Stuart Valins

Residential Group Size, Social Interaction, and Crowding

at Stony Brook require 34 students to share common bathroom and lounge facilities while suite-design dormitories require four or six students to share these common facilities. Data that will be presented suggest that the interior architecture of the corridor-design dormitories requires residents to interact with too many others, that interactions too often occur at inconvenient times or with disliked others, and that such a socially overloaded environment leads residents to experience stress and develop potentially stress-reducing behaviors.

Architectural Mediation of Residential Density and Control: Crowding and The Regulation Of Social Contact

Publisher Summary In this chapter, the Architectural mediation of residential density and control: crowding and regulation of social contact, is discussed. The chapter emphasizes that the study of the physical environment is becoming increasingly more sophisticated and widespread. This chapter is a product of these recent developments and it illustrates the relationships among physical variables, such as architecture, social stressors, such as crowding and behavior. The chapter discusses density and the arousal of crowding stress wherein group size and excessive stimulation, crowding and control, and response to anticipated crowding are discussed. The chapter also discusses social density in residential settings, residential experience and the social use of space, persistent stress and social withdrawal, reactance and helplessness, group development and the modification of stress.

The Role of Group Phenomena in the Experience of Crowding.

Recent distinctions between the physical concept of density and the psychological experience of crowding (e.g., Stokols, 1972; Saegert, 1973) have resulted in a new emphasis in the study of human crowding phenomena. Rather than considering density as a sufficient condition to arouse the perception of crowding, this emphasis suggests that high density leads to perceptions of spatial limitation, social overload, and high interference potential, depending on the particular configuration of personal, environmental, and social elements active in the setting. These intervening elements, which include the physical and social properties of a setting as well as more

Controlled Test of the Analgesic and Relaxant Properties of Nitrous Oxide

The pain-reducing and calming properties of nitrous oxide mixed with oxygen were evaluated with the use of placebo and standard control groups. Subjects under nitrous oxide had higher pain thresholds and a higher tolerance for shock than placebo and control subjects. They also reported themselves as more relaxed than did placebo and control subjects.