Behavioral Sink :: Sociology Psychology Essays

Behavioral Sink In the reading â€Å"O Rotten Gotham† it talks about behavioral sink and how New York had been thrown into state of behavioral sink. It was interesting how this author took the behavior of rats and compared it to humans. After reading what he wrote it sort of reminded me of the lifestyles that some New Yorkers live with in the projects. While reading this story it made me think about my parents and what they have said about living in New York and in the projects. Here are some opinions about behavioral sink and taken from two people that have lived in the projects in New York When talking with Alberto Velez, he said that there was a lot of over crowding in the projects because too dense of a population. There were also too many people with emotional problems, with less time to get over their problems. The result was more crime and violent activity. Mr. Velez also talked about how the behavioral sink in the projects made people go into depression and have increased anxiety. People began to react to each other much more. There was much higher incident of crime due to anxiety. Then he went into say that once these people went through depression and didn’t know how to handle their emotions they would begin to care less and less about the building and the surroundings. Eventually the projects decayed. Part of the problem he said was with so many people there was higher opportunity to run into more emotional events and these events kept building in each other. When talking to Jean Gee, she gave me the definition as â€Å"Behavioral sink - a psychological state characterized by gross distortion of behavior.† Then she went on to say that people living in city projects, which are crowded and likely to be in constant state of disrepair often cause the tenants to be belligerent, unhappy, violent and socially dysfunctional. Just the fact that people are living in subsidized housing causes some sort of anxiety and stress because these type of housing projects tend to be racially and socially segregated, for example the majority of tenants in New York City housing are minorities and very poor. There are many opportunities for criminal type behavior against the tenants in these projects which tend to be high rise and sometimes not very well secured.