In
social psychology,
propinquity (; from
Latin propinquitas, "nearness") is one of the main factors leading to
interpersonal attraction. It refers to the physical or psychological
proximity between people. Propinquity can mean physical proximity, a kinship between people, or a similarity in nature between things ("like-attracts-like"). Two people living on the same floor of a building, for example, have a higher propinquity than those living on different floors, just as two people with similar political beliefs possess a higher propinquity than those whose beliefs strongly differ.
Propinquity is also one of the factors, set out by
Jeremy Bentham, used to measure the amount of (
utilitarian)
pleasure in a method known as
felicific calculus.