Psychological Effects on Crowding, Population Density and Noise

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The variety of effects on individuals stimulates from population density and noise. The effects could range from easy annoyances to critical intrusive anxiety creating illnesses. When personal space, privacy, and territory are infringed upon by people or short lived and continuous noises; (Straub, 2007) accommodations become needed in acknowledging to prevent psychological effects of crowding as well as discouraging aggression, anxiety, and frustration with the ongoing increase in population density, territory, personal space, and privacy.
Privacy is defined as an individual selectively controlling access to one’s self or a group (Altman, 1977). Privacy entails the reigns of privileged information about the individual along with control over associations with other individuals (Hutchinson & Kowalski, 1999). As society evolves, technology has made privacy a global issue with concerns over private information of individuals; and has demanded a balance among public information versus private. The privacy of situations and cultures varies as well as needs and values with individuals (Clayton & Meyers, 2008).
Personal space can be defined as physical area that an individual chooses to retain between personal relationships (Hutchinson & Kowalski, 1999). The two components to retaining privacy are personal space and territory. Sommer defines personal space as the area contained around the individuals body that is not visually seen which another individual cannot violate (1969). Although another individual by the name Altman (1981) says that personal space is interchangeable very much like privacy it could be different for every individual, scenario, and belief. Personal space is mediated and procreated within the brain accordin...

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...ion are characteristic of territoriality, privacy, and personal space. Limited space has a profound effect on the human psychological because it is going to vary from one person to the next. With limited space in urban areas it is likely for aggressive and violent behaviors to spike, social interactions between community members becomes negative, and poor academic performance is also effected (Clayton & Meyers, 2008). Noises which are annoying and intrude on an individual’s quietness could be a problem, but it depends on the perception or the way the individual interprets the noise whether it is intrusive or not (Straub, 2007). Sometimes individuals have little control over the noise and it causes anxiety and stress, but the exercise of noise reduction strategies have been beneficial to people that struggle with noisy annoyances ranging from simple to complex.

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