| Abstract: | Posits that, despite the increased salience of overcrowding as a social issue, it has generated little behavioral research among human Ss. Experimental evidence from the laboratory is slight and partly inconsistent; problems of definition and measurement obscure analysis in the field. A prevailing view, however, associates high population density with indexes of social and psychological malaise. This article reviews this position in light of seminal comparative and social experimentation. While it is considered difficult to draw firm conclusions from the existing meager body of data, the balance of evidence appears not to support any simple causal relationship between density and socio- or psychopathology. Prognoses of the horrors of overcrowding are judged to be imprecise and premature. Recent research has tended to distinguish between density and crowding, referring to the former in terms of sociospatial factors and to the latter in terms of individual perception. It is suggested that any theory of crowding should encompass the intrapsychic case and that research should attempt to uncover evidence, if any, of neurophysiological responses to sociospatial variations in density. (58 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
