The Spreading of Disorder Export

@article{citeulike:3652271, abstract = {Imagine that the neighborhood you are living in is covered with graffiti, litter, and unreturned shopping carts. Would this reality cause you to litter more, trespass or even steal? A thesis known as the Broken Windows Theory suggests that signs of disorderly and petty criminal behavior trigger more disorderly and petty criminal behavior, thus causing the behavior to spread. This may cause neighborhoods to decay and the quality of life of its inhabitants to deteriorate. For a city government this may be a vital policy issue. But does disorder really spread in neighborhoods? So far there has not been strong empirical support, and it is not clear what constitutes "disorder" and what may make it spread. In this article, we generate hypotheses about the spread of disorder and test them in six field experiments. We found that when people observe that others violated a certain social norm or legitimate rule, they are more likely to violate even other norms or rules, which causes disorder to spread. 10.1126/science.1161405}, author = {Keizer, Kees and Lindenberg, Siegwart and Steg, Linda}, citeulike-article-id = {3652271}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1161405}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/322/5908/1681?sa_campaign=Email}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19023045}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=19023045}, day = {20}, doi = {10.1126/science.1161405}, journal = {Science}, keywords = {commons, experiement, performance, social}, month = {November}, pages = {1161405+}, posted-at = {2009-01-06 21:37:36}, priority = {4}, title = {The Spreading of Disorder}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1161405}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:3652271 L3 - citeulike-article-id:3652271 N2 - Imagine that the neighborhood you are living in is covered with graffiti, litter, and unreturned shopping carts. Would this reality cause you to litter more, trespass or even steal? A thesis known as the Broken Windows Theory suggests that signs of disorderly and petty criminal behavior trigger more disorderly and petty criminal behavior, thus causing the behavior to spread. This may cause neighborhoods to decay and the quality of life of its inhabitants to deteriorate. For a city government this may be a vital policy issue. But does disorder really spread in neighborhoods? So far there has not been strong empirical support, and it is not clear what constitutes "disorder" and what may make it spread. In this article, we generate hypotheses about the spread of disorder and test them in six field experiments. We found that when people observe that others violated a certain social norm or legitimate rule, they are more likely to violate even other norms or rules, which causes disorder to spread. 10.1126/science.1161405 JF - Science TI - The Spreading of Disorder SP - 1161405 KW - commons KW - experiement KW - performance KW - social AU - Keizer, Kees AU - Lindenberg, Siegwart AU - Steg, Linda PY - 2008/11/20/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1161405 ER -