John B. Calhoun (May 11, 1917 – September 7, 1995) was an
American ethologist and behavioral researcher noted for his studies of population density and its effects on behavior. He claimed that the bleak effects of
overpopulation on
rodents were a grim model for the future of the human race. During his studies, Calhoun coined the term "
behavioral sink" to describe aberrant behaviors in overcrowded population density situations
The 1968
Scientific American article came at a time at which overpopulation had become a subject of great public interest, and had a considerable cultural influence.
[9] The study was directly referenced in some works of fiction,
[9] and may have been an influence on many more.
Calhoun had phrased much of his work in
anthropomorphic terms, in a way that made his ideas highly accessible to a lay audience.
[6] Tom Wolfe wrote about the concept in his article "Oh Rotten Gotham! Sliding Down into the Behavioral Sink", later to be made into the last chapter of
The Pump House Gang.
[9] Lewis Mumford also referenced Calhoun's work in his
The City in History,
[10] stating that
“
No small part of this ugly barbarization has been due to sheer physical congestion: a diagnosis now partly confirmed with scientific experiments with rats – for when they are placed in equally congested quarters, they exhibit the same symptoms of stress, alienation, hostility, sexual perversion, parental incompetence, and rabid violence that we now find in the Megalopolis.
[11]
The
ethologist John B. Calhoun coined the term "
behavioral sink" to describe the collapse in behavior which resulted from overcrowding. Over a number of years, Calhoun conducted over-population experiments on
rats[1] which culminated in 1962 with the publication of an article in the
Scientific American of a study of
behavior under conditions of
overcrowding.
[2] In it, Calhoun coined the term "
behavioral sink". Calhoun's work became used as an animal model of
societal collapse, and his study has become a touchstone of
urban sociology and
psychology in general.
[3]
In it, Calhoun described the behavior as follows:
“
Many [female rats] were unable to carry pregnancy to full term or to survive delivery of their litters if they did. An even greater number, after successfully giving birth, fell short in their maternal functions. Among the males the behavior disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to cannibalism and from frenetic overactivity to a pathological withdrawal from which individuals would emerge to eat, drink and move about only when other members of the community were asleep.
Behavioral sink - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
to those that do advocate this. Obviously there is an over abundance of disenfranchised people out there, and the readily availability of guns...illicitly and otherwise... arguably ups the ante and may enable what would be just another manifesto spouting malcontent into a real social threat.