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48-580: In some contexts, a welcome is extended to a stranger to an area or a household. "The concept of welcoming the stranger means intentionally building into the interaction those factors that make others feel that they belong, that they matter, and that you want to get to know them". It is also noted, however, that "[i]n many community settings, being welcoming is viewed as in conflict with ensuring safety. Thus, welcoming becomes somewhat self-limited: 'We will be welcoming unless you do something unsafe'". Different cultures have their own traditional forms of welcome, and

96-490: A "stranger to hygiene". A stranger is typically represented as an outsider, and a source of ambivalence , as they may be a friend, an enemy, or both. The word stranger derives from the Middle French word estrangier , meaning a foreigner or alien. The boundaries of what people or groups are considered strangers varies according to circumstances and culture, and those in the fields of sociology and philosophy in

144-422: A collection of useful gifts collected from residents of an area to welcome new people moving to that area. The phrase "you're welcome" is a common polite response to a person saying "thank you", shortened from "you are welcome", which originally signified that the thanking person was "welcome" to whatever they were thanking the other person for, suggesting that no thanks were needed. Stranger A stranger

192-513: A gateway and a Welcome sign is that the gateway is usually designed and built by an outsider, a developer or architect, while the Welcome sign has been designed and built by an inside member of the community". A welcome mat is a doormat that welcomes visitors to a house or other building by providing them with a place to wipe their feet before entering. Another community tradition, the welcome wagon, has its origins in an actual wagon containing

240-399: A member of my tribe or ethne, and not a fellow citizen." Another asserts that "[i]t has been argued by many a philosopher that we are all strangers on earth, alienated from others and ourselves even in our own country". The state of being a stranger may be examined as a matter of degrees. For example, someone may be a partial stranger in cases where they are unable to communicate, or another

288-418: A morning commute. One week later, they returned to the same platform, distributed the photos, and asked recipients to label anyone they either recognized or to whom they had spoken. 89% of the people recognized at least one of the individuals shown in the photos. The average commuter claimed to recognize 4.0 individuals who they had never spoken to, compared to 1.5 individuals they had conversed with. In addition,

336-773: A museum. We need to teach our kids things are actually going to help them if they are in trouble." This was echoed by sociologist, and director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, David Finkelhor , writing in The Washington Post : We'd do much better to teach them the signs of people (strangers or not) who are behaving badly: touching them inappropriately, being overly personal, trying to get them alone, acting drunk, provoking others or recklessly wielding weapons. We need to help children practice refusal skills, disengagement skills and how to summon help. In their review of

384-493: A preference for strangers if they are near their own age. However, this preference may reverse in situations which include fear-producing stimuli. The severity of stranger anxiety may be affected by individual temperament, capacity for self-regulation, and caregiver anxiety. Stranger anxiety may be mitigated through a number of techniques, including positive interaction between the stranger and companions, and arranging for familiar surroundings. For older children, instruction

432-488: A public location. Four dimensions determined how familiar strangers affected comfort in a public place: the number of familiar strangers, the level of their familiarity, the history of the familiar people in the location, and whether the familiar strangers are found in other contexts. There have been a number of studies that have further characterized the relationship between familiar strangers using automatically generated sets of data from urban systems. Using bus usage data, it

480-474: A public place. Recreating Milgram's original experiment, they found similar but slightly lower levels of the phenomena. They found 77.8% of people recognized at least one familiar stranger with an average of 3.1 strangers recognized. They too found evidence of "socio-metric stars" who stood out to many people due to unique visual characteristics like a wheelchair, flowers, or dirty long hair. Familiar strangers were also found to affect how comfortable people feel in

528-491: A relevant type of ties. Familiar strangers nevertheless support people's sense of familiarity and belonging. Online social networks are ubiquitous today. But in these digital contexts, it is unclear what defines a familiar stranger relationship. An initial definition put forward has been a behavioral one. Familiar strangers are those users that a person is not explicitly connected to but share similar behavioral patterns or interests. But finding these digital familiar strangers

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576-494: A room that is hot and crowded, have been shown to increase negative attitudes toward strangers. Laboratory evidence has indicated that individuals are likely to behave less modestly when meeting face-to-face with strangers, when no friends or acquaintances were present. As explained by Joinson and colleagues, "they tend to present more of their ideal self-qualities to strangers than they do to friends." However, this appeared to be reversed when two strangers met one another online in

624-565: A stranger is someone who is neither one's friend nor acquaintance. Although they overlap, the two meanings are not synonymous: a stranger is often a foreigner, though not necessarily (he may live just around the corner); most foreigners are also strangers, though not necessarily (one can have foreign friends). Foreignness implies passports and questions of citizenship or national belonging, in addition to evoking personal feelings of acceptance or rejection (“how exotic, how foreign” or “foreigners keep out!”). Strangerhood can also involve legal status, but

672-404: A stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt". Some other translations use "foreigner" instead of "stranger". There is a concept in sociological literature of the "professional stranger", the person who intentionally maintains an intellectual distance from the community in order to observe and understand it. The examination of different theories of

720-518: A train station. Psychology Today published a second paper on the subject by Milgram, "Frozen world of the familiar stranger: a conversation with Stanley Milgram", in 1974. In 2004, researchers at the Berkeley Intel Research Laboratory revisited Milgram's study. Their goal was to observe changes in familiar stranger relationships since the initial study and to see how familiarity can affect an individual's comfort in

768-413: A variety of broader contexts. According to sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman , every society produces its own strangers, and the natures of "strangeness" is "eminently pliable [and] man-made". Alternatively, Lisa Atwood Wilkinson has written that "[b]y definition, whoever is a stranger to me is someone who is not a philos: a stranger is a person who is not related to me by blood or marriage, not

816-423: A variety of different practices can go into an effort to welcome: Making a welcome is not a physical fabrication, though welcome may be embodied and fostered by appropriate physical arrangements. There can be an aesthetics of welcome. What is there when one makes a welcome? No thing really, and yet more than any thing. When one makes a welcome one creates the conditions that promise of home. One makes it possible for

864-660: Is xenos , which is the root word of the English xenophobia , meaning fear of strangers and foreigners alike. Strangers, and especially showing hospitality to strangers and strangers in need is a theme throughout the Old Testament , and is "expanded upon — and even radicalized — in the New Testament. In the King James Version of the Old Testament , Exodus 23:9 states: "Also thou shalt not oppress

912-437: Is a person who is unknown to another person or group. Because of this unknown status, a stranger may be perceived as a threat until their identity and character can be ascertained. Different classes of strangers have been identified for social science purposes, and the tendency for strangers and foreigners to overlap has been examined. The presence of a stranger can throw an established social order into question, "because

960-828: Is an acquaintance or family member. According to one estimate, "classic stranger abductions" accounted for only 0.014% of total missing children annually in the United States, or about 14 per 100,000. Furthermore, of all abductions by non-family members, the majority (59%) were of teenagers, rather than children. In similar statistics reported by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), only about 1% of abductions were from non-family members, while 91% of those abducted were classified as endangered runaways .   This has led to calls to de-emphasize stranger danger, as Nancy McBride of NCMEC told NBC News , "let's take stranger-danger and put it in

1008-477: Is an unequal one because the construction of meaning and understanding is skewed towards the former. ... These in-between strangers, however, are not always associated with the stranger as Other or foreigner. Familiar stranger A familiar stranger is a stranger who is nonetheless recognized by another from regularly sharing a common physical space such as a street or bus stop, but with whom one does not interact. First identified by Stanley Milgram in

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1056-507: Is close to you is really far away and someone who is far from you is actually close by. Simmel feels that the stranger is close to us to an extent; we share a connection with each other. Our human nature brings us together so to say, it holds similar national social and occupational features. In 1972, Milgram and his students conducted an experiment to test how widespread the phenomena of familiar strangers was. His students took photographs of people waiting at commuter railway stations during

1104-500: Is generally more weighted toward the affective: the “stranger in our midst” is not always a foreigner; he or she may carry our pass- port and still be considered—both subjectively and by others—as not belonging, not “one of us” (or, from the stranger's point of view, “one of them”). According to Chris Rumford, referencing the work of sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel, "people who are physically close by can be remote and those who are far away may in fact be close in many ways". With

1152-494: Is generally referred to as stranger anxiety or stranger wariness. According to one review, the reaction to strangers may differ somewhat according to gender. While there were no gender differences observed at three months of age, girls appeared to exhibit stranger fear at an earlier average age than boys, at about eight to nines months old, although boys quickly caught up, and examinations of nine to 17 months old recorded no differences. Studies have shows that infants tend to show

1200-746: Is indeed crucial information in the evaluation of strangers and others about whom one knows very little. It is the kind of information that strangers quickly glean from one another as they size one another up and anticipate future interactions. It is the kind of information that people fall back on when they know little else about the other who is being observed. Infants will generally be receptive to strangers until after they achieve object permanence and begin forming attachments . Thereafter stranger anxiety typically emerges, and young children will normally exhibit signs of distress when presented with unfamiliar individuals, and will tend to prefer those with whom they are familiar rather than strangers. This reaction

1248-405: Is often provided in schools and homes on so called "stranger danger". This often stems from public fears regarding stranger offenders, individuals who may approach children in public places with the intention of abduction or abuse , possibly due in part to their perception of children as vulnerable targets. Statistically, children who are abducted are much more likely to be taken by someone who

1296-454: Is unable to understand aspects of an individual, their perspective or experiences. Alternatively, one may be a moral stranger to another who acts "out of fundamentally divergent moral commitments", even though the person may be a close friend or family member. A stranger with whom a person has previously had no contact of any kind may be referred to as a "total stranger" or "perfect stranger". Some people who are considered "strangers" due to

1344-468: Is unknown to another. Since individuals tend to have a comparatively small circle of family, friends, acquaintances, and other people known to them—a few hundred or a few thousand people out of the billions of people in the world—the vast majority of people are strangers to one another. It may also more figuratively refer to a person for whom a concept is unknown, such as describing a contentious subject as "no stranger to controversy," or an unsanitary person as

1392-434: The 1972 paper The Familiar Stranger: An Aspect of Urban Anonymity , it has become an increasingly popular topic in research about social networks and technologically mediated communication. Milgram specified that for a person to become a familiar stranger, they must be observed repeatedly over a certain amount of time but never interact with each other. Familiar strangers are more than complete strangers but do not rise to

1440-424: The absence of friends, which elicited the most modest self-presentation, more so than online interactions with strangers conducted in the presence of friends. In willingness to disclose information, researchers have identified what has been dubbed the stranger-on-the-train phenomenon , wherein individuals are inclined to share a great deal of personal information with anonymous individuals. This may be influenced by

1488-410: The broad social territory between strangers and intimates. The term was coined by Karen L. Fingerman and further developed by Melinda Blau, who collaborated with the psychologist to explore and popularize the concept. A stranger is not necessarily a foreigner , although a foreigner is highly likely to be a stranger: A foreigner, the dictionary tells us, is someone not from one's own country, while

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1536-439: The bus usage data, but the researchers divided relationships based on regularity of interaction and closeness of relationship. Familiar stranger relationships develop in a predictable manner. They depend on regularity, on-going contact, and public spaces. The concept of invisible tie was proposed to qualify such relationships that involve only limited interaction (if any) and are therefore hardly observable and often overlooked as

1584-438: The conglomeration of populations into large cities, people now have a historically high propensity to "live among strangers". Adopting a statist view, strangers may be seen as a chaotic challenge to the order imposed and sought by the nation-state , which is then faced with the challenge of assimilating the stranger, expelling them, or destroying them. Although this view may overlook important issues of what authority defines

1632-409: The dining care, and the certain knowledge that neither of us would see each other again. This may be helpful in eliciting self-disclosure in the context of therapy or counseling, and can encourage openness and honesty. However, research also suggests that this phenomenon is mediated by the expectation of future interaction with the stranger. The New Testament Greek translation of "stranger"

1680-452: The experiment observed "socio-metric stars" who were recognized by a large portion of commuters. In qualitative interviews, commuters noted that they imagined what kinds of lives familiar strangers led and what kinds of jobs they held. Milgram described this as a "fantasy relationship that may never eventuate in action." From this study, Milgram made a number of observations about how familiar stranger relationships are maintained. He noted that

1728-439: The fixation of space; physical conditions are the condition and the symbol for human relationships. He wanted to talk about the stranger from the perspective of them being someone who comes today and stays tomorrow rather than a person who comes today and is gone tomorrow. In the organization of the human relations Simmel says that the unison of nearness and remoteness is an important factor. It all comes down to distance, someone who

1776-581: The further removed familiar strangers were from their routine encounters, the more likely they would be to engage in interaction and break the familiar stranger relationship. But he also observed the opposite: that in routine settings, a person would be more likely to interact with a complete stranger than a familiar stranger as the complete stranger had no pre-existing interpersonal barriers to overcome. Finally, he noted that breaks in routines, such as health emergencies or natural disasters would cause familiar strangers to interact with each other. Milgram attributed

1824-689: The lack of a formally established relationship between themselves and others are nonetheless more familiar than a total stranger. A familiar stranger is an individual who is recognized by another from regularly sharing a common physical space such as a street or bus stop, but with whom one does not interact. First identified by Stanley Milgram in the 1972 paper The Familiar Stranger: An Aspect of Urban Anonymity , it has become an increasingly popular topic in research about social networks and technologically-mediated communication. Consequential strangers are personal connections other than family and close friends. Also known as "peripheral" or "weak" ties, they lie in

1872-635: The level of an acquaintance. But if such individuals meet in a different setting, for example a different city or off the street, they are more likely to introduce themselves than would be perfect strangers, as they have a background of shared experiences. Early experiments on familiar strangers by Milgram involved researchers visiting train stations and university campuses to survey people about who they recognized. They found that 89.5% of people knew at least one familiar stranger. These experiments have been repeated at least once with similar results. One aspect of research on familiar strangers that hampered research

1920-466: The other not any longer to feel outside or out of it, but to feel at home. Indications that visitors are welcome can occur at different levels. For example, a welcome sign , at the national, state, or municipal level, is a road sign at the border of a region that introduces or welcomes visitors to the region. A welcome sign might also be present for a specific community, or an individual building. One architect suggests that "[a] primary distinction between

1968-408: The phenomena of familiar strangers to urban information overload . He noted that perceptual processing of others is much less cognitively taxing than socially processing them. Thus people perceptually recognize the familiar stranger but cut off any further interaction. The 1972 paper was based on two independent research projects conducted in 1971, one at City University of New York and the other at

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2016-473: The sociological literature, Semin and Fiedler concluded that the perception of strangers tends to be based primarily on group membership, and their identity as a member of an out-group , because a stranger is, by definition, not known individually. This may magnify the perceived motives or intentions of the stranger, but may also vary greatly according to the circumstances and the environment. Among environmental factors, physical uncomfortably, such as presence in

2064-439: The stranger has underscored that certain types of strangers develop special powers of observation due to their spatial and social position. ... Theories of the stranger have alluded to in-between strangers such as ambivalent people, the genius, the marginal man and the cosmopolitan, who develop a type of hybrid knowledge or hybrid consciousness that challenges conventional knowledge... they are professional strangers because there

2112-406: The stranger is neither friend nor enemy ; and because he may be both". The distrust of strangers has led to the concept of stranger danger (and the expression "don't talk to strangers"), wherein excessive emphasis is given to teaching children to fear strangers despite the most common sources of abduction or abuse being people known to the child. A stranger is commonly defined as someone who

2160-536: The stranger, and how that determination is made. Interactions with strangers can vary widely depending on the circumstances and the personalities of the people involved. Some people have no difficulty striking up conversations with strangers, while others experience strong discomfort at the prospect of interacting with strangers. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some people are excited by engaging in sex with strangers . Psychologist Dan P. McAdams writes: Knowing where somebody stands on extraversion or neuroticism

2208-399: The temporary nature of their relationship, and the knowledge that the stranger themselves have no access to an individual's wider social circle . As one author put it, the phenomenon is ironically best described by the words of travel writer Paul Theroux , saying: The conversation, like many others I had with people on trains derived an easy candour from the shared journey, the comfort of

2256-617: Was found that a person's set of familiar strangers is highly based on routine and daily behavior. Familiar strangers come into contact typically during a particular time each day and in a particular location. Unlike other social networks that have densely connected neighborhoods, the network of familiar strangers is more diffuse and evenly distributed. This indicates that person's familiar stranger network can quickly stretch an entire metropolitan area. Wi-Fi usage data for university campuses have provided additional datasets for analyzing familiar strangers. These datasets have yielded similar results as

2304-419: Was lack of available data about these relationships. With the advent of widespread social media and urban analytics, researchers have used new datasets to understand familiar strangers, including public-transportation usage and web blog networks. German sociologist Georg Simmel wrote an article discussing the stranger in society. He states that the phenomenon of the “stranger” is the unity of liberation and

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