The implications of the experiment are controversial. Psychologist Jonathan Freedman's experiment recruited high school and university students to carry out a series of experiments that measured the effects of density on human behavior. He measured their stress, discomfort, aggression, competitiveness, and general unpleasantness. He declared to have found no appreciable negative effects in 1975.[15]
The 1962 Scientific American article came at a time when overpopulation had become a subject of great public interest, and had a considerable cultural influence.[16] However, such discussions often oversimplified the original findings in various ways. It should however be noted that the work has another message than, for example, Paul Ehrlich's now widely disputed[17][18][19] book The Population Bomb.
