On the Influence of Group Social Interaction on Intrusive Behaviours

Abstract

Having extensively investigated the influence of social bonding on the spatial dynamics of two-people groups (i.e. dyads), we more recently studied the impact of group social relation on the dynamics of individual pedestrians (i.e. nongroups) in their proximity, and, reciprocally, groups’ reaction to such encounters. In the present work, we extend this analysis to additionally study the effect of the groups’ intensity of social interaction (i.e. talking to each other, performing hand gestures, or maintaining eye contact) in similar situations. Specifically, using trajectories of uninstructed pedestrians observed in an ecological setting, we analyse encounters between a dyad annotated with an intensity of interaction ranging from 0 (not interacting) to 3 (strongly interacting) and a non-group coming in the opposite direction. We compute the undisturbed minimum distance between them and compare it to the actual minimum distance. To account for the correlation between the intensity of interaction and the size of a group (i.e. the interpersonal distance between the group’s members), the two distances are normalized by the average size of groups with similar intensities of interaction. In line with our previous findings, we demonstrate that avoidance dynamics is more pronounced for groups with higher levels of interaction, while groups that interact less, or not at all, are more likely to be intruded into.