The Effects of Residential Crowding Experience on Reactivity to Laboratory Crowding and Noise¹

Abstract

Sixty male and 60 female subjects previously classified as high and low on a residential crowding experience scale participated in an experiment involving a 2 × 3 × 2 × 2 (density, noise, crowding experience, gender) factorial design. The research was undertaken primarily to determine the influence of previous residential crowding experience as tapped by the Crowding Experience Scale (CES) on reactivity to the environmental stressors of noise and crowding. The results indicated that exposure to environmental stressors produced a deleterious effect on complex task performance and generated negative affect in the respondents. Interestingly, respondents who had reported high levels of experience with crowding showed relatively more crowding tolerance by performing significantly better on cognitively complex tasks (complex anagrams and story comprehension) and exhibiting more positive affect in conditions of high density as compared to low experience of crowding respondents. Reactions to noise were not influenced by crowding experience. Thus, prior experience of crowding as measured by the CES appears to influence reactivity to density in other settings.

High density neighborhoods: Who enjoys them?

“…Maxwell, 1996;Evans and Saegert, 2000), institutional buildings such as jails, or in laboratory settings (e.g. Baum and Koman, 1976;Nagar et al, 1988), the conclusions were that high density in any setting has mainly negative emotional and cognitive effects. This, despite the fact that some researches found no such effects (as already indicated by Baum and Paulus, 1987), and almost all researchers ignored the possible positive effects on the emotions or cognition of those experiencing high density in other settings.…”

Employee Reactions to the Physical Work Environment: The Role of Childhood Residential Attributes1

“…Previous theory and research in the areas of environmental psychology and sociology suggest that individuals' childhood experiences in residences and in communities substantially influence the way they respond to their current work and nonwork environments (Gifford, 1987;Paulus, 1988;Wohlwill, 1970). For example, the desensitization perspective (Paulus, 1988) argues that exposure to dense conditions early in life should decrease sensitivity to dense conditions experienced in later years.…”

“…Previous theory and research in the areas of environmental psychology and sociology suggest that individuals' childhood experiences in residences and in communities substantially influence the way they respond to their current work and nonwork environments (Gifford, 1987;Paulus, 1988;Wohlwill, 1970). For example, the desensitization perspective (Paulus, 1988) argues that exposure to dense conditions early in life should decrease sensitivity to dense conditions experienced in later years. Similarly, Wohlwill's (1970Wohlwill's ( , 1974 application to environmental psychology of Helson's (1 964) adaptation-level theory posits that childhood environments cause a shift in an individual's adaptation level such that an individual who experienced dense childhood environments should respond more favorably to subsequent high-density adult environments than an individual who as a child had little experience with dense conditions.…”

“…These theoretical perspectives suggest that individuals who grow up in large, urban areas or in high-density homes should react less negatively (e.g., lower experienced crowding) to high-density adult environments than individuals who spent their childhoods in rural communities or in low-density homes. In addition, both the adaptation-level and desensitization perspectives suggest that individuals acquire environment-relevant coping strategies and tolerances as a result of their early experiences in residential and community settings (Nagar, Pandey, & Paulus, 1988;Paulus, 1988;Wohlwill, 1974). These acquired strategies then influence individuals' effectiveness in dealing with environmental circumstances experienced as adults (Altman, 1975;Wohlwill, 1974).…”

The Effects of Street Noise and Field Independency on Police Officers' Shooting Behavior

“…Distraction endangers such concentration and will therefore be experienced as annoying, resulting in increased emotion (Hockey, 1979;Smith, 1989). Recently, a number of social psychological studies concerning the relationship between noise (a form of distraction) and emotion have been conducted (Davidson, Hagmann, & Baum, 1990;Nagar & Pandey, 1987;Nagar, Pandey, & Paulus, 1988;Tooley, Brigham, Maass, & Bothwell, 1987). However, in all these experiments "irrelevant" noise was used, like white noise (Tooley et al, 1987) or noise not very suitable in the context (e.g., a person talking Armenian while subjects worked on a number comparison task [Davidson et al, 19901, a cassette of a ringing alarm clock while subjects 'Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to AIdert Vrij, Psychology Department, University of Portsmouth, King Charles Street, Portsmouth PO1 2ER, England. completed anagrams "agar & Pandey, 19871, or noise recorded during the peak hours in a congested city market while subjects completed anagrams "agar et al, 19881).…”