>>Humans are psychologically more complex than mice, hence our dysfunctions are proportionately more complex.
Our ability to cope with sub-optimal conditions is much better too. A human can put on a headset, sit on a park bench, and read a book in the middle of a crowd and still be “alone”.
Humans also understand the concept of time. We can sit in a crowded, stressful office counting the minutes until quitting time when we can go home to sit with our X-Box. Rats cannot comprehend such things.
>>But the same dynamics are at work. We have so much open space, why do so many coop themselves up in cities?
Because, as I stated, people CHOOSE to in order to reap the rewards of city living. When they do get fed up and move to the country, the first thing they do is complain about the lack of amenities in the burbs (or beyond). The second thing is to try and get the decision-makers to bring some those amenities to the rubes (who don’t want or need it—but once they get it, they will quickly wonder how they survived without it).
You are talking about people in crowded situations who purposely block themselves off from any human contact, even in crowded environments. Parallels to that behavior were seen in the mouse and rat studies. Some of the mice gave up trying to get accepted into social groups, and just went off on their own, in a habitat filled with mice.
I've suspected that a high level dysfunction is going on in human society, and much of it is a result of population pressures. Not over-population--clearly, we are not on the verge of running out of resources--but simply being too crowded. It is not difficult to see that the most dysfunctional areas are those with the highest population densities.