Behavioral sink
Conceptual collapse in behavior which can result from overcrowding / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"Behavioral sink" is a term invented by ethologist John B. Calhoun to describe a collapse in behavior that can result from overpopulation. The term and concept derive from a series of over-population experiments Calhoun conducted on Norway rats between 1958 and 1962.[1] In the experiments, Calhoun and his researchers created a series of "rat utopias"[2] – enclosed spaces where rats were given unlimited access to food and water, enabling unfettered population growth. Calhoun coined the term "behavioral sink"[3] in a February 1, 1962, Scientific American article titled "Population Density and Social Pathology" on the rat experiment.[4] He would later perform similar experiments on mice, from 1968 to 1972.[5]
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.[6]