparent when engaging in personal emotional and intimate relationships. It should be noted that the distancing referred to is a part of a normal pattern of behavior and not necessarily pathological. The desire for intimacy is always balanced with a need for emotional independence. Even in the closest and most harmonious relationships, a sense of space is critical for emotional stability. One person explained that while she loved the night courses she took, her objective was as much to get out of the house to save her sanity and thereby enhance her marriage. She observed that others she knew would go to the bar but that had the potential for other undesired effects. In a productive and valued relationship the distance is kept to a minimum. However, even within positive relationships a need is perceived for personal space and at least some occasions of physical separation.

Perhaps the physical separation of birth begins the lifelong task of managing distance. A number of women related their experience of separation at childbirth and the lifelong emotional challenge of watching your children grow up and move away. The most casual observation will reveal children actively exploring and testing the limits of distance from their caregivers. First hand observations of my own daughters amply illustrated the tendency of adolescents to seek and maintain the maximum permissible distance from parents and siblings. As a sense of control developed they were able to tolerate more proximity.

In adult intimate relationships, distance is a critical element of emotional control and is negotiated and adjusted regularly. Relationship counselors refer to "distancing" when talking about behavior that has detrimental relationship effects. In these circumstances, the problem may actually be over-distancing where the normal impulse to //keep your distance// is out of adjustment and the negotiated distance between partners is in disequilibrium. //Keeping your distance// is not necessarily a symptom of a dysfunctional relationship.

Simmons (2006) observed that: "….human service professionals such as social workers and counselors may pay lip service to systems theories (e.g., family systems theory), but in practice they all too often resort to individualized psychologizing, pathologizing explanations when working with their clients. This leads to what I term a “blaming and shaming” approach that seldom produces the desired results, not only because it can be threatening, insulting, and alienating to the clients, but because it misses the point by isolating the individual rather than identifying and understanding the larger system that is relevant to the individual’s behavior "(p 486).

Intimate partners attribute the allowance of space or distance as important factors in harmonious relationships and this is certainly borne out in anecdotal comparisons and personal experience.

//Keeping your distance// is also used to maintain distance from emotional encounters that are potentially painful or embarrassing. Poets, authors, song-writers have the particular gift of articulating emotional themes and keeping your distance was directly referenced in a number of songs, videos and movies. An Internet search for references to the term “keeping your distance” in popular culture yielded a rich source of data for this section of the analysis. The most persistent theme of these references is to the preservation of emotional control and stability. The song “Keep your Distance” by folk singer Richard Thompson features the lyrics. It's a desperate game we play, throw our souls, our lives, away Wounds that can't be mended and debts that can't be paid O I played and I got stung now I'm biting back my tongue I'm sweeping out the footprints where I strayed Keep your distance, keep your distance When I feel you close to me what can I do but fall Keep your distance, oh keep your distance With us it must be all or none at all. (Thompson, 2001)

Another popular song that has enjoyed a certain amount of play in my house is Miss Independent by Kelly Clarkson. The song begins by describing an individual as…

Miss independent, Miss self-sufficient, Miss keep your distance. (Clarkson, 2003)

This common theme in popular culture recommends keeping your distance to preserve emotional control acknowledging that romantic relationships can be fraught with heart-ache and disappointment. The common remedy recommended by many ‘advice to the lovelorn columnists’ is to keep your distance as best you can.

One of the delights of my existence is the relationship with my daughters, now in their late teens and early twenties. They and their friends have provided me with a rich source of observational data and in particular the heartbreak of teenage romantic relationships. The negotiation and maintenance of optimal distance is an ongoing concern. They willingly shared their impressions with me about the notion of keeping your distance and its implications for them. Essentially they felt that keeping your distance was a rule for romantic and emotional involvement that was broken only under the most certain of circumstances. Keeping your distance may entail actual physical distance but may also entail other strategies such as withholding or redirecting conversation, avoiding eye contact, negative verbal cues and forbidding and distancing body language. Electronic equivalents such as “unfriending” or blocking people on social networking site are common.

Other physical cues may signal a wish to maintain distance from certain individuals and reduce distance to others. To illustrate this concept consider individuals who choose a style of dress or grooming to signal affinity and draw those with similar affinities closer. The same cues ensure greater distance from those who do not share the same affinity. My observations of clothing style choices and presentation suggest that keeping your distance influences personal presentation. These behaviors are cues that greater or lesser distance, most often actual physical distance, is desired. One respondent, a part-time performer in a band specializing in a particular genre of music reported that when he wore his band t-shirt he would engage with people interested that genre. In most other circumstances he would use style of dress and appearance to keep his distance from the type of people attracted to that sort of music.

Relationships outside of family have a different set of strategies but have the same desired effect, emotional control. Emotional relationships in these realms have significant elements of power and influence and involve basic and complex subjective experiences such as fear, anger, apathy, frustration, surprise, satisfaction, and motivation. One respondent reported that one of his coping strategies was “just walking away” (creating distance) from a tense situation at work was an effective strategy to manage anger. Distance in work relationships is implicitly and explicitly negotiated and carefully maintained. A respondent, working in an education setting reflected that she used a number of strategies to demonstrate that she was in a position of authority. Concerned that her youthful appearance might erode her credibility she used verbal cues and physical space to discourage closeness would impact her professionalism. In hierarchical organizations, status is often represented by distance. Observational data of hierarchical institutions confirms that high status individuals with in an organization have the largest offices with the best views and the most advantageous proximity to other powerful workers. Low status holders occupy the less desirable physical spaces and must endure either physical crowding or isolation. Low status female workers may have to endure uncomfortable physical proximity to male co-workers and must adjust their //keeping your distance// strategies for the sake of job security. The relationship between stress and physical crowding (lack of space or distance) has been studied from a number of perspectives. [11] Maintaining distance for emotional control is closely related to the need for autonomy, with many overlapping issues and similar strategies. Many indicators from data collected for this study fit into multiple categories.

//Distancing for Autonomy// [12] This pattern is manifest when people perceive that autonomy is threatened. A sense of personal autonomy is essential for identity formation and //keeping your distance// is adopted to establish and maintain the necessary space, where a person or community can feel that they are self-determining. //Keeping your distance// is a response to chaos, in the practical sense where there seems to be no clear connection between cause and effect. Respondents reported a common strategy of physically or emotionally withdrawing to avoid chaotic situations until ambiguity is resolved. //Keeping your distance// is a response to problematic or toxic encounters such as those that involve aggressive marketing, bullying, racism, or persecution.

Illustrations from various groups illustrate //keeping your distance// in this category. I serve on the board of an alcoholic recovery residence where we routinely deal with homeless people. Many people prefer to live on the streets rather than endure living conditions that restrict their autonomy. They seek to keep their distance from social services institutions that are perceived to limit their autonomy. Many times they do this at considerable personal discomfort and privation but the urge for independence expressed through keeping distance is strong.

Another group that strives to maintain optimal distance for autonomy is elderly and retired people. My mother is in her late seventies and is comfortably and safely living alone in her own home. We have had many family discussions over the years about her living situation and regularly compare her living arrangements with those of her peers. She recognizes that there may be many advantages to living in a senior’s facility but is willing to forego those advantages in favor of independence. She prefers to keep her distance. In their desire for autonomy, elderly people stay in their own homes long after others, including family members, consider it prudent.

Perhaps the most powerful illustration of this dimension was taken from the report of a respected professional who described in details the efforts that he employed to keep his distance. This included numerous choices including place of residence, one that guaranteed that neighbors would not intrude, his clear signals to uninvited visitors to his residence that he preferred that they respect his distance, and his general adoption of a pattern of living that ensured that he would always be able to maintain control and autonomy through distance. Although specific strategies may vary the basic pattern is best explained as a desire to ensure autonomy through distance.

Marketers and professional salespeople have long recognized the basic tendency for people to keep their distance. In marketing terms this is known as resistance and one of the strategies recommended by for overcoming this tendency is to get people close enough to touch their products (Peck & Shu, 2009). If a sales person can get a customer close enough to touch the new electronic device, drive the new car, or sit in the living room of the new house they know that they can make a sale. One blog promoting consumer awareness suggested in a post that the best way to resist this sales technique was to “keep your distance” (Holzmann, 2009).

Responses may employ political behavior strategies that scale to manage physical arrangements in a private home, an office, a neighborhood, or country. Distancing is an important component of political image management. A very common journalistic convention uses the construction… X sought to distance himself from remarks made by Y. In the early stages of the 2008 US presidential campaign, presidential candidate Barak Obama encountered a situation where the Pastor of his church, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, was vocalizing opinions that were perceived to undermine the Obama campaign. The Obama campaign moved very quickly to minimize the political damage of the association with Wright. Many of the newspaper articles that reported these efforts lead their articles with statement such as this one from the Washington Post.

Sen.Barack Obama again sought to distance himself from the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. yesterday after his former pastor capped a weekend media offensive with an appearance in Washington in which he revisited many of his most controversial comments. (Murray & Slevin, 2008)

Analysis of the history of new world settlement shows that the prospect of being able to maintain political and religious autonomy through distance autonomy this was one of the principle appeals for immigrants attracted to settlement in the US and Canada. This impulse remains and a common strategy for religious and political groups is to create and maintain distance physical and symbolic distance to preserve autonomy.

In many cases this pattern of settlement involved groups of people with religious affiliations or political affinities. Like-minded individuals, or those that subscribe to a religious or philosophical perspective, will gather in communities that are intentionally set apart from greater concentrations of population. One respondent, a member of a community that prefers rural living, reported that the community prefers to keep their distance from the influences of mainstream society in populated centers. This community had established an extensive educational network with related communities. [13] This collective strategy allowed them to //keep their distance// but still enjoy the educational benefits that otherwise would only have been available in a more urban setting. With other ethnic, religious or political groups, //keeping your distance// is a major component of social control strategies. A common colonialist strategy was to establish areas set aside for indigenous populations, the reservations set aside for the North American Indians, the townships of South African apartheid. The intention was to keep indigenous people at a distance. My discussions with acquaintances living on reservations indicate that while there may be privations, hope remains that physical separation from mainstream society will preserve cultural autonomy.

As society becomes more technologically oriented, many traditional expectations for privacy have changed and strategies for keeping distance change apace. Concerns about security and anti-terrorism have give people difficult choices. Ubiquitous closed circuit television CCTV monitors have turned parts of the world into a 24/7/365 surveillance society. Much of the security benefit is illusory and highly theatrical but the result is that people are facing greater difficulty in maintaining autonomy and a sense of personal freedom. People employ a variety of strategies to //keeping their distance// from government control and state scrutiny. [14] As technology becomes more pervasive people use technology to manage distance. A respondent noted that while she is not close to people in her neighborhood she has online relationships that she considers close friends. These relationships sustain her in a way that allows her to control the duration and intensity of contact.

//Distancing for Energy Conservation// Social engagement requires varying degrees of investment of physical and emotional energy. In some circumstances, people evaluate the energy invested with the amount of personal return. The return may be reciprocity or it may be the sense of personal satisfaction and positive personal self-regard. People learn to manage their distance to maintain personal energy for causes and engagements that they consider the most rewarding. //Keeping your distance// is used to preserve physical and emotional resources. Some interactions with people and institutions drain personal energy and interfere with goal directed behavior. //Keeping your distance// strategies are used to minimize the impact of such associations. In some cases, the preservation of energy aspect of //keeping your distance// simply involves the avoidance of people or circumstances that the individual finds annoying or unappealing.

Numerous individuals reported being pleased to be able to use distance education because it allowed her to keep her distance from other students that weren't as motivated or interested in progressing at the same pace. Previous experiences in face-to-face classrooms were perceived to waste time and effort dealing with extraneous, often social issues that were not useful to the learning experience. Keeping a distance from those types of people and issues allowed people to be much more efficient with limited time and energy resources. The distance afforded by computer-mediated education was worth any ostensible limitations of the delivery format.

People reported keeping their distance from other situations where they felt sympathetic but realized that they just didn't have the skills, resources or energy to make a difference. A number of respondents spoke of keeping their distance from friends or family members that they described as needy. They wanted to help but realized that they would not be able to help out, and no amount of effort made on behalf of the needy individual was going to be effective. In these cases, people specifically used such //keeping your distance// strategies as using an unlisted telephone number, screening phone calls, making excuses and in some cases, making life choices to avoid frequent contact with relatives, requiring massive inputs of energy, which had no real effect on the needy person's situation. One person moved to another city because a family member was unable to make appropriate choices and was continually looking to be bailed out of jams. Even in the most loving and generous relationships, //keeping your distance// is an important factor. One person defined the optimal distance to live from relatives as close enough for occasional child care but far enough that daily entertaining was not an expectation. //Keeping your distance// allows people to direct their energy in the most effective causes.

Hierarchical institutions and other organizations use distance to maintain efficient operations. The energy cost of operations requires that distances be created and maintained. Volunteer organizations illustrate this in that volunteer boards are usually involved in setting policy and management is in place to ensure that board members' efforts are not expended on operational concerns. Discussions with members of the board of a local social housing operation about the job requirements of the manager revealed that one of the main functions was to allow the board to keep it’s distance from day to day operations. Employers are challenged with the issue of //keeping your distance// with respect to their workforce. Workplaces must be organized so that people are in physical proximity to ensure efficient operation. However, putting people together has mixed benefits. In a harmonious workplace, people share ideas and support each other. Much sharing of critical work related information happens in informal settings, the coffee table, and the water cooler. On the other hand, inevitable squabbles and struggles for power and resources may distract from the company's goal. Companies often feel threatened by collegial relationships because they fear that the workers will make unacceptable collective demands. Many companies spend a great deal of effort making sure that the proper distance is maintained in a work place. Observations of many modern workplaces demonstrate that the physical coffee room is gone, the virtual coffee room is provided through in-house instant messaging. Many companies err on the side of greater distance even though they are aware that closer communication may help productivity and profit. Analysis of policy documents and observations of office settings indicates that increasingly, companies embrace communications systems such as web-based social networking because it allows them to avoid workplace information silos but keeps workers on task and physically separated.

The conservation of energy apparent in //keeping your distance// can be seen as an effort to control for social entropy, to avoid the loss of energy associated with the decay of social relationships. As individuals recognize that their involvement in a social exchange is absorbing increasingly large amounts of personal energy. This recognition is coupled with a realization that the situation is degrading and unlikely to improve. Under these circumstances people apply strategies that will increase their distance to preserve or redirect personal energy. One woman reflected on leaving a dysfunctional marriage where a significant concern was creating distance to preserve emotional and psychic energy rather than waste her effort on a no-win scenario.

Reactions and Strategies for Keeping Your Distance //Keeping your distance// strategies are manifest in at least three modes, conceptualized at three levels of abstraction, the creation of actual physical distance, the creation of distance by proxy and or the creation of symbolic distance.

//Physical Distancing// The creation of actual spatial distance is the most concrete strategy and may be applied across all of the dimensions noted above. Strategies employing physical distance are effective to forestall many perceived physical threats. Physical distancing may also be used to remedy perceived threats to emotional control, autonomy, and to conserve energy but they often only offer temporary relief. A respondent reported that moving to another city was effective in the short term to deal with an emotional conflict but only deferred the problem. Using physical distance did provide an opportunity to develop a more lasting and satisfying solution.

//Distancing by Proxy// If a person is in close physical proximity and wishes to create distance by proxy they use techniques such as looking into the distance (adopting the 1000 yard stare) using an unfocused gaze into an apparently distant spot. They may push themselves away from a table and the small distance gained by that maneuver is a proxy for a greater distance. Physical postures such as crossed arms are symbolic of the desire to keep people at a distance. This strategy is applied to deal with emotional threats and is an effective way of notifying others of a desire for distance.

//Symbolic Distancing// Symbolic distance is distance signified by acts that are representations of physical distance. The concept of critical distance embodies a form of symbolic distance. In anthropological or sociological research critical distance describes the optimal emotional and psychological distance between a researcher and the subjects of research. [15] Strategies used to maintain critical distance include objectifying people, using highly symbolic or academic language, and non-fraternization with subjects. One image that relates to the concept of symbolic distance is the perceptions of the relationship between distance and expertise. The biblical reference "no man is a prophet in his own land" was expressed succinctly by one of the respondents in this study as "you are not an expert unless you are at least 50 miles from home". The distance understood in this image is purely symbolic. A similar principle is behind the use of the term “from away” used by one respondent, where much can be discerned about the personal qualities of an individual based on the concept of distance. More common in rural and isolated communities, a person “from away” is viewed with suspicion. A local would likely //keep their distance// from someone so designated.

//Signaling.// People also use signals to create symbolic distance. [16] The signals can be costly or cheap. Costly signals are those that involve highly evolved, subtle physiological and psychological cues in complex arrays. Cheap signals are like slogans printed on a T-shirt. People wear clothing, or display mannerisms and use language to signal to those for whom they feel affinity. Such displays signal a willingness to accept closer proximity with like-minded people and to enlarge the distance from those who are not sympathetic. To a political conservative, someone wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt is sending signal to //keep your distance//. Reviews of policy documents and practices of many professional groups indicate that they seek to enforce their territoriality by maintaining a symbolic distance through signals transmitted in legislated restrictions and licensing.

//Using// //Heuristics and Biases// People fashion their //keeping distance// action strategies from a variety of experiences, incidents, events, and clues. The strategies are seldom perfectly coherent or consistent, and a certain amount of variation is important. A rigid response set is counterproductive and may result in unintended negative consequences although heuristics and biases figure prominently. A common mechanism for assembling //keeping your distance// strategy sets is bricolage, using bits and pieces and putting them together in a patchwork of “work-arounds” that are continually being refined and remodeled to fit situations and changing circumstances. [17] People commonly use rules of thumb or biases to construct their strategy sets. Using such devices to support their strategy development people may say that they will “never date a redheaded man” or that they will “always trust a policeman”. Reports from various respondents suggested that many times they derive these rules from a wide variety of sources. In describing her rules for romantic engagement on respondent reported that the song Miss Independent (referenced earlier) provided the important rule, keep your distance until your are sure you won’t be hurt.

//Internal Strategies// Psycho-analytic theory has proposed a complex of behaviors that intended to preserve the theoretical construct of ego (Vaillant, 1992). Denial, repression, rationalization are some of the recognizable patterns of behavior that appeared in responses observed in this analysis most often in the form of data that would be characterized as vague. Whatever underlying psychic structures may be involved, defense mechanisms appeared as strategies to regulate distance particularly when distancing for emotional control. On one occasion a respondent paused and corrected a comment and then proceeded to provide a rationalization for the original comment. Frequently the response to questions probing the use of keeping your distance strategies appeared to bring repressed or suppressed issues to the surface. Typical of the comments in this vein were reflective comments such as “I hadn’t thought about the situation until I said it just now.” The theory of //keeping your distance// offers another framework where-in these mechanisms can be understood, another theoretical foothold into an understanding of the way defense mechanisms are deployed.

//Compartmentalizing// Another internal strategy that was apparent from interview data was the use of compartmentalization. People use this strategy to keep parts of their life separated. The respondent who described keeping his part-time music career and his day job separate used this strategy but needed to make ongoing adjustments to ensure that he was able to keep people from these two parts of his life at a distance. Another respondent described the difficulties associated with keeping occupational and life roles separate using the term wearing two hats. Her efforts to keep the various parts of her life separated by physical and symbolic distance took a great deal of regular adjustment to achieve a tolerable outcome.

//Using Collective Strategies// Strategies used by groups or institutions that employ //keeping your distance// may be much more subtle or sophisticated. A recent analysis of the BBC's reporting of the conflict in Gaza pointed out that media coverage uses subtle means to allow its readers to avoid the realization of bias in reporting and to create sympathy for the position favored by editorial policy. Facts that might undermine the party in favor are enclosed in quotation marks to distance the editor from the facts. [18] Again the common journalistic construction ‘X sought to distance themselves from remarks made by Y’ reflects a strategy designed to maintain a political distance.

//Keeping your distance is a default position// When resolving problems where people experience ambivalence the tendency is to use keeping distance as a default position. The simplest illustration of this is the report of a respondent who described his decision making process when contemplating attending an event. ‘I was 50/50 on going so I decided to stay home’. Although keeping your distance is the default, variations in the intensity of the response depend on mitigating factors.

Figure 2. Mitigating Factors Moderate K//eeping Your Distance//

Moderating the Keeping Your Distance Response //Keeping your distance// acts as an "always on" filter for threatening, problematic, annoying or bothersome things. The strength of the filter varies from time to time with the intensity of connected variables. The cost of closeness is weighted against benefits, corrected by a //keeping your distance// factor. People have an ideal distance where they feel comfortable but if conditions change, that distance is no longer comfortable and strategies are engaged to adjust distance.

//Skin Thickness// One respondent described her ability to tolerate conditions as depending on how thick her skin felt on any given day. The determination of “skin thickness” is highly personalized social algorithm, a set of rules or heuristics that provide adjustable and adaptable solutions to recurring problem. This algorithm is recursive and comprised of feed back-loops where the choices made on one occasion affect future events and allows for the incorporation of unexpected events. The metrics of distance are widely variable for each individual. Each person has different physical criteria for acceptable distance. [19]

People implicitly and explicitly consider contingencies or mitigating factors and compute the relative advantages of physical and emotional proximity to other people, communities or institutions. Each calculation trades off an ideal personal sphere of control and influence for the benefits of association with others. Some people may tolerate a suboptimal situation for a period of time if a more desirable set of circumstances is likely to emerge. [20] Describing an intolerable work situation a person mentioned that she could only endure because of the presence of a mentor and a supportive peer group. Without these supports she would have ‘run away screaming’. Mitigating factors impact the development and deployment of strategies and temper the need to //keep your distance.// The complexity of most interactions requires continual adjustment. Variation in k//eeping your distance// is based on life experience and circumstances, effects associated with class, age, gender and economic status influence //keeping your distance//. Perceived threats that would normally trigger //keeping your distance// may not prompt the same response if mitigating factors are present. The presence of a mentor, a supportive group, an engaging distraction, will reduce the felt need to react. Mitigating factors can accumulate across contexts to decrease the likelihood of triggering //keeping your distance//.

Decisions guided by //keeping your distance// strategies may be conscious and clearly articulated, but just as often they are unconscious and implicit in action choices. A few cases illustrate the strength of the //keeping your distance// phenomena. A person who has experienced periods of homelessness reported that he was prepared to endure the privations of living on the street to preserve the distance that he felt was necessary from agencies and institutions that threatened his sense of autonomy and independence. Similarly, an elderly person endures considerable inconvenience to remain in their own home and preserve the distance they feel is necessary for their autonomy.

Outcomes of Keeping Your Distance Strategies In most cases, individuals develop a set of //keeping your distance// strategies that serve them well to solve everyday concerns and problems. Maintaining physical safety, psychic integrity, personal autonomy, and preserving energy are the primary goals of //keeping your distance//.

The distance gained through //keeping your distance// responses may have temporal, spatial and/or experiential elements and result in a range of outcomes. Outcomes relate to the specific perceived threat. A //keeping your distance// response to a perceived physical threat will most likely have a spatial element as the individual arranges for increased physical distance. The outcome is that the individual feels physically secure and in control of their own circumstances. If the //keeping your distance// strategy does not have the desired effect, the response may be increased or alternate distancing strategies are applied.

//Strategies can have unintended consequences// Most often individuals are able to develop strategies that let them engage with others on mutually satisfying terms. The individual is able to balance autonomy, independence, and personal freedom while still maintaining the desired degree of personal closeness and human contact. Positive unintended outcomes are often realized and can reinforce a strategy sets. Responses that result in unintended negative outcomes are culled from the action repertoire. A person, motivated by an awareness of their //keeping your distance// status can make the most comfortable and effective personal choices. These choices may be as wide and varied as where to eat lunch, the type of clothing to wear or, more consequentially, what career to follow, spouse to marry, where to live. A person who has a strong propensity to //keeping your distance// will chose a profession that does not require close daily contact with others. They will choose to live in a part of the country or neighborhood or building that allows them to have a greater degree of control over the amount and duration of any direct physical contacts with others.

//Achieving Optimal Distance// The effect of //keeping your distance// strategies intended to respond to threats to autonomy is that a person feels a sense of self-efficacy in independent goal directed behavior. Distancing ensures adequate personal latitude to accomplish goals. When effective, //keeping your distance// strategies give people a feeling of being safe from physical harm or contamination. They feel that they have sufficient control in emotional engagements. They feel that they are free from the arbitrary exercise of authority. They feel as if their energy is being directed in a satisfying way. When //keeping your distance// responses are ineffective or inadequate, people experience renewed or continued discomfort and either increase their distance or move to another mode of distancing. Often the effect of //keeping your distance// strategies alters conditions. These new conditions then require a readjustment of the //keeping your distance// calculus and adoption of additional distancing strategies that increases, maintains or lessens the distance.

Unintended negative consequences of //keeping your distance// occur in two respects: the failure to develop adequate //keeping your distance// strategies, and an exaggerated //keeping your distance// response. Either situation can be self-limiting, self-defeating and in some cases, clinically significant from the perspective of psycho-pathology. A person that does not develop an adequate //keeping your distance// response or adequate set of strategies can feel dependent and miserable because they are unable to avoid the collateral damage that occurs when they are in close association with particular individuals or groups. At the other extreme a person with an overdeveloped keeping your distance isolates and feels miserable for lack of human contact. Many vacillate between the two extremes seeking a comfort zone. The consequence of not developing and maintaining //keeping your distance// is misery one way or the other. Many respondents described these issues in the context of family relationships and in particular the phenomena of delayed adulthood. The popular movie Failure to Launch, explored the phenomena of people in their twenties still living with their parents in a state of suspended emotional development (Dey, 2006). Failure to launch describes a situation where keeping your distance strategies have failed.

//Deferring the Keeping Your Distance Response// Where the perceived threat is to emotional control the //keeping your distance// response may involve a physical distance but may also involve a temporal element. The strategy involves arranging for temporal distance as an individual delays or defers an interaction to put distance between themselves a perceived threat to emotional control. Distancing strategies for emotional control that involve intra-psychic elements are experiential in their outcomes. One respondent described creating distance from problematic experiences by "putting them on the high shelf". The outcome is that a person is able to engage in functional and satisfying relationships.

//Overriding the Keeping Your Distance Tendency// Conflicting internal impulses, usually based on emotional or cognitive elements: fear, loneliness, career considerations, and sexual interest, may cause a person to act against their inclination to //keeping their distance//. One may consciously tell oneself that they should be warmer, more neighborly, more approachable, but they ignore their //keeping your distance// impulse to their regret. An individual working in direct sales reported that he had to “really psych himself up” to sell stuff that he didn’t really believe in to people who didn’t really want to hear from him. In this case he not only had to overcome the tendency of others to maintain distance but also his own tendency to keep his distance. Sales directors call the latter tendency “call reluctance” (Dudley & Goodson, 2007).

[1] This is a paraphrase of a general orienting question that I used to ground the analysis in the lived experience of people. Glaser further proposes that the analyst proceed by “asking a set of questions of the data”. These questions include “What is this data a study of?”, “What category does this incident indicate?”, What is actually happening in the data?” (Glaser, 1978, p. 57) [2] //Keeping Your Distance // is an "in vivo" concept that emerged from the data in this analysis. This may be more precisely referred to as "maintaining optimal distance" and that form is also used through out this argument. The form "keeping your distance" signifies a more personal level of commitment and is more emotionally immediate . [3] This observation is based on an examination of theories of evolutionary psychology (Cf. Tooby and Cosmides, 2005; Senstrom et.al, 2008). [4] The terms techniques, strategy, method, game-plan, program, schema and tactic are used synonymously although there maybe subtle differences. As the terms are used in war craft, tactic refers to one engagement where as a strategy refers to linkages between engagements. Sun Tzu in the Art of War recommends that strategy requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. (Hart, 1963). It is in this sense that the term strategy is applied to //keeping your distance//.

[5] More comprehensive formal theories of the stages of adolescent cognitive and emotional development can be found in numerous works of psychology, particularly Jean Piaget (1978) and Erik Erikson (1968) [6] My understanding of the relationship between grounded theory and systems theory was developed in a the Fielding Graduate university course, Systems Thinking and Intervention. Principal texts for this course included Buckly (1967), Turner (2003) and Simmons, (2006). Stillman (2006) also discussed the relationship between systems theory and grounded theory method. [7] A number of terms are used interchangeably to refer to conditions such as qualifiers, causes, sources, and reasons. [8] Psychic integrity refers to a sense of wholeness or completeness as person. [9] We see traces of evolution in many aspects of modern human behavior and in fact, there are occasions when the most primitive patterns are still in effect. Primitive responses from our evolutionary history remain in vestigial forms but have been transmuted into more complex social-psychological responses as described in (Stenstrom et al., 2008). [10] On-campus violence is a major concern for universities and colleges with most institutions publishing statements that outline institutional policies intended to address the issue. McCormack (1995) reviewed statistical data and suggested that 1 in 5 undergraduate women experience unwanted sexual interference on-campus or in transit to campus. Conspicuously absent are any treatments of the use of online education to prevent such assaults. Olakulein and Olugbenga (2006) discuss the use of online education for the empowerment of African women generally and in the case of Islamic women prevented from participation in education because of Purdah but it is not acknowledged as a safer way for women in the context of on-campus violence.

[11] Freedman (1975) suggested that while crowding had an effect on behavior, psychological factors determined what constituted a crowded situation and whether that situation would cause discomfort. So a football crowd is very dense but not uncomfortable for most. In other circumstances one other couple appearing on a solitary beach might constitute a crowd. [12] Autonomy is defined as immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority. The importance of autonomy as in self-determination to the motivation, creativity, cognitive flexibility, self-esteem, physical and psychological health has been convincingly theorized to be a powerful human need (Deci & Ryan, 1987). [13] The Hutterian Broadband Network is a network of 28 communities that use a very sophisticated distance education system with web-based video-conferencing to deliver K-12 education. This system was set up at considerable expense to the communities but has had excellent results. The community has been able to maintain its autonomy through control of the curriculum and instruction of the children, all mediated through the control of distance from the mainstream society. In an interview that I conducted the principal of the school noted that province-wide competitions have demonstrated that the children educated in this manner are equal or superior in their educational attainment, compared to mainstream students educated with face to face instruction in affluent communities. (Maendel, 2008) [14] Criminals often seek to avoid identification by CCTV surveillance by wearing loose baggy clothing, hooded sweatshirts, sunglasses and baseball caps. The same sort of camouflage has been affected by the gangsta/rap subculture and has been broadly adopted by many urban youth, particularly those from identified minorities, in an effort to preserve a sense of distance from state or commercial security apparatus. [15] Sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists are faced with the conflicting motivations. “Going native” expresses the concern with getting too close to the people and situations being studied. Public sociologist suggest believe that this is an false concern and that academics should immerse themselves in an action scene. (Keith, 2008). [16] The study of the evolutionary basis of signaling suggests that there are many levels to the signals that we knowingly or unknowingly transmit to others. Powers, (1998) describes the way that females of some species sham menstrual cycles by body decoration to keep males at a distance to control the high energy cost of bearing young. Male defense displays are designed to keep interlopers at a distance from territory and resources and are designed to attract females and keep competing males at a distance. (Powers, 1998). [17] Bricolage means patchwork, a strategy formed from unrelated constituent parts that become integrated in the application. Work around is an ad hoc strategy intended to accomplish tasks in spite of systemic impediments. [18] Classical understandings of psychoanalytic theory related to defense mechanisms suggest that they are efforts to defend a range of theoretical structures, the id, the ego, the superego. Nothing in //keeping your distance// challenges these theories and does not seek to validate or be validated by them. [19] A number of theorists have investigated the cultural dimensions of personal space and have suggested that different cultures have different distances for comfort in interpersonal contact. The theory suggests, for example, that those from Latin cultures have a greater tolerance for people in close physical proximity than people from Nordic cultures. (Hall, 1969). [20] The use of the terms algorithm and calculus are used symbolically to aid conceptualization and do not imply the reduction of complex human behavior patterns to mechanical responses. That said, many theorists examining aspects of social networks and interactions draw on mathematical concepts. Steven Strogatz (2008) has a very charming story about his initial inspiration for his mathematical concepts drawn from his early romantic experience where his girlfriend continually adjusted the distance in their relationship. He reflected that the fine adjustments in this engagement were like a mathematical equation.