Emotional effect of overcrowding.

Emotional effect of overcrowding. [+ favourites]

I recall a socialogy class in 1971 in which we discussed the research of a Cornell University researcher.
I do not recall his name and have looked for it and his paper for over 10 years now. If it anyone can help me I would appreciate it. In his research of over 100 species of animals, he observed the same behavior. What he did was take two males and females of the species and contained them in a large cage. No matter now big the population became he added sufficent food and water and kept the area clean.
He observed that at some point the population became so great that the "normal" behavior changes. Females would start ignoring their offspring and in some cases even kill them. Off spring would often attack the parents, Off spring would form form "packs" and attack other off spring and adults and even kill them (food and water was not an issue). Some of the animals would race around the cage in almost endless motion until they were slept in exhaustion and repeat it on awaking. The population would start to decrease, because mating became rare occurance, even in juvenile animals.
Looking at gangs today, and parents harming their children, and children attacking their parents--have made me wonder if this could be the results of overcrowding. No more open spaces for people to easly move about in.

"Life is an adventure of discovery."

That sounds like an interesting social experiment, not sure what the ethics commitees would make of it today though?
I would say it has something to do with power struggles and who has the dominant power in the group. The smaller the space and the larger the group, surely there are more vying for the control position over everyone else. The alpha male type situation. - just shows what boredom does to one, I certainly found that after a week in the confined space of a caravan holiday I'm ready to kill my family!

""Each child holds the world in an open hand to mould it into any shape they choose.""

I don't see this as a very cryptic result... it seems intuitive and predictable. The psychological solution to the problem may be the thing of interest, however - what is it that makes violence the result of a lack of space? The easiest answer is competition for space.

However, the idea that space is required or even necessary for a species to exist is in itself questionable and animalistic. Regardless of this, the core of the problem is that the animals were not intelligent enough to band together to break free of the test - therein lies the most effective solution to the problem of overcrowding, and as we already know, there is more than enough space for everything in the universe.

Therefore, the solution to such problems is communication and the ability to observe that space is infinite, and it is only through communication that a group held in close proximity can overcome technological obstacles in order to exploit this infinite space.

The alternative is violence. Of course animals do not have a cerebral cortex and therefore their ability to evolve with their environment is limited almost entirely to their physical evolution. Humans on the other hand have more than enough capacity to absolutely choose and succeed immensely at the alternative to violence.

It's one of many perspectives that lead us to the main question - do we need to fight each other or can we band together so that we have so much space and resources that we fight to be close to one another?

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."