Household Crowding and Psychological Well-Being in a South African Coloured Community

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Abstract
Although studies of the psychological impact of household crowding on individuals in Western cultures have reported inconsistent findings, these studies have invariably employed samples residing in relatively uncrowded conditions. In contrast, the present study examined the relationship between household crowding and psychological well-being in a community sample of 433 Coloured South Africans living under varied but generally very high levels of crowding. The findings indicated that after controlling for a variety of demographic and socioeconomic variables, crowding was associated with significant elevations of negative affects but not with any reduction of positive affects. Furthermore, the crowding/negative affect relationship proved to be nonlinear, with increasing levels of crowding associated with a sharp initial rise in negative affects followed by a flattening out of the curve.

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