Psychic distance
perceived separation between objects or contexts
Psychic distance is a perceived difference or distance between objects. The concept is used in aesthetics, international business and marketing, and computer science.
Psychic distance is made up of the Greek word "psychikos" (ψυχικός), an adjective referring to an individual's mind and soul, and "distance", which implies differences between two subjects or objects. Some therefore argue that the concept exists in the mind's eye of the individual and it is their subjective perception that uniquely determines "psychic distance". As a result, it is often viewed as a humanistic reflection of individual acuity and not a collective, organisational or societal perspective. However, in the international business context, psychic distance is frequently measured in terms of national averages or in terms of the national-level differences that influence those perceptions.
In his book, King refers to his preference to use the term "aesthetic distance" rather than psychic distance, as he feels the latter term has misleading connotations in current usage.
Aesthetics
In 1912 Cambridge's Edward Bullough wrote of it in a long paper entitled, Psychical Distance as a factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle which appeared in the British Journal of Psychology. In this he set down in a reasonably complete manner the concept as it applied to the arts.
Evidently, he successfully influenced thinkers 50 years later.
“Psychic distance” enters the record as perceived separation between objects or contexts. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Psychic, distance and perceived can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7256274. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1912.
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This entry incorporates text from “Psychic distance” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.