Revisiting Broken Windows: The Role of Neighborhood and Individual Characteristics in Reaction to Disorder Cues

Beate Volker

Sociological Science, October 11, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a22

The influential “broken windows” theory proposes that disorder cues in neighborhoods trigger littering and other antisocial behavior. Until now, the theory has been empirically tested only on a small scale and restricted to just one specific area. In this study, I investigated the effect of disorder cues on individual behavior once more, replicating and extending the original field experiments by Keizer, Lindenberg, and Steg (2008 and 2013). The data from 12,528 individuals were collected in 84 field experiments conducted in 33 neighborhoods. The results, based on multilevel techniques for binary data, show that the absolute effect of cues is smaller than originally thought and that neighborhood and individual characteristics moderate cue effects.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Beate Volker: Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam
Email: b.volker@uva.nl

Acknowledgements: This study greatly benefitted from the seminar of the program group “Institutions, Inequalities, and Life Courses” at the University of Amsterdam; the participants of the symposium “Order in Context” at Utrecht University on March 31, 2016; and from comments by Henk Flap.

  • Citation: Volker, Beate. 2017. “Revisiting Broken Windows: The Role of Neighborhood and Individual Characteristics in Reaction to Disorder Cues” Sociological Science 4: 528-551.
  • Received: July 22, 2017
  • Accepted: August 8, 2017
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Mario Small
  • DOI: 10.15195/v4.a22


, , ,

No reactions yet.

Write a Reaction


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

SiteLock