Where can I find this sociology study?

Question

Scientists went to a beach and set up their towels really close to another subject on the beach. The people being encroached on exhibited hostility and irritability at the proximity. Then the scientists on a different day came back, but this time they struck up a conversation with someone on the beach before asking if they could set up their towels next to the person's. The person always showed enthusiasm from the suggested proximity.

Answer 1

It does look interesting! Finding it might take some googling around. In one quick search, I found this 2004 article inThe New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/science/side-effects-sociology-history-where-to-put-the-blanket.html, which cited several earlier studies. The closest one I saw was “In 1981 Dr. Herman W. Smith, now retired from the University of Missouri at St. Louis, published a paper called, ''Territorial Spacing on a Beach Revisited: A Cross-National Exploration,'' in Social Psychology Quarterly.” If that’s not the one referenced, you might look at his citations, or knock around in that journal’s index and wider indexes of social psych.