... research he also found that there was more rioting and violent crimes committed in high density prisons as opposed to low density prisons. However, this study is low in ecological validity as it was researched in prison surroundings and therefore we cannot generalise to a wider community. This study shows a link between aggression and crowding but does not show whether deindividuation has occurred. Cox's study is supported by Stokols (1976) who identified three conceptual perspectives that may explain why crowding might lead to increased aggression. These three concepts are stimulus overload, behavioural constraints and the ecological model. When is a crowd, a person's sensor will be working more than normal with increased people to look at, increased noise etc... and this may cause the individual to reach a sensory overload and exceed their ability to cope with all that they are asked, leading to negative consequences (EG: aggressive behaviour). The ...

See this essay or coursework document in full right now