Suchergebnisse

The Magh Mela, an annual Hindu festival held at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, attracts about 150,000 pilgrims who stay for a month in campsites maintained by religious organizations. This study examined territoriality at the campsites in terms of (a) observed characteristics—including personalizations (e.g., flags, banners) and barriers (e.g., fences, gates)—and (b) behavioral responses to an experimental intrusion by 1 or 2 intruder-interviewers who were either male or female. Across dependent measures, larger organizations and more fundamentalist organizations were more territorial. Results from the experiment indicated that territorial defense, in the form of a faster response to an intrusion, was evidenced more for female than male intruders and more for 1 than 2 intruders. These findings suggest that the concept of territorial defense should be broadened beyond physically threatening intrusions to include symbolically threatening intrusions (e.g., an intrusion by a single woman).

Two studies were conducted to examine the territorial behavior of Blacks and Whites who were intruded on while drinking at a water fountain. In the first study, an experiment, there was a significant interaction of intrusion and race of drinker: White subjects left faster when intruded on by a White confederate than when not intruded on, whereas Black subjects stayed longer when intruded on by a White confederate than when not intruded on. In the second study, observations of same-race and cross-race intrusions revealed that cross-race intruders waited significantly longer before intruding than did same-race intruders, and drinkers stayed significantly longer after intrusions by cross-race than by same-race intruders.

Two studies investigated how temperature and crowding affect attitudes and behavior. In the first study, passengers in three-wheeled autorickshaws were interviewed under one of three levels of crowding and at one of three temperature ranges during February (M = 80.3°F), April (M = 88.3°F), and May (M = 99.2°F). Analyses revealed a main effect for crowding on most dependent measures, a main effect for temperature on a few measures, and interactions of these variables on measures of crowding and general affect. In the second study, passengers riding under crowded or noncrowded conditions were told of the sensory/emotional effects of either crowding or heat, or they were not told anything. Results indicated that crowding produced negative effects and that telling people about the effects of heat gave participants the feeling of greater perceived control as compared to telling them about the effects of crowding.

How do people assemble in large groups? Do they come as individuals, do they move as an entire group from one location to another, or do they come in small groups of two or three? In this paper, we examine this issue in the context of the most prototypical of crowd events, the storming of the Bastille in 1789. We use data about the Vainqueurs (stormers) de la Bastille drawn from the French National Archives to indirectly test four possible mechanisms by which the Vainqueurs came to the Bastille: as individuals, through social networks, by proximity to gathering places, or through formal associations. Spatial analyses of their addresses, coupled with an eyewitness account of how people joined the Vainqueurs, suggest that social networks and proximity to gathering places best explain who stormed the Bastille, although there is evidence that some people came alone and some came through formal associations.

Male and female residents of seven slums in New Delhi, India, four slums in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and four slums in Islamabad, Pakistan, were interviewed about their reasons for migrating to and their satisfaction with their city. Although the single most commonly reported reason for moving was in search of work, significant proportions of migrants gave multiple reasons, and, particularly in Dhaka and Islamabad, many respondents partly attributed their move to fate. Results suggested that the attribution to fate was not due to either religion or poverty, but was related to perceived personal control. More generally, the reasons that respondents gave for migrating to the city were significantly related to their mental and physical health, to their ratings of their home and the city environment, and to their satisfaction with the city.

This study examined the impact of legal, extralegal, and contextual variables on prison sentence lengths for violent felons sentenced in Georgia from 1981 to 1989. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted for all violent crimes and separately for four types of violent crime: murder and manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery. Results indicated that the legally relevant factors—seriousness of the crime and number of convictions—had the strongest influence on sentence lengths. Across most violent crimes, male, older, and better-educated offenders received longer sentences than those without such characteristics. Political conservatism had a positive effect on sentence lengths for overall violent crime, robbery, and aggravated assault. Interaction effects for political conservatism and the number of convictions were significant, indicating that sentence length increased disproportionately as a court's conservatism and the felon's number of convictions increased. Findings suggest that political conservatism is an important contextual feature affecting prison sentence length.

Stokols and Shumaker suggested that places can be characterized in terms of whether they are occupied primarily by individuals, aggregates, or groups. The authors propose a fourth type of place, one occupied primarily by groups within an aggregate. This research used a multimethod approach to examine whether people go to football games alone or with others and, if with others, how many others. Observations of cars entering parking lots or parking decks indicated that on average each vehicle contained about 2.5 individuals. Surveys of individuals about to enter the stadium also indicated that on average people were in groups of about four. Computer vision tracking of pedestrians next to the stadium about 2 hr before the game indicated that, although about one quarter of the pedestrians were alone, groups averaged about four. Thus, the results suggested that informal groups became larger as a function of proximity to the stadium. Analyses of the space occupied by groups of different sizes indicated that as groups got larger, the amount of space per person got smaller. These results, which indicate that people go to football games in small groups, have implications for the built environment and security.