individual differences in the perception of crowding

Individual Differences in the Perception of Crowding

Stuart Miller Kathleen M. Nardini*

ABSTRACT." From a consideration of social overload theory it was hypothesized that personality variables concerned with the perception of and the reaction to social stimulation are related to an individual's susceptibility to crowding. Pre- dicted relationships were observed for affiliation and arousal seeking as these variables were positively correlated with the number of figures that subjects placed in a model room until they perceived the room to be crowded. These relationships are discussed as a function of both sex and the subject's perception of the nature of the social situation.

Since Stokols' (1972) distinction between population density as a physical variable and crowding as a psychological state, research and theory have been directed toward a better understanding of the expe- riential nature of crowding. Accordingly, a number of investigators have interpreted crowding as a condit ion of social overload (Desor, 1972; Esser, 1972; Valins & Baum, 1973; Heft & Adams, Note I).

An example of such an approach is that of Desor (1972), who had subjects place stick figures in a model room until one more person would make the room crowded. Utilizing this role-playing technique, she found that architectural features such as partitions, fewer doors, and rectangular rooms, which reduced the overall level of social stimulation, also resulted in more people being placed in the room, i.e., a decrease in feelings of being crowded.

A large amount of subject variability, however, was reported, suggesting the operation of personal variables that may influence the tolerance for, or susceptibility to, crowding. Thus, individual differences in the perception of crowding may be predictable, in part, from a knowledge of one important class of personal variables, personality. If crowding is to be understood in terms of the reception of excessive

*The authors are affil iated with Towson State University, Baltimore, Md. 21204. Requests for reprints should be sent to Stuart Miller, Department of Psychology, Towson State Uni- versity, Baltimore, Md. 21204.

Environmental Psychology and Nonverbal Behavior 2(1), Fall 1977 3

4

ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AND NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR

stimulation from social sources, then personality variables relevant to the perception of, and reaction to, social st imulation should be related to one's tolerance for crowding.

Four such variables were investigated in the present s tudy as potential correlates of the crowding experience, i.e., affiliation, arousal seeking, extraversion, and anxiety. Individuals who are low in affiliation, arousal seeking, and extraversion and high in anxiety would tend to experience negative affect in the presence of others and may be more likely to experience "unwanted social interaction." Thus, for these individuals, relatively low levels of st imulation may produce feelings of being crowded. Put in another way, individuals who (a) prefer being alone (affiliation), (b) prefer a constant, predictable en- v i ronment (arousal seeking), (c) primarily attend to internal stimuli (extraversion), and (d) are already highly anxious (anxiety) would be particularly susceptible to overload from social stimulation. Converse- ly, individuals who are high in affiliation, arousal seeking, and extraversion and low in anxiety would tend to place positive value upon social st imulation as it would be relevant to the satisfaction of important needs-e.g. , the need to be with people, the need for variety and change-and , thus, it would take relatively high levels of social stimulation for these people to feel crowded.

A technique modeled after Desor's (1972) was used to test the preceding hypotheses. Thus, it was felt that affiliation, arousal seeking, and extraversion would be positively correlated, and anxiety neg- atively correlated, with the number of figures that subjects would place in a miniature room until they perceived the room to be crowded.

METHOD

PersonaOty Measures

A total of 50 male and 50 female introductory psychology students at Tow- son State University were group administered the Eysenck Personality Inventory, which yielded separate scores for neuroticism (used here as a measure of anxiety) and extraversion (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1968), the Arousal-Seeking Tendency Scale (Mehrabian & Russell, 1973), and the Affiliative Tendency Scale (Mehrabian, 1970).

Crowding Approximately 1 week later, subjects were individually tested for sensitivity

to crowding using a variant of Desor's (1972) technique. Each subject was shown

5

STUART MILLER, KATHLEEN M. NARDINI

a model room with a 24 in. x 24 in. (60.96 cm x 60.96 cm) fiberboard base and 7.5 in. (19.05 cm) plywood walls. Since I in. of scale was equal to I ft. of real space, the model represented a 24 ft. x 94 ft. x 7.5 ft. (7.32 m x 7.32 m x 2.29 m) room. There were no architectural features in the room, such as windows, doors, or furniture.

A total of 62 male and 62 female figures, the maximum number that would fill up the room when spaced together as closely as possible, were available for placement in the room. An additional figure representing the subject was placed in the center of the room by the experimenter. The figures, with wood bodies and pipe-cleaner arms and legs, could be easily attached to the fiberboard by pins glued to the base of each figure. Colored cardboard heads were used to indicate whether the figure was male (blue) or female (pink). Since the figures were 5.5 in. (I 3.97 cm) tall, they represented people whose height was 66 in. (I .68 m). Subjects attached numbered labels to the figures as they were placed in the room, making it possible to record the position, orientation, and the pattern of placement.

Subjects were instructed to "place as many people as you can here without overcrowding them. In other words, stop placing figures in the room when you feel that one more person would make the room too crowded." Differences in the number of figures placed in the room were taken as a reflection of an individual's tolerance for, or susceptibility to, crowding.

RESULTS

The mean, SD, and t for males and females on each of the four personal i ty var iab les-a f f i l ia t ion , arousal seeking, extraversion, and a n x i e t y - a n d crowding are presented in Table 1. Al l subjects used ap- p rox imate ly an equal number of males and females and arranged them in simi lar patterns so that an overall measure of crowding was used, the total number of f igures placed in the room. Since males and females were s igni f icant ly d i f ferent f rom each other in af f i l ia t ion, arousal seeking, and anxiety, separate correlat ions between personal i ty and crowding were computed for each sex. A f f i l i a t ion was s igni f icant ly related to crowding for both sexes, r (48) = .28, .29 ,p < .05, whi le arousal seeking and extraversion were marginal ly related to crowding for males, r (48) = .24, p < .10. Since the personal i ty variables were not complete ly independent of each other, a stepwise mul t ip le regression analysis using the Biomedical Computer Program (BMDO2R) was also performed. A f f i l i a t ion , however, was the on ly variable that en- tered into the regression equat ion for both males and females, F (1, 48) = 4.18, 4 .32 ,p < . 0 5 .

Subjects seemed to use a group strategy when placing figures in the model room, an outcome that is not surprising considering the

6


Table I

~.~eans, SDs, and ts for ~',iales and Females on Personality

and Crc~;ding :.~easures

Variable s IIale Female

Affiliation 35.38 25.92 53.06 24.37 3.51"*

Arousal Seeking 26.96 30.96 38.98 26.16 2.10"

Extraversion 14.24 3.96 15.12 3.44 1.19

Anxiety 12.70 4.58 14.64 4.07 2.23*

Crowding 27.56 14.28 26.88 15.18 .23

~< .o5

**2 "= .Ol

fact that the situation was represented as an interactive one. It appeared as if subjects viewed themselves as members of a group and placed other groups of figures around the room, frequently filling up their own group first and then proceeding to fill up the other groups. Thus, it seems plausible that in perceiving the situation the subjects' unit of analysis was the group rather than the individual; consequent- ly, the number of groups placed in the room may be a more appropriate measure of crowding than the number of individuals placed in the room. Therefore, a second correlational analysis was performed with group, rather than individual, measures of crowding.

It was necessary to develop criteria for determining whether or not a particular array of figures constituted a group. Generally, groups were defined according to the relative proximity of the figures, the direction that the figures were facing, and the sequential ordering of the figures. More specifically, the nearest neighbor index (Clark & Evans, 1954) was computed for each subject. Thus, for each figure placement the distance to the nearest neighbor was determined and then averaged over the total number of figures. It was felt that this average minimum interfigure distance could be used to aid in determining a subject's conception of within-group interpersonal distance. First, obvious groups were identified, those whose members (a) had nearest neighbor distances that were below the mean (for that subject) and (b) were oriented in the same direction (either in a side-to- side or face-to-face arrangement). Then, other figures that were close

7


to the group (figures whose nearest neighbors were already identified as group members) were inspected. Again, if the angle of body orientation was similar to that of the group members, these figures were also included as members of the group. In many cases group members were put into the room sequentially, so that the ordering of the figures helped to reinforce the determination of groups made according to figure distance and orientation. Each figure that was not included in a group, using the method previously described, was considered to be alone.

In this manner it was possible to identify two distinct types of figure arrangements: (1) All figures were put into groups of two or more (G). (2) Most figures were grouped while other appeared to be alone, groups and singles (GS). Although most subjects clearly fell in- to these two categories, for other subjects (eight males and eight females), it was difficult to determine whether each figure was alone or was a member of one large group surrounding the subject. These (lat- ter) subjects were dropped from subsequent analyses. Thus, through this (group) approach a number of componen t measures of crowding were derived: (a) own-group size (the number of figures in the group of which the subject is a part); (b) other-group size (the mean number of figures in groups other than one's own); (c) number of groups; and (d) number of singles (for GS subjects only).

Only personality variables that seemed to have promise as predictors of susceptibility to crowding in the original analysis, affiliation and arousal seeking, were included in thegroup analysis of crowding. Extraversion, which was marginally related to crowding for males, was not included since the partial correlation between extraversion and crowding with the effect of affiliation removed was only r (48) = = .10, p > .05, revealing that only the social componen t of extraversion, affiliation, was related to crowding. On the other hand, although arousal seeking did not significantly add to the prediction of crowding in the regression analysis for males, the partial correlation between arousal seeking and crowding with the effect of affiliation removed was hardly changed, r (48) = .22 , p > .05, indicating that arousal seeking may be predicting an aspect of crowding independent of that accounted for by affiliation, at least for males.

Since affiliation is defined in terms of belonging to groups, it vas initially hypothesized that this trait was related to group size; that is, affiliation may affect one's judgment of within-group crowding. Arousal seeking, however, may be related to the number of groups as others may be perceived as having arousal-producing properties, therefore serving as potential sources of st imulation for the arousal seeker.

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Furthermore, because of the nature of the personality correlations with the original measure of crowding, the differentiation of arousal seeking and affiliation, as predictors of various aspects of the crowding experience, was expected primarily for the male data.

Thus, a series of Pearson product-moment correlations was computed between both affiliation and arousal seeking and the various component measures of crowding for the total sample as well as for the G and GS subgroups. Since the analysis was performed for both the male and the female data, a total of 40 correlations were involved. Therefore, one would expect two of them to be significant by chance alone using an alpha level of .05. This figure may be further inflated since the correlations were not all independent of each other, for (a) multiple response measures were taken from the same subjects and (b) correlations were reported for the wholegroup as well as parts of a group. However, the primary interest in this additional analysis was in the general pattern of the outcomes rather than in their signifi- cance, particularly as they shed light upon the interpretation of the relationships found in the initial set of correlations. Furthermore, rather than representing a random inspection of all possible effects, the examination of the data was guided by theoretical considerations, hypotheses concerning the relationship between personality and social perception, which were suggested by the tendency of subjects to arrange figures in groups. Thus, the authors adopted a position similar to that of Keppel (1973, chap. 8) with respect to post-hoc testing procedures.

An inspection of the (group) correlational data presented in Ta- ble 2 reveals the following trends: (1) For males, affiliation was related to group size, while arousal seeking was related to the number of groups. (2) For females, affiliation was somewhat related to group size and was also related to the number of groups, while arousal seeking was marginally related to the number of singles (in the GS group). (3) Most of the significant correlations were found in the GS group. Generally, confirmation was obtained for the hypothesized differen- tial relationship of affiliation and arousal seeking with the group measures of crowding although (a) sex appears to moderate the correlations and (b) the predictions seem to be confirmed for only a subset of the subjects (the GS group).

In an attempt to determine whether there were any consistent (trait) differences between individuals who used the O and GS group- ing strategies, the two groups were compared with respect to each of the personality variables for which data was available--affiliation, arousal seeking, extraversion, and anxiety; however, none of the re-

9

STUART MILLER, KATHLEEN M. NARDINJ

Table 2

Correlations between Personality and Component Measures of Crowding

Crowdin~ Measures

Group n

~les 42

G 2O

GS 22

Females 42

G 13

GS 29

Males 42

G 2O

GS 22

Females 42

G 13

GS 29

Own- Other- group size group size

Affiliation

.56~** .32"~"

• 31 .42*

• 7~ ~* .29

.21 .29*

• 07 .09

.28 .38"*

Arousal Seeking

.OO -.16

-.30 -oll

• 22 -.21

• 07 -.04

-.24 -.28

.I~ .o5

!~umber Number of groups of singles

.o5

- .I0

• 15 -.ll

°32**

- .17

• 54*** .06

.31"*

-.02

.61-** - .oi

.oo

- .42

.06 .32"

*J~ ~ .i0

**24 .O5

~'2 < .oi

suiting ts was significant (p > .05). Similarly, t tests did not reveal any differences between the G and GS groups on any of the measures of crowding, total number of figures, number of groups, own-group size, and other-group size (p > .05).

DISCUSSION

The present results demonstrate the fruitfulness of a social overload approach to the understanding of crowding as a phenomenal experience, as it was possible to predict individual differences in the

10


per¢-eption of crowding according to social-stimulation-related personality traits, i.e., affiliation, arousal seeking. However, the amount of variance accounted for, using the original measure of crowding (the total number of figures placed in the room), was quite small. A more analytical approach, which involved making inferences about the subjects' perception of the nature of the ongoing social situation from the various figure arrangements, helped to both amplify and clarify the relationship between personality and crowding. The strict- ly quantitative approach of simply adding up the number of individual figures (using experimenter-defined units) ignores the fact that people are active social beings who organize their environment according to their needs, goals, and expectations about the nature of social situations. Along these lines, Knowles (Note 2) found that the formation of individuals into larger social units can affect the perception of crowding. Thus, the complexity of the phenomenon of crowding cer- tainly demands a more analytical, as well as a more qualitative, approach where the person as well as the situation is taken into account, a trend amply demonstrated by recent formulations of crowding (Saegert, Mackintosh, & West, 1975; Stokols, 1972, 1976; Worche[ & Teddlie, 1976; Heft & Adams, Note t).

First, it appears useful, when considering contexts in which individuals are likely to be members of groups (interactive situations), to distinguish between within-group crowding and crowding from others. For males, judgments of within-group crowding (the number of people it takes for individuals to feel that a group, particularly their own group, is crowded) seem to be based on the need for affiliation, for individuals high in that need tolerate larger group sizes (before feeling crowded) than do individuals who are low in affiliation. On the other hand, judgments of crowding from others seem to be affected by the need for change and variety, since individuals who are arousal seekers tolerate more people (other groups) in the room before feeling crowded than individuals who are low in arousal seeking tendency. Thus, it appears as if the nature of the social stimulus deter- mines which personality trait influences one's perception of crowding. Since individuals most likely perceive the group and its members as being relevant to the satisfaction of affiliative needs, it would be reasonable to assume that inferences about the nature of the group, including whether or not it is crowded, would also be related to affiliation. Similarly, males probably perceive others (at least other groups) as potential sources of stimulation rather than as potential friends, so that one's arousal-seeking tendency becomes a salient factor in mak-

11


ing judgments about other people, including whether or not there are too many of them.

For females, judgments of crowding seem to be more uniformly affected by the need for affiliation, as significant relationships were reported for both group size and number of groups. Since females are expected to be pro-social (Saegert et al., 1975), affiliative needs may dominate a woman's perception of group situations, including both the perception of group members and of others. Indeed, the typical response of women to crowded situations is to become more cohe- sive and cooperative (Epstein & Karlin, 1975; Freedman, Levy, Bu- chanan, & Price, 1972). However, the relationship between arousal seeking and singles (in the GS group) is suggestive of the salience of the need for stimulation with respect to a woman's perception of people who are alone in a group setting.

It is puzzling as to why the previously discussed relationships were observed primarily for the GS group. Although it was not possible to distinguish between the O and GS groups on the basis of the available (personality) data, there may have been differences in the way the two groups perceived the social situation present in the room. By definition, G subjects arranged the figures so that every individual was affiliated with a group, while GS subjects perceived the situation in a more heterogeneous way, where some people were interacting in groups and others were alone. Perhaps GS subjects are more sensitive to social stimuli, making finer discriminations in the social sphere so that socially relevant personality traits, e.g., affiliation, are more like- [y to influence their perception than that of G subjects. In this con- text it may have been unfortunate that the nature of the ongoing activity was represented to subjects generally (an informal interacting situation) rather than choosing a single specific activity, as different subjects may have imagined themselves in different kinds of interactive situations. However, if the G and GS subjects differed in this way, one might expect the groups to differ also in the number of figures placed in the room; yet, no such differences were observed.

Finally, the authors feel that, at this point, caution should be exercised in generalizing from the present study, where a projective measure of perceived crowding was used, to naturalistic situations in which crowding is immediately experienced as a complex system involving perceptual, cognitive, affective, physiological, and behavioral components. Thus, there is some question as to whether appropriate and sufficient stimuli are present, in a method of scaled-down rooms and figures with imaginal instructions, in order to produce the full

12


nature and richness of the crowding experience. However, some en- couragement can be taken from the fact that recent environmental psychological studies involving the use of projective techniques (primarily Desor's model room) have provided evidence for the validity of these methods by (a) successfully replicating the results of naturalistic studies of personal (Desor, 1970) and social space (Knowles, Kreuser, Haas, Hyde, & Schuchart, 1976), (b) generally confirming predictions from social overload and behavioral constraint models of crowding with respect to such variables as architectural features (De- sor, 1972), group size (Knowles, Note 2), and environmental preferences (Cozby, 1973), and (c) demonstrating, as expected, that crowded living condit ions-in dormitories (Valins & Baum, 1973) and pris- ons (Paulus, Cox, McCain, & Chandler, 1975)-are associated with relatively low thresholds for crowding. Still, it would be important to determine, through the use of field studies, whether personality fac- tors, such as affiliation and arousal seeking, are associated with vary- ing degrees of sensitivity to crowded conditions in the real world.

REFERENCES

Clark, P. J., & Evans, F.C. Distance to nearest neighbour as a measure of spatial relationships in populations. Ecology, 1954, 35, 445-453.

Cozby, P. C. Effects of density, activity, and personality on environmental preferences. ]our- nal o f Research in Personality, 1973, I, 45-60.

Desor, J. The psychology of crowding: An experimental investigation {Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University, 1970). Dissertation Abstracts International, 1970, 30, 5708B- 5709B. (University Microfilms No. 70-$763)

Desor, ]. Toward a psych ological theory of crowding. Journal o f Personality and Social Psy- chology, 1972, 21, 79-83.

Epstein, Y. M., & Karlin, R. A. Effects of acute experimental crowding. Journal o f Applied Social Psychology, 1975, 5, 34-53.

Esser, A. H. A biosocial perspective on crowding. In J. F. Wohlwill & D. H. Carson (Eds.), Environment and the social sciences: Perspectives and applications. Wash ington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1972.

Eysenck, H. ]., & Eysenck, S. G. Manual: Eysenck Personality Inventory. San Diego: Edu- cational Testing Service, 1968.

Freedman, J. L., Levy, A. S., Buchanan, R. W., & Price, J. Crowding and human aggressive- ness. Journal o f Experimental Social Psychology, 1972, 8, 528-548.

Keppel, G. Design and analysis: A researcher's handbook. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, 1973.

Knowles, E. S., Kreuser, B., Haas, S., Hyde, M., & Schuchart, G. E. Group size and the ex- tension of social space boundaries, journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 1976, 33, 647-654.

Mehrabian, A. The developmental and validation of measures of affiliative tendency and sensitivity to rejection. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1970, 30, 417- 428.

Mehrabian, A., & Russell, J. A. A measure of arousal-seeking tendency. Environment and Behavior, 1973, 5, 315-333.

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Paulus, P., Cox, V., McCain, G., & Chandler, J. Some effects of crowding in a prison environment. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1975, 5, 86-91.

Saegert, S., Mackintosh, E., & West, S. Two studies of crowding in urban public spaces. En- vironment and Behavior, 1975, 7, 159-184.

Stokols, D. A social-psychological model of human crowding phenomena. Journal of the American Institute o f Planners, 1972, 38, 72-83.

Stokols, D. The experience of crowding in primary and secondary environments. Environ- ment and Behavio G 1976, 8, 49-86.

Valins, S., & Baum, A. Residential group size, social interaction, and crowding. Environ- ment and Behavior, 1973, 5, 421-439.

Worchel, S., & Teddlie, C. The experience of crowding: A two-factor theory.journal o f Per- sonality and Social Psychology, 1976, 34, 30-40.

Reference Notes

1. Heft, H., & Adams, J. R. Socialstimulation and the crowding experience. Paper presented at the meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Philadelphia, April 1974.

2. Knowles, E. S. Social influences on the perception o f crowding: Effects o f setting and subgroup size. Paper presented at the meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Associa- tion, Chicago, May 1976.

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