136:", population peaked at 2,200 mice even though the habitat was built to tolerate a total population of 4000. Having reached a level of high population density, the mice began exhibiting a variety of abnormal, often destructive, behaviors including refusal to engage in courtship, and females abandoning their young. By the 600th day, the population was on its way to extinction. Though physically able to reproduce, the mice had lost the social skills required to mate.
1535:
105:. He separated the space into four rooms. Every room was specifically created to support a dozen matured brown Norwegian rats. Rats could maneuver between the rooms by using the ramps. Since Calhoun provided unlimited resources, such as water, food, and also protection from predators as well as from disease and weather, the rats were said to be in "rat utopia" or "mouse paradise", another psychologist explained.
88:
121:
in which the colony was maintained. As many as 60 of the 80 rats in each experimental population would assemble in one pen during periods of feeding. Individual rats would rarely eat except in the company of other rats. As a result extreme population densities developed in the pen adopted for eating, leaving the others with sparse populations.
120:
The common source of these disturbances became most dramatically apparent in the populations of our first series of three experiments, in which we observed the development of what we called a behavioral sink. The animals would crowd together in greatest number in one of the four interconnecting pens
116:
Many were unable to carry the 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
40:
between 1958 and 1962. In the experiments, Calhoun and his researchers created a series of "rat utopias" – enclosed spaces where rats were given unlimited access to food and water, enabling unfettered population growth. Calhoun coined the term "behavioral sink" in a
February 1, 1962,
159:
of others while eating that they began to associate feeding with the company of other rats. Calhoun eventually found a way to prevent this by changing some of the settings and thereby decreased mortality somewhat, but the overall pathological consequences of overcrowding remained.
257:. This has been seen in urban populations that have long been noted to have lower fertility than their rural counterparts, but growing use of especially digital media is likely to end up depressing rural population growth as well. As of today this primarily concerns
200:
Controversy exists over the implications of the experiment. Psychologist
Jonathan Freedman's experiment recruited high school and university students to carry out a series of experiments that measured the effects of density on human behavior. He measured their
224:
had become a subject of great public interest, and had a considerable cultural influence. However, such discussions often oversimplified the original findings in various ways. It should however be noted that the work has another message than, for example,
117:
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. The social organization of the animals showed equal disruption.
184:
Calhoun himself saw the fate of the population of mice as a metaphor for the potential fate of humankind. He characterized the social breakdown as a "spiritual death", with reference to bodily death as the
163:
Further, researchers argued that "Calhoun's work was not simply about density in a physical sense, as number of individuals-per-square-unit-area, but was about degrees of social interaction." "
1004:
101:(NIMH) in 1954, he began numerous experiments with rats and mice. During his first tests, he placed around 32 to 56 rats in a 10-by-14-foot (3.0 m × 4.3 m) cage in a barn in
128:
Following his earlier experiments with rats, Calhoun later created his "Mortality-Inhibiting
Environment for Mice" in 1968: a 101-by-101-inch (260 cm × 260 cm) cage for
1038:
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with food and water replenished to support any increase in population, which took his experimental approach to its limits. In his most famous experiment in the series, "
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In the experiments in which the behavioral sink developed, infant mortality ran as high as 96 percent among the most disoriented groups in the population.
337:
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Ramsden, Edmund and Jon Adams. 2009. Escaping the
Laboratory:The Rodent Experiments of John B. Calhoun & Their Cultural Influence, p.22.
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article titled "Population
Density and Social Pathology" on the rat experiment. He would later perform similar experiments on
536:
891:
98:
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139:
Calhoun retired from NIMH in 1984, but continued to work on his research results until his death on
September 7, 1995.
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213:, competitiveness, and general unpleasantness. He declared to have found no appreciable negative effects in 1975.
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in social diffusion have
Calhoun's empirical predictions apply to a much wider segment of society as well.
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Calhoun's worries primarily concerned a human population surge and a potentially independent increase in
151:
crowding of rats to which the term "behavioral sink" refers is thought to have resulted from the earlier
102:
376:
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1240:
1083:
Oversocialization: An
Introduction How Socialization Goes Awry and The Jekyll/Hyde Case of Credentials.
1383:
1081:
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605:
527:
Forty
Studies that Changed Psychology : Explorations into the History of Psychological Research
1579:
1505:
1188:
793:"Escaping the Laboratory: the rodent experiments of John B. Calhoun & their cultural influence"
478:"Escaping the Laboratory: The Rodent Experiments of John B. Calhoun & Their Cultural Influence"
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696:
36:. The term and concept derive from a series of over-population experiments Calhoun conducted on
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The Hidden
Dimension: An Anthropologist Examines Humans' Use of Space in Public and in Private
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Plumbing the 'Behavioral Sink', Medical Historian Examines NIMH Experiments in Crowding.
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Population, National Research Council (US) Committee on; Casterline, John B. (2001),
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terms, in a way that made his ideas highly accessible to a lay audience.
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How 1960s Mouse Utopias Led to Grim Predictions for Future of Humanity
632:"Death squared: The explosive growth and demise of a mouse population"
78:
Calhoun's early experiments with rats were carried out on farmland at
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156:
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Behavioral Sink: The Overpopulation Experiments Of John B. Calhoun.
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Diffusion Processes and Fertility Transition: Selected Perspectives
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109:
16:
Conceptual collapse in behavior which can result from overcrowding
1295:
703:
NLM Announces the Public Release of the Papers of John B. Calhoun
377:"Behavioral Sink definition | Psychology Glossary | AlleyDog.com"
1198:
190:
1090:
THE BEHAVIORAL SINK: The mouse universes of John B. Calhoun.
762:"Population density and pathology: Is there a relationship?"
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modality of overpopulation towards a much more irredeemable
1305:
1098:
866:"Defuse the Population Bomb Narrative before It's Too Late"
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87:
48:
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sterile. Under such circumstances society will move from
32:
to describe a collapse in behavior that can result from
606:
Medical Historian Examines NIMH Experiments in Crowding
1075:
The Falls of 1972: John B Calhoun and Urban Pessimism.
1005:"Lee Kuan Yew drains your brains for short term gain"
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242:
as an early stage of rendering much a given society
1049:What Humans Can Learn From Calhoun's Rodent Utopia
524:
91:John Calhoun (age 52) with mice experiment (1970).
461:: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of September 2024 (
1551:
892:"The Unrealized Horrors of Population Explosion"
784:
712:, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2013-10-13.
155:crowding: individual rats became so used to the
625:
623:
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1470:Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
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1060:John B. Calhoun Film 7.1 , (NIMH, 1970-1972)
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636:Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine
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475:
336:: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
326:. Anchor Books. p. 25. ASIN B0006BNQW2.
62:, and his study has become a touchstone of
1475:International Society for Applied Ethology
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1107:
545:
172:
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839:Gooderham, Mary; Toronto, University of.
766:Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
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408:"Population density and social pathology"
108:In the 1962 study, Calhoun described the
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177:Calhoun had phrased much of his work in
86:
863:
629:
402:
1552:
1102:
1058:National Library of Medicine (2018).
922:
1072:Adams, J. & Ramsden, E. (2017).
864:Follett, Chelsea (January 5, 2023).
791:Ramsden, Edmund; Adams, Jon (2009).
760:Freedman, Jonathan (November 1975).
522:
476:Ramsden, Edmund; Adams, Jon (2009).
398:
396:
352:"John B. Calhoun and his Rat Utopia"
321:
750:. NIH Record. Retrieved 2013-07-07.
99:National Institute of Mental Health
13:
427:10.1038/scientificamerican0262-139
14:
1596:
1031:
980:"Mass Media and Fertility Change"
841:"Debunking the 'population bomb'"
560:. Cabinet Magazine. Summer 2011.
393:
97:While Calhoun was working at the
54:Calhoun's work became used as an
1534:
1533:
1064:Gwamanda, Paul (May 14, 2021).
996:
986:, National Academies Press (US)
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883:
857:
832:
821:from the original on 2019-11-21
753:
733:
715:
672:
564:from the original on 2020-02-15
531:(5th ed.). Prentice Hall.
444:from the original on 2019-11-21
1179:Bee learning and communication
890:Haberman, Clyde (2015-05-31).
575:
516:
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344:
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73:
1:
929:American Journal of Sociology
583:"Mouse Heaven or Mouse Hell?"
308:
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1003:Spandrell (March 26, 2013).
925:"Urbanization and Fertility"
778:10.1016/0022-1031(75)90005-0
220:article came at a time when
7:
271:
10:
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648:10.1177/00359157730661P202
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1236:Evolutionary neuroscience
1136:
1037:Fessenden, Marissa 2015,
800:Journal of Social History
615:, nih record, 2013-10-13.
587:Science History Institute
482:Journal of Social History
322:Hall, Edward, T. (1966).
229:now widely disputed book
1189:Behavioral endocrinology
739:Garnett, Carla. (2008).
680:"Universe 25, 1968–1973"
25:" is a term invented by
1384:Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt
1164:Animal sexual behaviour
1080:APEX (4 January 2021).
684:The Scientist Magazine®
630:Calhoun, J. B. (1973).
523:Hock, Roger R. (2004).
429:(inactive 2024-09-12).
173:Applicability to humans
1323:Tool use by non-humans
1276:Philosophical ethology
1221:Comparative psychology
1169:Animal welfare science
169:" appears to be key.
126:
92:
923:Jaffe, A. J. (1942).
558:"The Behavioral Sink"
114:
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51:, from 1968 to 1972.
1585:Human overpopulation
1429:William Homan Thorpe
1194:Behavioural genetics
1154:Animal consciousness
1149:Animal communication
1088:Wiles, Will (2011).
1043:Smithsonian Magazine
812:10.1353/jsh/42.3.761
494:10.1353/jsh/42.3.761
82:, starting in 1947.
1184:Behavioural ecology
415:Scientific American
232:The Population Bomb
218:Scientific American
189:" mentioned in the
80:Rockville, Maryland
44:Scientific American
1575:1962 introductions
1570:Population ecology
1513:Behavioral Ecology
1434:Nikolaas Tinbergen
1226:Emotion in animals
1204:Cognitive ethology
1015:on 11 October 2015
896:The New York Times
746:2020-08-15 at the
727:2021-03-28 at the
708:2018-09-11 at the
611:2013-03-27 at the
283:Population decline
262:population decline
93:
1547:
1546:
1439:Jakob von Uexküll
1209:Comfort behaviour
642:(1 Pt 2): 80–88.
538:978-0-13-114729-4
298:Societal collapse
266:positive feedback
264:, but can due to
103:Montgomery County
60:societal collapse
1592:
1560:Crowd psychology
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1499:Animal Cognition
1492:Animal Behaviour
1444:Wolfgang Wickler
1144:Animal cognition
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1328:Zoosemiotics
1281:Sociobiology
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1354:Marc Bekoff
1342:Ethologists
1095:, Issue 42.
153:involuntary
143:Explanation
134:Universe 25
74:Experiments
38:Norway rats
1554:Categories
1291:Structures
1286:Stereotypy
1093:Forgetting
990:2024-02-21
909:2024-02-21
850:2024-02-21
825:2019-08-12
689:2024-05-08
592:2024-05-08
568:2012-08-24
448:2015-12-14
386:2024-05-08
362:2024-05-08
309:References
255:population
211:aggression
207:discomfort
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1463:Societies
1301:Honeycomb
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332:cite book
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1565:Ethology
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1484:Journals
1311:Instinct
1261:Learning
1256:Instinct
1231:Ethogram
1214:Grooming
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1130:Ethology
845:phys.org
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