My Social Comfort Zone: Attachment Anxiety Shapes Peripersonal and Interpersonal Space

Our perception of our personal space extends beyond the body to incorporate the space where inter-actions with the environment occur, i.e. peripersonal space (PPS), and the distance we feel comforta-ble in maintaining while interacting with other people, termed interpersonal space. Studies suggest that after positive interpersonal exchanges, PPS expands in order to create a space for interaction, while interpersonal space becomes smaller. However, little is known about how this malleability of our peripersonal and interpersonal space based on social context can be shaped by key individual traits of interpersonal relating, such as attachment style. In a first, exploratory study (N=48) using a visuo-tactile detection task in augmented reality, we found that when people scoring higher in attachment anxiety are in the presence of a stranger, relative to alone, their PPS becomes less defined, whereas the reverse pattern is observed in people scoring lower in attachment anxiety. In a follow-up, prereg-istered study (N=68), targeting individuals with high versus low levels of attachment anxiety, we found that the former has a sharp differentiation between peripersonal and extrapersonal space not only in a social context (i.e., presence of a stranger) but also in a non-social context. In a final, pre-registered, large-scale survey of the UK population (N=19,417), we enquired about the role of at-tachment anxiety in a self-report measure of the interpersonal distance people felt comfortable with during habitual conversion and as expected, we found that the greater the anxiety the closer the pre-ferred interpersonal distance, irrespective of their perceived social closeness to others. We conclude that attachment anxiety reduces the social malleability of both peripersonal and interpersonal space.