The Behavorial Sink: Experiment Made Reality?

One of the biggest questions, I think, in the pursuit of understanding Human behavior, is whether or not all organisms respond in the same way to controlled environmental factors.
The ethologist John B. Calhoun certainly seemed to think so, to the extent that he would risk both his career and reputation to find out.

The Behavioral Sink was was a term coined by Calhoun to describe the psychological effects of overcrowding. Despite the fact that his experiments were conducted with rats, he believed in earnest that the same could be applied to human beings.
The experiment was actually quite simple, and his resourcefulness in this undertaking is certainly worthy of accolade, if nothing else.
During the period of 1958-1962, he set about testing his hypothesis with a few male and female Norway Rats, the population of which would explode over a single year. Later, in the early 70's, he repeated the same experiment, only with mice.

He began by constructing a "rat metropolis" which was designed to resemble a common urban center; close living quarters, coupled with all of the resources -- food, bedding, and water, that a rat would need to survive. It was a utopia in every sense of the word, including the logical fallacy that a utopia could even exist in the first place.

Calhoun pictured with his rat utopia, circa 1970, 681 days after colonization

The metropolis involved a few seperate chambers, and in the beginning the rats were given ample room, at least a few feet for each rat. Being highly social animals, they quickly began breeding, so that that space would shrink very rapidly.
Eventually, as the population climbed into hundreds, the average rat had nary a few inches to themselves, and so began the steady collapse of rat-society. How sad!

The findings were horrifying. In the case of the Norway rats, many of the male subjects were observed becoming extremely aggressive, many of them becoming wholly cannibalistic. This, despite having literally all of their needs met, including a clean living space.
Additionally, Calhoun observed that rates homosexuality skyrocketed among the rats, which may have been what perpetuated the idea that homosexuality is nature's response to overpopulation, however that may be possible.

Amongst the chaos, Calhoun observed a seperate group of rats. These ones are my personal favorites. He called them "the beautiful ones." They were distinctive in that lived solitary, benign lives, involving excessive grooming, and only coming out at night to eat when the others were asleep. They did not suffer the same primacy as the others.
I feel such kinship with these rats, that I can hardly doubt the validity of this experminent!
The obvious conclusion would be that in such close proximity, and with no actual competition for resources, rat-society is a big no-go.

This is me as a rat, in case you were wondering.

I want to know your feelings though.
Can the behavior of small mammals ever be seen as relevant to the human condition, or is Calhoun, among many others in comparitive psychology, a complete lunatic?
Is the behavioral sink an appropriate term for a modern city? I don't know, I just like the sting of the phrase.

Follow me as I continue to explore new ideas I find to be of piquent interest, that I hear about, on the hear-y things, and watch on the watch-y things.