Part of the thing is humans aren’t rats, so we can’t necessarily extrapolate from rat behavior to humans.
Actually the study was specifically being done to study humans. We are similar enough when it comes to the factors being studied to be able to be used for studying, as the scientists did.
The actual scientist who did the study were confident that the results could be correlated and used for human behavior.
I think it’s safe to say for all of us that we don’t like being crowded in. And when we’re crowded in for a very long time then we get cranky. It’s biological.
And another thing is space is 3-dimensional. If people have spacious apartments and access to good parks and public spaces, we don’t necessarily need as much private acreage.
The experiment actually had the rat cages set up with up and downs areas and small cordoned off areas as well. Some of what they found was just the congestion of moving around from area to area was enough to cause conflict.
And a final thing is different people have different preferences. Some people enjoy and prefer those tiny houses. Some people prefer a homestead with acreage. Some people are happy with a condo in a high-rise. Some people want a rowhouse with a little space for a garden in the back.
I honestly don’t think you can be confident in saying that long-term crowding would only affect a small subset of humans though, because of human nature, that affects, well, all humans.
You crowd us in too much and we don’t like it, and we act upon it. And that tolerance between the two ends on the bell curve of people’s crowding tolerance is not that great.