Methodological considerations in the study of population density and social pathology

Abstract

A previous study of the effects of overcrowding on social behavior is discussed and replicated in this article. Consideration of two major methodological problems — the construction of the class and ethnicity indices and the measurement of social class — leads to reanalysis of the data and to results differing in several significant respects from the original results. Although these new results do not provide a definitive answer to the question of the effects of population density on social pathologies, they do show that studies of the problem are subject to several, possibly severe, measurement problems. Until these are more adequately dealt with, conclusions regarding the relation between density and human behavior must be both cautious and tentative.

Department

Sociology

Publication Date

10-1975

Journal Title

Human Ecology

Publisher

Springer

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1007/BF01531427

Document Type

Article

Rights

© Copyright 2004 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS