The psychology behind why you always want to sit in the same seat — Quartz

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Have you noticed that you are stuck in seat preferences? When entering the conference room, do you always sit in the same chair and choose the same bicycle every time you take a spin course, or do you choose the same side of the plane when you pre-select your seat?

It's not just you: this is environmental psychology.

This behavior is an expression of "territoriality". Regionality is a mechanism of spatial organization that expresses itself in surprising ways. A professor of psychology at the University of Victoria said: “Territoriality is usually considered in terms of aggression and defense, such as when a country or gang fights, but in fact the most common purpose is to maintain peace.”

. "In most cases, most people advocate having a space, while others tacitly agree."

For classrooms, always choosing the same location allows students to effectively adjust and control the relationship with other students in the shared space, so that they feel more comfortable and less vulnerable. set up

,

A psychologist at the University of Bologna decided to objectively track the sitting habits of students.

In four weeks, he used unobtrusive photography to document the sitting habits of two university lecture halls with 47 and 31 students. The study was conducted using freshmen at the beginning of the semester to minimize the impact of friendship on seating arrangements. He also chose the classroom, where there are more seats than registered students, so it can give students more freedom and avoid the possibility of crowd pressure. He then uses this data to estimate the average displacement and area size to see the seating pattern.

He found that most students choose the same seats over and over again. Their behavior reflects the behavior of developing a small personal territory around the seat, which makes them feel more comfortable. He also pointed out that even if students cannot "personalize their space and defend their space to prevent them from being invaded by other users when they are away," they still sit in the same position. He concluded that choosing the same seat can help students control the environment and achieve academic and personal goals with minimal interference.

In a study, this behavior was further strengthened.

Angie Buckley of Lyon Neuroscience Research Center and International Space University. Their goal is to determine how quickly (if any) the student adapts to a specific seat.

They studied the seating options of the students in the lecture halls of two academic courses for 19 days and 44 days. To further refine their observations of the development of seating patterns, they used unobtrusive photography to collect data every hour. Their findings showed that from the second day of class, students began to sit in their favorite seats, and at the end of the first month of a longer class, more than half of the students were in the same seat each time.

Such research continues to become more detailed.

, An independent educational psychologist, and

Students at the University of Southern Mississippi wanted to study how gender and classroom design affect seating choices. They observed rows of tablet armchairs, U-shaped arrangements, clusters and rows of tables with individual chairs in the classroom. They found that some changes depend on the layout of the classroom, but more importantly, they found that regardless of the design of the classroom, the proportion of women sitting in the same seat is higher than that of men.

This may be because women often carry handbags in addition to laptops or textbooks, which may cause people to desire a chair that can accommodate more space.

But what impact will this have on learning? According to a professor at Temple University

,Who is

By establishing personal territories, residents avoid the need for daily negotiations with the external environment. Because they are not wasting energy to put themselves in a new position every day, they can more easily achieve their goals, such as focusing on speaking.

In other words, sitting in the same place for each class may provide you with the best learning environment. Kayla said: "Understanding how geographical affects social interaction and classroom behavior, it is possible to create an environment that is more...

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