Mental Health Consequences of Experiential Crowding

Abstract

Mental health is a widespread malady and exists naturally as a consequent reaction to various socio-cultural variables independently and or in interaction with the age and gender of an individual. The present study has been formulated with an objective to investigate the qualitative and quantitative impact of outside density and experiential crowding along with age and gender. An attempt has been made to assess the level of experiential crowding and its reference to age, gender and level of outside density. A subsequent study that evolved with a 3x3x2x2 factorial design with three levels of experiential crowding (normal/moderate/severe), three age groups (13-14 / 15-16 / 17-18), two levels of outside density (high and low) and limited to males and females. The obtained results suggested that age was the primary factor for the manifestation of different mental health problems. The level of outside density was found to be detrimental to the emergence of anxiety, depression, psychological well being and psychological distress. Outside density was also found to be varying between genders. The level of anxiety was found to be increasing with the level of experiential crowding at home. As far as the interactional effect was concerned, age, experiential crowding, outside density and gender were found to be significant determining factors for the emergence of anxiety among respondents. The highest degree of depression was manifested in older male and female respondents living in a high outside density area having severe experiential crowding. Intervention could be made in the form of stress reduction, counselling and enhancement of coping skills. newline