Why do we stare at the floor or ceiling in the elevator?

When two people, strangers to each other, happen to be in a small space, they stand as far as possible from each other. Have you ever wondered why this happens?

Researchers claim that this is an automatic instinctive reaction to threat, which makes us act as if we need to defend against something, protecting ourselves.
It is a genetically programmed reaction after thousands of years of survival, co-habitation and evolution. It is probably caused by the fact that, as history has proven, the co-existence of people in a tight space has almost always had a violent outcome.

In experiments conducted in Dario Maestripieri’s laboratory, in the University of Chicago, macaco Rhesus monkeys react in the same way. When two monkeys are placed in the same small cage, they do what people do in the elevator: they try to avoid conflict. They avoid eye contact and if their eyes meet, they show their teeth–a gesture similar to our smile.