Residential Crowding Experience ScaleÐ Assessment and Validation DINESH NAGAR 1 and PAUL B. PAULUS 2 * 1 Department of Psychology, Barkatullah University, Bhopal 462026, India; 2 Department of Psychology, Box 19528, University of Texas at Arlington, USA ABSTRACT The present study was designed to construct and revalidate the Crowding Experience Scale and to investigate its predictive validity. Factor analysis results suggest that perceived crowding is comprised of four components, labelled as spaciousness, positive relationships, negative relationships, and uncontrolled disturbance. The factor-derived perceived crowding subscales showed unique relationships with the outcome variables related to health, well- being, and residential satisfaction. The results provide some indication that perceived crowding mediates the relationship between objective crowding and the dependent measures. The implications of the project are discussed. # 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., Vol. 7, 303±319 (1997). No. of Figures: 0. No. of Tables: 5. No. of Refs: 48. For the past two decades there has been a proliferation of crowding research in various environmental contexts, ranging from laboratories and college dormitories to homes and prisons (for reviews, see Baum and Paulus, 1987; Sundstrom, 1978). Much of the previous research has focused on assessing the relationship of various objective measures of crowding (e.g. social density, spatial density and interpersonal distance) to a wide range of cognitive, affective and behavioural indices. Despite some inconsistent findings (Freedman, 1975; Freedman, Klevansky and Ehrlich, 1971), it appears that objective crowding not only impairs cognitive performance but also produces a variety of negative physical and psychological effects (e.g. Baum and Valins, 1977; Cox, Paulus and McCain, 1984; Evans, 1979; Nagar and Pandey, 1987; Paulus et al., 1976). The study of crowding phenomena as related to humans has become a complex area of research, for it extends beyond the simple manipulation of density to the more complex cognitive±perceptual experience. The focus on the CCC 1052±9284/97/040303±17$17.50 Received 15 June 1993 #1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 8 January 1997 Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 7, 303±319 (1997) * Correspondence to P. B. Paulus.