ABSTRACT

Graffiti-spraying, littering, and other forms of disorder in a neighborhood promote further bad behaviour.

According to a group of researchers in the Netherlands, a place that is covered in Graffiti,and dirty or messy makes people feel uneasy. Kees Keizer and his colleagues at the University of Groningen deliberately created the setting as part of a series of experiments designed to discover if signs of vandalism, litter accumulated could change the way people behave.

The experiment consisted in creating a perception of disorder in an alley that is used to park bicycles.

A wall was painted with graffiti and inside a small are, some garbage was left, creating a condition of disorder. The researchers posted a sign prohibiting graffiti, so that it would not be missed by any one that the place was being monitored. All the bikes then had fliers promoting a non existing sports shop attached to their handlebars. This needed to be removed before a bicycle could ridden. When owners returned they litter the fliers on the floor with no culpability.It was the conclusion after the research found out that 66 percent of the total 80 bicyclists did it compared with the 33 percent in the non graffiti-scenario.