Do you prefer to live in a busy city, such as New York, or in a smaller town surrounded by nature? According to the ecological concept of person–environment fit, people have differing opinions on whether they fit better into urban or rural environments. Some individuals prefer to stay and live in big cities, while others prefer quiet suburban areas. I have always preferred to live in large urban centers because they offer better public transportation, career opportunities, and nightlife and entertainment options. However, I cannot deny that a busy city life also brings a significant amount of stress and problems associated with overwhelming crowds, traffic, and noise. Even though city life provides a number of benefits, many studies have suggested that deindividuation, stimulus overload, and bystander effects that occur in city environments can negatively affect individuals’ physical or mental health (Gruman et al., 2017).
A well-known study by Philip Zimbardo (1969) suggested that city environments negatively impact individuals by causing them to become deindividuated (i.e., they lose their sense of personhood). This loss of a sense of self makes people feel less concerned with self-evaluation, responsibility, and self-restraint; furthermore, it increases antisocial behavior. Have you ever noticed that people behave differently in crowds? According to the notion of deindividuation, overwhelming stimulations of city life, such as crowding, lead people to act differently than they would normally act when they are alone (Zimbardo, 1969). For example, a person is likely to follow or mimic the behaviors of a crowd if they are part of a group without reasoning whether the act is right or wrong.
On the other hand, stimulus overload, introduced by Stanly Milgram, provides a psychological explanation for the negative impact of city life on people. Stimulus overload is a state in which our nervous systems are overloaded to the point that we cannot simultaneously react to environmental stimulation, such as crowds, traffic, and noise; thus, we adapt to set priorities and determine where to place more attention (Milgram, 1970). According to Milgram’s theory, city environments cause people to enter a state of stimulus overload, making them devote as little time as possible to obstacles and avoid what is really important in life by leading them to focus on more time-efficiently set priorities. For instance, people living in big cities tend to erect barriers to social interactions, such as withdrawing cash from ATMs, rather than dealing with bank tellers.
Moreover, the bystander effect also explains how our social environments strongly influence individuals’ behaviors. The bystander effect occurs when a large number of people witness an emergency situation in public places and fail to intervene or help others; this commonly occurs in big-city environments (Darley & Latané, 1970). I remember hearing a news report describing an incident in which one person was severely attacked in a public place, but no one in the crowd acted to help the victim. Darley and Latané (1970) explained that the bystander effect occurs in large cities because an individual in a group thinks that he or she will not be blamed for not helping a person who is in danger, since there are almost always many people nearby who might take responsibility for acting in emergency situations.
Although I generally love living in big cities, these previous studies have made me think more carefully about how city environments can negatively affect our behavior to some degree. In addition to the concepts of deindividuation, stimulus overload, and the bystander effect, another study suggests that city living is associated with increased stress and mental illness, such as mood and anxiety disorders and schizophrenia (Yates, 2011). Therefore, further research on the impacts of social environments, specifically on the association between city environments and mental health, is necessary to assess the factors that result in adverse effects on individuals and to find effective intervention strategies for minimizing harm.
References
Darley, J., & Latané, B. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn’t he help? New York, NY: Appleton Century Crofts.
Gruman, J., Schneider, F., & Coutts, L. (Eds.) (2017). Applied social psychology. SAGE Publications, Inc, https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781071800591
Milgram, S. (1970). The experience of living in cities. Science, 167, 1461–1468
Yates, D. (2011). The stress of city life. Nat Rev Neurosci 12, 430 https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3079
Zimbardo, P. G. (1969). The human choice: Individuation, reason, and order versus deindividuation, impulse, and chaos. In W. J. Arnold & D. Levine (Eds.), Nebraska symposium on motivation (Vol. 17, pp. 237–307). Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Tags: #Lesson11Blog, psych424
I found this blog very interesting. I was born and raised in Philadelphia. You talked about the bystander effect in your post. Growing up, to get to school or to the city with friends, I would take public transportation. A lot of things would happen on the train, fights, robbery, and more. A lot of people just watch things happen to people and move on about their day. I think this happens in cities because it’s so dangerous people don’t want to get hurt. Philadelphia has become one of the most dangerous cities, people start to have the mindset that if they intervene, they will get harmed too. I do think in some situations people should intervene. Not too long ago a woman was raped on the train and no one did a thing. I have the article here.
Guardian News and Media. (2021, November 1). Why accounts of Philadelphia train passengers not intervening in a rape spread. The Guardian. Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/01/philadelphia-police-bystanders-filming-mistaken-narrative
I am personally someone who hates cities and loves a quiet living environment surrounded by nature. One of my best friends lives in a city and I’ve noticed that when I come back from visiting her, getting off the train and returning to suburbia, I feel such a large sense of relief, like my whole body is taking a deep breath. I attribute this experience to stimulus overload (Gruman et al., 2017). I am someone with an overactive sympathetic nervous system, the “fight or flight” portion of the nervous system. When I am in cities, the crowds, traffic, noise, and other extra stimuli is way too much for me, and I feel anxious and sick. My friend, however, is the complete opposite of me and she feels that sense of relief when she re-enters the city, showing that there person-environment fit can be highly individualized.
Reference:
Gruman, J.A. Schneider, F.W. & Coutts, L.A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Thank you for your well-thought-out post. Social psychology is such a fascinating subfield of psychology. Every time we learn about a concept I think to myself “that makes sense!”. The concepts are ones that many of us have most likely observed or felt were some natural behavior of humans but finding out that they are theories and studied phenomena is so cool! It really makes me think our perceptive skills as humans make us so fine-tuned to the world around us and that we really can tell when something fits or not, including ourselves. The three concepts you discuss, bystander effect, stimulus overload, and deindividuation are three of these such phenomena and ones I am sure each one of us has experienced before however did not know it was a “thing”. All three of these concepts keep coming to mind recently when thinking about a conversation I had with my partner’s mother (MIL for ease here) over the weekend discussing a recent trip of mine to a political rally. My MIL was telling me how she wished she could have joined me however she was scared of crowds after a large rally she attended in DC for women’s rights. She said there were so many people it was almost like individuals didn’t matter. The way they behaved became more hive mind and people in distress were overlooked and disregarded. This got us discussing the recent Halloween tragedy in Seoul where 156 people were crushed to death in a crowd and how my MIL looks back at the rally she attended with fear as she experienced what she considers the beginning of what could have been more tragedy. When you get so many people packed in together with so many sights, sounds, and inputs to process it had to be extremely stimulating and attendees may not know up from down leading to uncomfortably and potentially panic. Large crowds also are prime for deindividuation, leading some to follow the flow and increasing chances of pushing and shoving, and trampling with less regard for the safety of others (Gruman, 2016). And finally, the bystander effect in a crowd that side would cause many panicking and injured people to be completely ignored, leading to further injury and death. I imagine many news-watchers watched in horror and disbelief wondering how such a massive tragedy could have ever occurred while anyone with an inkling of social psychological education saw each of these concepts, and more, at play.
References:
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.
I grew up in a very small town with little to no opportunities for career growth and very little in the way of entertainment or night life. Given that fact, I’ve always felt that I would thrive in a big city. However, come to find out from many vacations to larger cities such as Los Angeles or Tokyo, I’m much happier in a smaller, more subdued area. My husband and I went on a three-week long trip to Los Angeles, and it was the greatest trip we’ve ever taken. But I found that when we returned home, I had a lot of residual anxiety from the trip because of the exposure to the city life. I honestly felt suffocated sometimes from the amount of people and stimuli going on. Now, I know this was simply a trip and not my permanent residence, so that’s a factor to consider. However, it makes me second guess my preference for city life and if I could physically and mentally handle it. As you stated, stimulus overload has negative effects for those living in the city.
The phenomena you’ve highlighted in your post seems to be like an argument to not live in a big city. So, what are the benefits? It’s noted that new ideas for economic growth are built within the undercurrent of city life (Glaeser, 1999). Additionally, urban areas are rich with innovative ideas (Glaeser, 1999). Also, metropolitan areas foster an environment of learning and allows individuals to have a higher rate of contact with others to learn well-known trades as well as new, innovative practices (Glaeser, 1999). So, living in a city can provide an opportunity of growth and help one progress further in their career. This is a great benefit, but one that you must leverage against the negative impacts on your own mental health in an urban landscape.
Reference
Glaeser, E. L. (1999). Learning in cities. Journal of Urban Economics, 46(2), 254-277.