Territorial Defensive Behavior Essay

Introduction Territorial defensive behavior is defined by Ruback (1997) as the defense of a territory by an individual, indicating self as proprietor of the territory’s value and resources. The purpose of this research is to examine territorial defense in a temporary public territory. Public territories comprise of public water fountains, library aisles, video game arcades, and public parking lots. These areas are temporarily held by an individual for a limited amount of time, until the need of the individual is met. Upon exit of the public territory, the value and resources of the territory are relinquished to any individual. The present research will look at territorial defense within a public parking lot and the amount of time it takes a driver to pull out of a parking space, following task completion, and is no longer of value to the driver. Comparisons in the time it takes to exit the space when another vehicle is waiting opposed to no vehicle waiting will be made to further study territorial defensive behavior. …show more content…
Intrusion is operationalized as wrongful encroachment by an individual onto another individual’s temporary territory. In his 1987 research, Ruback used a university library, a temporary public territory, to investigate intrusion and territorial defensive behavior. Sharing the hypothesis of our present research, Ruback (1987) postulated intrusion would cause an individual to leave an aisle faster compared to experiencing no intrusion. Research results found did not support his hypothesis, subjects who experienced intrusion spent more time within the aisle. According to Ruback (1987), intrusion can cause defense of territory through persistence when a location holds value and resources the individual associates with task completion. Intruded upon subjects were in the process of completing the task of finding a