The platinum rule

The Platinum Rule

By Rom Antony Day

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

This is described by Tony Alessandra, PhD, in his book Charisma, 1998. Treat others the way they want to be treated which is not necessarily the way you would want to be treated. It is a thing that may offer a balance to the Golden Rule. An example is the four basic zones of interpersonal space and interaction (Charisma by Tony Alessandra 1998, pp 176 to 177) research has revealed that we Americans [as in assimilated or acculturated Citizens of the United States of America] have on the average. In other words it is a norm or custom on the average. The zones are

Intimate Zone (from actual touching to about two feet of distance).

Personal Zone (from two to four feet away).

Social Zone (from four feet to twelve feet of distance)

Public Zone (more than 12 feet of distance).

As Tony Alessandra mentions, another way we Americans communicate is how we treat the air space around us. We tend to view it as our personal territory equating it to a private “air bubble,” and we may recent others entering it uninvited. So depending on how you feel we may often deviate from the unspoken standard and allow you to get closer if we feel good about or have nothing to risk.

So if you are a stranger do not all of the sudden pretend to be intimate; do not enter the social, personal and much less the intimate zone if you notice the other person is trying to keep his or her private “air bubble” from being broken into by you even if in your own world if you were in the person’s shoes you would want the person to enter your let’s say smaller private air bubble for whatever reason. It could be because culturally you are different; we do not feel safe or just sense something awkward simply put. Maybe you like touching people you do not know and like being touched by people you are not intimate with. The golden rule would fail you here if you are attempting to interact or communicate to develop a relationship with somebody with a bigger private air bubble than yours. Use the Platinum rule in such a case. Treat the person the way h/she prefers to be treated, respect our personal preferences the way you would want yours to be. That is to say let us have as big of a private air bubble as we need to keep you from being viewed as an annoyance or a suspicious stranger.

What if the person is cluster phobic? You do not know. We do not need to tell you; do we? We may just ask you verbally or by gesture to please back away a little way or give us more space or whatever may feel right so you do not invade our right to privacy and confidentiality at a for example check-out register at a store. We all like to protect our personal information; I would think you do even if you are not American by nationality or culturally.

I invite you to stand-up for your right to personal space and to associate or not to associate with someone. It is a constitutional right in The U.S.A. You might soon be expecting the same type of interpersonal interaction space to be given to you when you find its pluses.