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Field Note #086 |The Proximity Bias
Description
The talent was distributed. The trust was local.
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Why do people we encounter in corridors and doorway conversations gradually begin to seem more capable than colleagues whose work arrives quietly in an inbox?
In Field Note #086, we examine the psychology and spatial geometry of proximity bias.
Moving past the standard remote-work debates, this episode traces how Thomas Allen's 50-meter communication curve, passive face-time inferences (Elsbach et al., 2010), and memory retrieval shortcuts shape who gets trusted, mentored, and promoted (Bloom et al.,2015).
We also examine the strongest counterargument—why physical proximity genuinely accelerates feedback for junior staff (Emanuel et al., 2023)—and how managers can separate low-latency convenience from actual capability.
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The talent was distributed. The trust was local.
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