A graph analysis of the relationship between population density and social pathology.

This article deals with systematic variables--population density and pathological effects--at the level of a community or organizational system. Existing studies of the relationship between population density and social pathology (e.g., mortality, mental illness) in humans have failed to determine a strictly causal relationship between density and pathology in a linear model. They have not established a direct link between density and pathology in a simple two-variable, linear causal approach. Eliminating other variables by statistical control has obscured the conditions of a complex phenomenon. By incorporating socioeconomic variables into a general system model, this paper suggests that the total configuration of social organization, adaptation, previous group experience, and environment determine the effects of population density. Using a method of graph analysis, a model is presented of the relationship between population density and social pathology which has a high degree of isomorphism with the empirical situation.