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You’re driving around a packed parking lot looking for a space when you see  someone walking to their car. You think your timing couldn’t be better. You’re so lucky that they are leaving right as when you’re arriving!

You put on your turn signal  as soon as they open the door. And then you wait… And wait. Just when you’re about to  bail to look for another spot, they finally leave.

Why did that take so long?? Believe it or not, it’s  classic human territoriality. We feel ownership of certain spaces, even when those spaces are not actually ours.

And that kind of behavior ranges from silly things like clinging to a parking spot to actions with more serious consequences. So naturally, scientists have  studied the heck out of it. Here are some truly ridiculous  things that people do in the name of defending their turf. [intro music] People have been known to act territorially in a lot of different situations.

So let’s start with a few fairly harmless ones. That scenario I described  in the parking lot is real. You know it.

I know it. But people with PhDs needed data to show that the person in the parking spot really does take longer to  leave when you are waiting. They timed 200 people from the moment they got into their cars to the sweet peel out of that coveted spot.

Some of them were all alone  throughout the process, while others had another car roll in and wait for them to get going. The researchers found that when  you’re waiting for a parking spot, people stay in that spot an  average of 6.88 seconds longer than they do when nobody’s waiting. Yes, it’s only a matter of seconds.

And no, people generally weren’t waiting all afternoon. In fact, all departure times  were under two minutes, with some people leaving in just 10.61 seconds! But this just highlights how deeply every tick of your watch digs in when you’re sitting there desperately hoping that this person will finally leave your spot.

In publishing these results,  the researchers even noted that it doesn’t make any sense because you both have the same goal! The first person got into their  car with the goal of leaving. When the second person arrived with the goal of finding a parking spot, those two people should have been totally aligned.

Instead, the first person turned  against everyone’s interests, including their own, because suddenly the parking  spot became a hot commodity. Nobody said this was logical. They just said it’s territorial.

And honking will not help Don’t even try it. People generally take 11.95  seconds longer to leave when you honk. At least we’re self-aware, though.

When filling out a questionnaire, people generally said they’d take their sweet time leaving a spot if the person waiting honked. The only thing that might help is … drumroll please … having a fancy car. People who drove new, clean, luxury vehicles were considered high-status in this study, while people who drove older, rusty sedans or station wagons got thrown into the low-status category.

Not that there’s anything  wrong with a reliable car. It’s just not going to get the  guy in the parking spot in gear … literally. Bizarrely, drivers of “high-status” cars seemed to shoo away the person in the parking spot an average of 9.33 seconds sooner than drivers of “low-status” cars.

But only if the person in the spot was a man. I know, I know. This is a huge stereotype that men care about pretty cars more than other people.

But, statistically, women didn’t  leave any faster or slower based on what vehicle was waiting. So if you happen to be waiting for a parking spot in a high-status car, and the person occupying that spot happens to be the average  man as sampled in this study, you might not bear the brunt of this absurd territorial behavior. But you’ll still probably  experience territoriality elsewhere.

Like when you need to use a phone. Or, at least, you would have  experienced this a few decades ago when more people used pay phones. Back in 1989, researchers monitored how long a person stayed on a pay phone if they knew that someone  was waiting to use it next.

People babbled for an extra three minutes when someone else was around. And when two people were waiting? They tacked on another two minutes compared to when one person was waiting.

But let’s say you don’t spend much time at pay phones these days. Maybe you’re more of a library person. Never fear!

There’s a territorial scenario for you too! When you’re strolling through the stacks, looking for your next murder  mystery or autobiography, you’d probably rather peruse the aisles alone. At least, you’d have that preference if you’re anything like the people who filled out a researcher’s  questionnaire on the topic.

But a study in the journal  Social Psychology Quarterly concluded that people tend to stand their ground in a library aisle if someone else is there. So now they’re not alone  for a longer period of time and nobody’s happy. On average, when people were alone, they spent 2.17 minutes searching through the titles in any given aisle.

And when another person joined them in that aisle? They spent an average of 14.66 minutes there! So whether it’s a few extra seconds in a parking lot or 12 whole  minutes in a library aisle, that’s a lot of time spent being petty.

But, I know, it’s not pure pettiness. These territorial behaviors are all about defending desirable resources. And that can have more serious consequences than standing around in a library.

Sometimes people will  undermine entire organizations with their territoriality. When you feel like you need to guard resources like tips and tricks to  complete a project efficiently, you’re not just wasting your own time. You’re influencing how well  your company functions.

Any time you have resources, like information, salary, or career development opportunities, you have the option to keep them to yourself or to share them. And the territorial way to go about things would be guarding these  resources from your coworkers. Researchers have found that this behavior then  starts a trickle down effect, where your territoriality becomes  contagious in the workplace.

Generally, a supervisor sets the tone for what’s acceptable at your job. And their territoriality can make a direct report feel like an outsider. Which can make them more territorial too!

When you don’t feel like you belong or that the company is sharing information, it’s natural to get more guarded. And one study on companies in China found that all of this happens more  in competitive workplaces. Which makes sense.

They have a way of making people more guarded. So if you’re looking to make  your office less collaborative and a hotbed for territorial behavior, you’re going to want to  instill a real competitive, secretive climate around there. Otherwise, maybe don’t?

Of course, the consequences of human territoriality get even more serious. It goes without saying that war is a highly undesirable result of this instinct. But when we’re talking about  less destructive behaviors, there are a couple of different kinds of territory that lead to them.

When you post a sign that says “stay off my lawn!” you may be a grumpy old man, but at least you have every right to defend what is considered you're primary territory That’s your house. The weird part is how you feel territorial about what researchers call secondary territories— spaces that aren't really yours. In a secondary territory, you  only have temporary rights.

But for that short period of time, you are the exclusive user of that space. Like in the parking lot scenario. You might feel so territorial about a parking spot that you stay there even when you’re done using it.

But a parking spot, it’s a public space! You only have temporary possession of it. And that’s enough to make you territorial.

It’s easy to see why the lines between your primary territory and a secondary territory are sometimes blurry. A study conducted in Colorado suggested that since your car is a primary territory that you own, you might extend that thinking to the  secondary territory of the road it’s on. After all, how many times have you said “they cut into my lane?” When, in fact, that’s not your lane!

It’s a public road paved with taxpayer dollars that anyone is free to drive on. But the stronger you feel about  your car being your territory, the more likely you are to exert that  territoriality over the road as well. Researchers had drivers fill out self-reports on their car decorations and aggressive driving habits.

And they found that cars with more personalisation like bumper stickers— which the study defined as  a kind of territoriality— reported being more aggressive on the road. And no, it doesn’t matter if the bumper sticker has an aggressive message. Really.

They had cars in their sample  population with bumper stickers that said “Dropkick insert  presidential candidate here.” And they were just as aggressive drivers as the people driving cars that merely had that presidential candidate’s name on a bumper sticker. When you think about it, all of the early examples in this video were secondary territories. Just like the pavement beneath your wheels, libraries were created for public use.

So when you’re studying in a  one-person carrel at the library, that’s not really your area. But when you go to the restroom and a researcher comes and sits in the carrel that you were using, you’ll probably get territorial over it. And no, this study was clearly not designed for scientists with social anxiety.

But it was a real experiment  conducted in Virginia. When students came back from the restroom to find a researcher sitting in their spot, they’d go so far as to ask for it back. And in our society, of course they did!

Someone was in their spot! But, again, that’s a public space. It’s only their secondary territory.

And on some level, people understand that. Because students who had been sitting at long  tables at the same library were more likely to just return  to a different seat at that table and not confront the researcher  who had usurped their spot. The researchers think the difference between territory defenders and people who submit to having their  secondary territory taken over comes down to how valuable the seat is.

A single occupancy carrel is more  likely to be defended territory than a multi-person table  because that’s a high value seat. Interviews with the students backed that up. They confirmed that students prefer  to get their study on in a carrel.

Just like the parking spot, when you recognize that what you have is something that others want, you might get territorial over it. But we don’t always act like this. A study conducted in Canada was specifically designed to  replicate the parking lot study … in the bathroom.

After all, a stall in the water closet is an equally valid secondary territory. It definitely feels like  yours while you’re using it. But, as it turns out, the loo can’t be used in lieu of  any other secondary territory.

In this study, there was no significant difference between how long someone spent in a stall when there was a line versus no line. And thank the lord for that, like at least we have that going for us If anything, the data trended  toward wrapping up faster when there was a line. Maybe just because we’re like good people?

But we have to do due diligence here and look into the nuance of this study. For example, they only timed people in women’s washrooms because they generally use stalls. Apparently, urinals don’t have as clear territorial boundaries.

So who knows if the same results would show up in a more representative sample. But it might just be that this  territory is not super desirable. Sitting in a public bathroom isn’t quite the same experience as sitting in your car with the butt warming seats turned on and the foo fighters blasting out of your speakers And, as we learned from the  library carrel experiment, how desirable a territory is determines the likelihood that you’ll defend it.

So we’re territorial in all sorts of spaces But it’s not terribly productive. Maybe, after watching this video, you’ll have the same compassion for someone looking for a parking spot that you  might show in the potty. now these days, when you're sitting on the toilet it's pretty common to be scrolling those bathroom breaks are getting long and longer as we mindlessly scroll the day away you might have stumbled across this video, that very way But how many of the videos that you watch through the  scroll method are like SciShow, providing you with fact-checked  scientific information that makes you smarter and more curious? And how many of them provide  interactive learning opportunities like what you’d find at Brilliant.org/SciShow?

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