Temporary Territories?: Responses to Intrusions in a Public Setting

Do people create temporary territories in public settings? To address this question, territorial cognitions and behaviors regarding two types of study sites in a library--tables and carrels--were investigated. In the first questionnaire experiment subjects indicated that: carrel sites were more valuable for studying than table sites; they expected they would be more likely to defend a carrel site than a table site; and the perceived causes of carrel and table invasions differed. In the second field study an experimenter occupied seats that subjects had temporarily vacated. Results supported our hypothesis and the questionnaire results of the first experiment. In the carrel condition subjects were more likely to ask for their seat back than in the table condition. Thus, using the stringent demarcation and defense criterion it appears that people do create temporary territories in public spaces. Furthermore, the results suggest a close covariation between territorial cognitions and behavior, and the importance of desirability of locale for both of these. The implications of the results for territorial typologies, animal-human territorial differences, and future research on human territoriality were outlined.