The relations between natural and civic place attachment and pro-environmental behavior

The relation between place attachment and pro-environmental behavior is unclear. Studies have reported that place attachment is associated both with more and less pro-environmental behavior. To help clarify this, we distinguished two dimensions of place attachment: civic and natural, and explored their respective influences on pro-environmental behavior. A community sample of residents (N = 104) from two proximate towns with different environmental reputations reported the strength of their civic and natural place attachment, their performance of various pro-environmental behaviors, and a number of sociodemographic characteristics. Regression analyses revealed that natural, but not civic place attachment predicted pro-environmental behavior when controlling for the town, length of residence, gender, education and age. This demonstrates that research and theory on place attachment should consider its civic and natural dimensions independently.     

Place Attachment,Climate Friendly Behavior,and Support for Climate Friendly Management Action among State Park Visitors

This study examined the role of place attachment in determining visitors’ willingness to engage in climate friendly behavior in parks and support for management actions to minimize climate-change impacts. The sample consisted of visitors to Missouri State Parks (n = 1775). Place attachment was measured using 12 items of place identity, place dependence, and social bonding. Exploratory factor analysis of climate friendly behavior items revealed two dimensions: Visit based (i.e., short-term, immediate actions individuals could take during their visit) and Big Picture (i.e., advocacy actions that suggest a long-term engagement with parks). A path analysis demonstrated that the dimensions of place attachment predict climate friendly behavior and support for climate friendly management action in different ways. Specifically, place identity increased climate friendly behavior (big picture) and place dependence increased both climate friendly behavior (visit based) and support for climate friendly management action. Findings from this study provided evidence for the importance of place attachment as a means for engaging visitors in climate-related actions both in and beyond the park setting.     

Investigating urban migrants' sense of place through a multi-scalar perspective

This paper investigates the interconnections between sense-of-place dimensions across different geographical scales. While existing knowledge on sense of place has demonstrated that place meanings rest at various scales, little attention has been devoted to exploring how sense-of-place dimensions at different geographical scales can be interconnected in forming a multi-scalar construction of place meanings. In this paper, we approach this under-theorization of multi-scalarity of sense of place by looking at urban migrants’ sense of place at two geographical scales - a community culture center and the city of Guangzhou, China. In so doing, we also contribute to the scholarship on Chinese urban migrant, particularly in terms of how urban migrants reestablish their psychological connections with place of destination through specific place experiences. Our research methodology combines both quantitative (structural equation modeling analysis with 104 questionnaires) and qualitative (12 in-depth interviews) approaches. Quantitative study reaches a structural model that has not been observed by existing research, while qualitative data provide strong empirical evidence in support of the statistical relations in the structural model. Major findings in this research include: 1. at the scale of culture center, place dependence contributes strongly to both place identity and place attachment, while the latter two dimensions can be seen as parallel constructs; 2. at the scale of Guangzhou, place dependence is a dimension independent of both place identity and place attachment, and on the other hand, it is place identity that has a strong impact on place attachment; 3. migrants’ place dependence on the culture center significantly influences their place identity to Guangzhou, which further contributes to the migrants’ place attachment to the city. Although the scope of this research is limited in its sampling and research location, the empirical evidence in this paper provides a basis to argue that the construction of sense of place involves the working of sense-of-place constructs at various geographical scales. Particularly, we also argue that connecting different places across geographical scales requires a delicate network that involves various sense-of-place constructs that work both within and across scales.     

Engagement with climate change and the environment: a review of the role of relationships to place

A growing body of literature examines how human bonds with place influence engagement with climate change and other environmental issues. Yet, studies in this vein derive from a number of disconnected literatures with a variety of place concepts employed. We set out to assess the current state of knowledge in this field and provide a framework for analysing dimensions of relations to place and their links with environmental engagement. We systematically analysed the characteristics of 66 studies identified for: focus of research, location, methods, and findings, particularly whether relationships to place aided in environmental engagement. We also categorised the studies according to our dimensions of place relations framework, cultural and environmental contexts, and intensity of climate impacts experienced. The answer to our guiding research question – whether place attachment was an effective way to communicate with people about climate change and get them actively engaged with it – was yes (74.2%), but with considerable variation according to these characteristics and dimensions. Based on this analysis, we identify gaps in current research and suggest critical paths for future research, especially in terms of geography and demography because of their implications for justice and equity in the processes of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Needed future research includes studies of place relations in regards to climate change specifically, studies in the Global South, of minority populations, beyond rural areas, and qualitative or mixed-method studies able to draw out the complexities of relations to place.     

The measurement of place attachment: Personal,community, and environmental connections

Place attachment has been researched extensively in the social and behavioural sciences over the past two decades. However, it is challenging for researchers to assimilate the mixed messages presented in the place attachment literature and to understand the multiple place attachment terms. In this study, a four-dimensional model of rural landholder attachments to their natural resource management region was conceptually and empirically developed with the aim of developing an integrated approach to the measurement of place attachment that clearly distinguishes between different elements of place scholarship. A 29-item place attachment scale with the dimensions of place identity, place dependence, nature bonding, and social bonding was tested on a random sample of rural landholders in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia (N = 320). The majority of respondents were male (69.3%) and the average age was 59 years. The scale was reduced to 20-items and then administered simultaneously and in the same response format to rural landholders in two other areas of South Australia: the Northern and Yorke region (N = 664) and South Australian Murray-Darling Basin region (N = 659). In both studies, the majority of respondents were male (85%) and the average age was 55 years. Exploratory factor and reliability analyses of Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges and Northern and Yorke datasets produced a five-dimensional model of place attachment with high reliabilities. Social bonding divided into the constructs of family bonding and friend bonding. The refined five-dimensional model was then examined for convergent validity, with moderate but significant correlations found between individual attachment constructs and dependent variables expected to be related to the construct, such as place identity and length of residence, and nature bonding and time currently spent in nature. We used confirmatory factor analysis to test the goodness-of-fit of the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin (SAMDB) dataset to the proposed five-dimensional model and then compared its fit to the traditional two-dimensional model of place identity and place dependence. The five-dimensional model provided moderate fit for the SAMDB data. We conclude with a discussion of the validity and reliability of the five-dimensional model and its future role in place attachment research.     

The Influence of Place Attachment and Experience Use History on Perceived Depreciative Visitor Behavior and Crowding in an Urban National Park

Research on recreational place attachment suggests that place identity, or the emotional/symbolic ties people have to places, and place dependence, which describes a functional attachment to a specific place, influence the perception of social and environmental site conditions. Recent research, however, has found that place attachment is not always a predictor of such perceptions. This study investigated the influence of place attachment and experience use history on the perception of depreciative visitor behavior, recreation impacts and crowding in an urban national park. In 2006, 605 on-site visitors to the heavily-used Viennese part of the Danube Floodplains National Park were asked about past experience, place attachment, perceptions of depreciative visitor behavior, crowding, changes in visitor numbers during the past ten years, and recreation impacts on wildlife. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the two dimensions of place attachment. Linear regression analyses found that place identity and place dependence were related to some perceived depreciative visitor behaviors and visitor number changes but not to crowding, while experience use history additionally related to perceived crowding. Visitors with higher place attachment and past experience were more sensitive to social and environmental site conditions. Management implications of the findings are discussed.     

Pro-environmental behaviours and park visitors: The effect of place attachment

The purpose of this study was to explore the ability of place attachment to predict place-specific and general pro-environment behavioural intentions. The study sample (n = 355) consisted of visitors to a Canadian national park, Point Pelee National Park. The place attachment scale utilized in this study was designed to measure three subdimensions: place identity, place dependence, and place affect. Exploratory factor analysis of data measured by these scales revealed two place attachment subdimensions. Place affect, an individual’s emotions and feelings for a place, acted as a more generalized or pervasive phenomenon. Place affect items loaded on both the place identity (an individual’s cognitive assessment of a place) and place dependence (an individual’s functional assessment of a place). Structural equation modeling confirmed the strength of place attachment’s ability to predict place-related pro-environment intentions. It also identified place attachment’s prediction of pro-environment behavioural intensions related to everyday life. Place identity mediated the effects of place dependence in predicting pro-environment intentions. Further research which utilizes in-depth and longitudinal case studies is suggested to explore the role of place-specific emotion and feelings, as well as place identity in fostering environmentally-responsible action as these factors are theorized to play an important role in promoting pro-environmental behaviour. Studies of place attachment to everyday settings rather than iconic national parks are also called for.     

The influence of place attachment, and moral and normative concerns on the conservation of native vegetation: A test of two behavioural models

This study examines the influence of place attachment, values, beliefs and personal norms about environmental action on the conservation of native vegetation in two primary production settings in South Australia. We use regression and multiple mediation analyses to test a base model of pro-environmental behaviour which includes variables from value-belief-norm (VBN) theory and then compare it to an expanded model which includes the same variables and five dimensions of place attachment. The expanded model including place attachment explained up to twice the amount of variance in native vegetation planting than the base model when controlling for all variables preceding behaviour, but the overall explanatory power was low (<22%). Place attachment had a stronger influence on the antecedents of behaviour compared with the behaviour itself, particularly nature bonding which was a significant moderate predictor of both personal norms and awareness of consequences in the two study regions. We assert that place attachment has statistically significant direct and indirect effects on variables included in VBN theory. Future studies may reveal stronger effects in settings where there are fewer resource and monetary costs associated with pro-environmental behaviour.     

Dislocating identity: Desegregation and the transformation of place

Whatever other changes it engenders, desegregation invariably produces a re-organization of space and place, a fact whose implications the psychological literature on the process has generally disregarded. The present article begins to address this gap. Drawing on research on place–identity processes, we argue that desegregation may alter not only the relationship between self and other, but also the relationship between self and place. As such, it may be experienced as a form of dislocation: an event that undermines shared constructions of place and the forms of located subjectivity they sustain. In order to develop this idea, we analyse a series of interviews conducted with holiday-makers on a formerly white but now multiracial beach in South Africa. The analysis demonstrates how white respondents’ stories of desegregation evince an abiding concern with the loss of place, manifest in terms of an erosion of a sense of place belonging, attachment and familiarity and an undermining of the beach's capacity to act as a restorative environment of the self. The implications of such accounts for understanding personal and ideological resistance to desegregation are explored. The paper concludes by arguing that this problem provides an opportunity to conjoin environmental and social psychological work.     

A comparative analysis of predictors of sense of place dimensions: attachment to, dependence on, and identification with lakeshore properties

Sense of place can be conceived as a multidimensional construct representing beliefs, emotions and behavioural commitments concerning a particular geographic setting. This view, grounded in attitude theory, can better reveal complex relationships between the experience of a place and attributes of that place than approaches that do not differentiate cognitive, affective and conative domains. Shoreline property owners (N=290) in northern Wisconsin were surveyed about their sense of place for their lakeshore properties. A predictive model comprising owners' age, length of ownership, participation in recreational activities, days spent on the property, extent of property development, and perceptions of environmental features, was employed to explain the variation in dimensions of sense of place. In general, the results supported a multidimensional approach to sense of place in a context where there were moderate to high correlations among the three place dimensions. Perceptions of environmental features were the biggest predictors of place dimensions, with owners' perceptions of lake importance varying in explanatory power across place dimensions.     

Sociodemographic effects on place bonding

Patterns of amenity migration and recreational home development in much of the USA since the 1990s are changing the local sociodemographic make-up and the relationships formed among people and place. We use the psychological constructs of place attachment, place identity, and place dependence to assess differences in these relationships among new and long-time residents and absentee and local residents in three rural counties in the Inland Northwest. We measured place bonding using data from a mail survey of local (n = 531) and absentee (n = 239) property owners. We compared structural models suggested in the literature on the psychology of place, and found that a two-dimensional model representing place attachment and place identity was appropriate for both local and absentee property owners. Local owners exhibited stronger place attachment and place identity than absentee owners. Place bonding constructs were also substantially less impacted by the total number of years a property owner had resided on his or her property than by the number of months per year they lived on the property. The findings indicate that sociodemographic changes such as those manifested in second-home development may lead to a population that is less emotionally, behaviorally, and cognitively connected to the places in question, while sociodemographic changes from permanent in-migration may have a substantially smaller effect on place bonding.     

Towards a developmental theory of place attachment

Place theory offers no explanation of the developmental processes by which place attachment arises. Drawing on recent findings in human attachment theory, this study offers a developmental model of the process by which place attachment emerges from a childhood place experience. A pattern of positively affected experiences of place in childhood are generalised into an unconscious internal working model of place which manifests subjectively as a long-term positively affected bond to place known as place attachment. Qualitative analysis of adult remembrance of childhood place experience provides support for this model and finds important parallels in the developmental processes underpinning place attachment and human attachment as well as some differences.     

Towards an integrative model of place identification: Dimensionality and predictors of intrapersonal-level place preferences

Research on place identity has been hampered by confusion in defining the concept and lacks an integrated account of social and motivational processes underlying people's identification with places. We used multilevel modelling (N = 141) to investigate the dimensionality and predictors of intrapersonal variance in place identification, drawing on psychological and anthropological literatures. Confirmatory factor analysis distinguished three dimensions of place identification (attachment/self-extension, environmental fit, and place-self congruity), and each was predicted by a somewhat different combination of needs and motives (e.g., self-esteem, continuity, distinctiveness, belonging, meaning, security, control, aesthetic pleasure) and social/symbolic links to places (e.g., genealogy, economics, loss, narrative, spiritual significance, special events). Satisfaction of needs and motives partially accounted for effects of social/symbolic links.     

Place attachment and place identity in natives and non-natives

Place attachment is an affective bond that people establish with specific areas where they prefer to remain and where they feel comfortable and safe. Place identity, however, has been defined as a component of personal identity, a process by which, through interaction with places, people describe themselves in terms of belonging to a specific place. Most research has observed positive correlations between these variables in populations that have maintained ongoing interactions over long periods of time. This work presents two studies in which we compare place attachment to place identity in samples differentiated according to birthplace and length of residence, and the magnitude of these bonds to different places. The results of the first study revealed differences between intensity of attachment and identity depending on place of origin and place assessed. The second study found that identity and attachment tend to coincide in natives, while individuals from other places give higher scores for attachment than for identity. Results from the two studies have enabled us to consider that place attachment develops before place identity, at least in the case of the non-natives. Both studies reveal that bonds are stronger with the city than with the neighbourhood, but that attachment and identity with the island are stronger than either of them.     

Natural area visitors' place meaning and place attachment ascribed to a marine setting

Investigations of place have often focused on either place meaning (utilizing interpretive designs) or place attachment (using quantitative measures). Rarely have researchers explored the association between place meaning and place attachment. Hence, this investigation was designed to explore how individuals' attachment to a natural environment is reflected in their depictions of why the resource is meaningful.     

Place attachment,identification and environment perception: An empirical study

The relationship between people and places is characterized by affective and cognitive dimensions, defined, respectively, as place attachment and identification. This paper aims at clarifying differences between place attachment and identification by (1) identifying their predictors in a structural equation model and (2) exploring their association with the environmental perception. To this purpose, we conducted a research on a sample of 328 residents of a city in the north of Italy. Results show that the affective and the cognitive dimensions (1) are directly predicted by different demographical and psychosocial variables and (2) are strictly associated to the perception of the place and its inhabitants. Place attachment and identification are two distinct but correlated components. Semantic contents related to the environmental perception are described in respect to different levels of attachment and identification.     

Place attachment and place identity: First-year undergraduates making the transition from home to university

This paper examines the issues emanating from the transition into a new social and cultural environment distant from the home, the context of which is provided by the transition from home to university. The study analyses the transitional process over a period of 5 months, using data obtained from in-depth semi-structured interviews and participant observation of ten first-year undergraduates who moved to study at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham. It explores the mediating variables that impact place attachment and place identity during the transition from home to university. Within this context consideration is given to how participants made sense of changes in their socio-spatial environment, the ensuing problems and challenges of doing so, and how these meanings affected self-perceptions and self-evaluations. The analysis demonstrates how participant's stories of the transition evince an abiding concern with the loss of place, manifest in terms of an erosion of a sense of belonging, attachment and continuity and an undermining of home's capacity to symbolise the self. The implications of such accounts for our understanding of place attachment and identity are then explored. The paper concludes by advocating a holistic approach to our conceptualisation of place, given that place meanings are constantly being evaluated and redefined in light of changing social and physical relationships with place and between people and place.     

Place attachment as a driver of adaptation in coastal communities in Northern Norway

Changes in a range of interlinked factors, in social, economic, environmental and climatic conditions, require adaptation in many communities. This paper explores how place attachment affects adaptive responses to a changing social context through analysing adaptation in two coastal municipalities in Northern Norway. The main challenge in these municipalities is declining populations and the consequences accompanying this trend, including livelihood uncertainties and decreased provision of public services. This paper discusses the role of place attachment in motivating adaptation to these changes to contribute to a growing body of literature within climate change adaptation on “subjective” (values, culture and place) dimensions. The findings suggest that people are motivated to act based on their emotional connection with place, and the paper argues that place attachment may offer a better starting point for climate change adaptation than an emphasis on climate change impacts.     

What makes neighborhood different from home and city? Effects of place scale on place attachment

Several years ago Hidalgo and Hernandez reported a curvilinear, U-shaped, relationship between scale of place (apartment, neighborhood, city) and strength of attachment to the place. In this paper four studies are presented, carried out in four Central-European cities, that (1) confirmed the reported curvilinear relationship using five places (apartment, building, neighborhood, city district, city) in three out of four cities and for five items of the Place Attachment Scale, (2) revealed a consistent curvilinear, inverse U-shaped relationship between scale of place and percentage of variance of place attachment predicted by three groups of factors: physical (type of housing, size of building, upkeep and personalization of house precincts, etc.), social (neighborhood ties and sense of security in the residence place), and socio-demographic (age, education, gender, length of residence, family size), and (3) identified strength of direct and indirect effects of the three groups of predictors on attachment to the five types of places. The curvilinear relationship between place scale and place attachment was particularly strong in highly attractive cities and in those scale items that described people's emotional reactions to places whereas a linear relationship was obtained in the least attractive city and in the items that referred to sense of security, amount of control and knowledge of place. In all four cities the best predicted variable was attachment to middle ranges of the place scale (building and neighborhood). The overall best direct predictor of place attachment was neighborhood ties, followed by direct and indirect effects of length of residence, building size, and type of housing. In conclusion it is argued that the usual choice of predictors of place attachment is biased by researchers' interest in the middle scales of place (neighborhood) at the expense of other place scales. In the paper a claim is made that attachments to smaller (apartments, homes) and larger (city) scales of place along with their unique predictors deserve more attention from environmental psychologists.     

Ways to make people active: The role of place attachment, cultural capital, and neighborhood ties

This paper tries to reconcile two sets of apparently contradictory results. One is the positive link, postulated in literature, between place attachment and civic activity, the other is the sociological claim that there is a negative relationship between place attachment and a person's social and cultural status (cultural capital), which in turn is known to be the strongest positive predictor of civic involvement.In order to resolve this inconsistency, I postulated two alternative paths leading to civic activity: the social–emotional path, in which the relationship between place attachment and civic activity is mediated by local social capital (neighborhoods ties), and cultural path, consisting of cultural capital and interest in own roots. I also postulated a negative link between place attachment and cultural capital.A representative sample of 1328 subjects, coming from three regions of Poland, differing in historical heritage and objective rootedness of inhabitants, was used for analysis. In a series of structural equations, the two-path model was confirmed both in the whole sample and in each of the three regions separately. Similar results were obtained from a separate analysis run on data clustered into 114 communes.