Place attachment
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Place attachment is the emotional bond between person and place, and is a main concept in
environmental psychology Environmental psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the relationship between humans and the external world. It examines the way in which the natural environment and our built environments shape us as individuals. Environmental Psychol ...
. It is highly influenced by an individual and his or her personal experiences. There is a considerable amount of research dedicated to defining what makes a place "meaningful" enough for place attachment to occur. Schroeder (1991) notably discussed the difference between "meaning" and "preference," defining meaning as "the thoughts, feelings, memories and interpretations evoked by a landscape" and preference as "the degree of liking for one landscape compared to another." Place attachment is multi-dimensional and cannot be explained simply through a cause and effect relationship. Instead, it depends on a reciprocal relationship between behavior and experiences. Due to numerous varying opinions on the definition and components of place attachment, organizational models have been scarce until recent years. A noteworthy conceptual framework is the Tripartite Model, developed by Scannell and Gifford (2010), which defines the variables of place attachment as the three P’s: Person, Process, and Place. When describing place attachment, scholars differentiate between a "rootedness" and a "sense of place". Sense of place attachment arises as the result of cultivation of meaning and artifacts associated with created places. Due to constant migration over the past few centuries, many Americans are thought to lack this type of place attachment, as they have not stayed in a place long enough to develop storied roots. Rootedness, on the other hand, is an unconscious attachment to a place due to familiarity achieved through continuous residence––perhaps that of a familial lineage that has known this place in the years before the current resident. Little is known about the neurological changes that make place attachment possible because of the exaggerated focus on social aspects by environmental psychologists, the difficulties in measuring place attachment over time, and the heavy influence of individualistic experiences and emotions on the degree of attachment. More recently, place attachment is being seen within the grieving and solastalgia linked with climate change induced emotional experiences. Research suggests that engaging with these emotions allows for their inherent adaptiveness to be explored. When emotional experiences linked to place attachment are explored and processed collectively, this leads to a sense of solidarity, connection, and community engagement.


Tripartite model


Person

The Person dimension addresses the question of, "who is attached?" When examined individually, places often gain meaning because of personal experiences, life milestones, and occurrences of personal growth. With communities, however, places derive religious, historical, or other cultural meanings. Community behaviors contribute not only to place attachment experienced by citizens of that community as a group, but also to those citizens individually. For example, desires to preserve ecological or architectural characteristics of a place have a direct impact on the strength of place attachment felt by individuals, notably through self-pride and self-esteem. People experience stronger attachments to places that they can identify with or otherwise feel proud to be a part of.


Process

The process dimension answers the question "How does the attachment exist?" Similar to other concepts in
social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the r ...
, this dimension relies on the collective effects of
affective Affect, in psychology, refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion or mood. History The modern conception of affect developed in the 19th century with Wilhelm Wundt. The word comes from the German ''Gefühl'', meaning "feeling." ...
, cognitive, and behavioral aspects. Recent research has also explored the symbolic connotations that are thought to be a part of the process.


Affect

Drawing from attachment theory, affective bonds are thought to arise out of relationships that provide for functional needs, like security and wellbeing. The most common emotions associated with people-place bonding are positive, such as happiness and love.
Yi-Fu Tuan Yi-Fu Tuan (; December 5, 1930 – August 10, 2022) was a Chinese-born American geographer. He was one of the key figures in human geography and arguably the most important originator of humanistic geography. Early life and education Born in ...
, a noteworthy human geographer and pioneer in place attachment research, coined the term
topophilia Topophilia (From Greek ''topos'' "place" and ''-philia'', "love of") is a strong sense of place, which often becomes mixed with the sense of cultural identity among certain people and a love of certain aspects of such a place. History of the term ...
to describe the love that people feel for particular places. Negative emotions and experiences are also capable of giving places significance; however, negative emotions are usually not associated with people-place bonding since place attachment represents individuals’ yearnings to replicate positive experiences and emotions.


Cognition

Cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
incorporates the knowledge, memories, and meanings that individuals or groups have associated with places of attachment. Specifically, these cognitive elements represent what makes specific places important enough for people-place bonding to develop. Environmental psychologists additionally use the term
schema The word schema comes from the Greek word ('), which means ''shape'', or more generally, ''plan''. The plural is ('). In English, both ''schemas'' and ''schemata'' are used as plural forms. Schema may refer to: Science and technology * SCHEMA ...
to describe how people organize their beliefs and knowledge in regards to places and has led some researchers to note familiarity as a central cognitive element in place attachment. This idea of familiarity has been used in explaining why people mark themselves as "city people" or why they develop preferences for certain types of homes. Researchers have coined a number of terms based on familiarity, including "settlement identity" and "generic place dependence."


Behavior

Behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...
is the physical manifestation of place attachment and can represent the cognitive and affective elements that an individual possesses in their person-place bonds. Proximity-maintaining behaviors have been noted as common behaviors among people who have attachment of place, similar to those who have interpersonal attachments. Many individuals unknowingly experience the effects of place attachment through
homesickness Homesickness is the distress caused by being away from home.Kerns, Brumariu, Abraham. Kathryn A., Laura E., Michelle M.(2009/04/13). Homesickness at summer camp. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 54. Its cognitive hallmark is preoccupying thoughts of home ...
and will carry out proximity-maintaining behaviors to satisfy their desires to relieve it by returning home or reinventing their current environments to match the characteristics of home. This reinvention of current environments has been coined as reconstruction of place and is a notable place attachment behavior. Reconstruction of place often occurs when communities are rebuilding after natural disasters or war. As counterintuitive as it may seem, trips and even pilgrimages away from places can enhance a person-place bond because individuals grow an increased appreciation for the places they have left behind, contributing to feelings of
nostalgia Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a learned formation of a Greek language, Greek compound, consisting of (''nóstos''), meaning "homecoming", ...
that often accompany attachment and the memories that places evoke.


Place

The Place dimension addresses the question of, "what is attached?" and can be applied to any geographic type. Many researchers stress that place attachment relies on both physical and social aspects. Attachment to a place bears no regard to the size of it and can occur in places small (i.e. a room or house) and large (i.e. communities and cities). As such, scholars have studied place attachment in a multitude of settings. A common finding throughout many of these studies is that place attachment is thought to increase with greater time spent at it. Further, scholars speculate that place attachment is developed through lived experiences in a place, rather than the symbolic value that is often assigned to places of public value that one may have never visited. Childhood memories are thought to be particularly poignant and an aspect of early place attachment, with attachments formed to places that offered both privacy and the opportunity to engage in fantasy, for example, bedrooms and outdoor landscapes. Smith (2017) has identified the following typology of places that takes into account both their physical and social attributes. Secure places: places that people have some of the strongest identified bonds with. These are places with stability and continuity. The home is most often associated as a secure place. Socializing places: these are places with a strong identified community. They may serve as a gathering space; for example, plazas. Transformative places: these are places associated with autobiographical recall that are attached to memories as places of importance. Restorative places: places that induce physiological reactions. These are often peaceful and natural areas with aesthetic beauty. Outdoor areas like national parks often fall into this category. Validating places: these are places with cultural significance and shared meaning. Vanishing places: these are places that are transforming from the place that humans commonly associate them with. This may be due to natural or man-made destruction; depletion of natural resources or features; encroachment, where incoming cultures are transforming the meaning of places; and restriction, where particular activities are limited.


Social

There is debate among environmental psychologists that place attachment occurs due to the social relationships that exist within the realm of an individual's significant place rather than the physical characteristics of the place itself. Some scholars have proposed that sense of place is socially constructed, and that social ties are predictors of place attachment. Hidalgo and Hernández (2001) studied levels of attachment based on different dimensions and found that while social aspects were stronger than physical ones, both affected the overall person-place bond.


Physical

Natural and built environments can both be subjects of person-place bonds. The resources that these environments provide are the most tangible aspects that can induce attachment. These resources can lead to the development of place dependence. Place dependence negatively correlates with environmental press, which can be defined as the demands and stresses that an environment puts on people physically, interpersonally, or socially. Conversely, intangible aspects of environments can also promote attachment. In particular, the characteristics and symbolic representations that an individual associates with his or her perceptions of self are pivotal in the person-place bond.


Places of attachment


Attachment to the home

The home has long been studied as a place of attachment, with scholars recognizing the affective bonds people develop to their residence. Early work by Fried (1966) examined West End Bostonians' reactions of grief in response to relocation from their residences. Fried postulated that this pointed to the spatial and social significance of the home and sense of continuity it creates for individuals' everyday routines and relationships. The home is a symbol of domestic life. It is thought to represent security and emotional attachment, which Smith has equated with a "womb-like" place. The home is also particularly relevant in childhood memories, where children spend most of their time during their formative years. Possession and control of the home have been found to heighten sense of place attachment. Scholars have found that sense of attachment increases with home ownership, as opposed to renting. Further, territoriality, the ability to exercise control over the space, is thought to be a central feature of the attachment to the home in that it embodies privacy. Of this, forms of attachment to the home are thought to include "home experience", "rootedness" and "identity".


Attachment to neighborhoods

Neighborhoods are community areas without officially constructed borders, the boundaries for which are primarily construed by individual residents based on amenities and points of interest within walking distance. Factors that are thought to influence neighborhood attachment include assimilation into the social community (length of residence, interest in neighborhood occurrences, and relationships with others), engagement with local institutions and organizations, and the makeup of the neighborhood itself (size,  density, and socioeconomic class). Studies looking at neighborhood diversity have found that people in homogenous neighborhoods are more likely to report place attachment; likewise, there is a negative correlation between increased neighborhood diversity and place attachment.


Attachment to landscapes

Place attachment can occur on landscapes of varying significance. For ordinary landscapes, that attachment is often one of biological utility (i.e. ones that offer food and shelter), cultural significance, or experience within an individual’s lifetime (particularly childhood). The evidence for a relationship between place attachment and place stewardship has been mixed. Scholars have noted relationships between attachment and environmental stewardship; for example, increased likelihood of recycling and limiting water use, support for recreational areas, and engagement with community organizations. However, multiple others have failed to find relationships. Willingness to intervene on behalf of the environment may be dependent upon whether the attachment is primarily due to the physical or social attributes of the environment. Scannell and Gifford found that people with greater attachment to the physical location were more likely to engage with it.


Developmental theories

There is very little research dedicated to the underlying developmental and neurological processes for place attachment, which is a major criticism of the field. Suggested developmental theories include the
mere-exposure effect The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle. The effect ...
and the security-exploration cycle. Environmental psychologists have recognized parallels between the
attachment theory Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal ...
and the development of place attachment, but the attachment theory at times fails to recognize place as a playing piece and instead classifies it as a background for attachment relationships. The security-exploration cycle indicates that a place can become the target of attachment when it incorporates both security and exploration. For example, the home, a popular object of attachment, typically possesses a safe or familiar indoor environment and an outdoor space that satisfies desires to explore and expand knowledge. This example is capitalized upon by Morgan (2010), who proposed a combination of human attachment and place attachment in a model called the Exploration-Assertion Motivational System, which suggests that the strongest attachments originate during childhood. The model states that place attachment forms due to a cycle of repeated arousals and behaviors that are linked to both places and attachment figures. As a result of this balance between exploration and attachment behavior, children receive positive reinforcements in the forms of
connectedness In mathematics, connectedness is used to refer to various properties meaning, in some sense, "all one piece". When a mathematical object has such a property, we say it is connected; otherwise it is disconnected. When a disconnected object can be s ...
and a sense of adventure and mastery. Despite the absence of a well-established developmental theory and understanding of the neurological changes that accompany place attachment, most researchers agree that some form of place attachment occurs for each person at some point in his or her lifetime, with childhood homes being the most prevalent object of attachment.


Scientific research


Predictors of attachment

There is a desire among researchers to create a list of concrete variables that account for differing extents of place attachment among individuals. It is believed that increased length of residence in a location increases the attachment a person has to that location. Place attachment tends to develop fast in early years of life and in a short time of residence, it helps that a person visits constantly the same place and no others, making, place attachment and place identity settle and grow. Over extended periods of time, place identity can develop.
Place identity Place identity or place-based identity refers to a cluster of ideas about place and identity in the fields of geography, urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, environmental psychology, ecocriticism and urban sociology/ecological s ...
is defined as an individual's perception of self as a member of a particular environment. Other proposed positively correlated variables are ownership (i.e. of home, land) and social interactions. Some inversely related variables that have been suggested are building size and age.


Place Identity

This construct is usually mistaken with place attachment, even if they develop from different causes. Place attachment develops from positive experiences and the satisfactory relationship between a person and a place, while place identity comes from beliefs, meanings, emotions, ideas and attitudes assigned to a place.


Place dependence or functional attachment

Defined as a functional relationship based on the conditions provided for a place in order to satisfy the needs of a person or accomplish a specific goal. Also depends on how is evaluated in other places, answering the question, "What can I do in this place that I can't do in other places?". Functional attachment depends on certain characteristics related to the place, as how much this area is compatible with a person, as they can carry out their activities and goals, this type of attachment is common in those who practice green exercise. This kind of attachment grows exponentially in relation to the number of visits.


Benefits

The benefits related to place attachment include the ability to build memories as the person is capable to connect with his ancestors past, the feeling of belonging to a place, the personal growth as it provides the opportunity to experience positive emotions as a result from a healthy relationship with the place, so the person can feel security and freedom.


Measuring attachment

Psychometric Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally refers to specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and ...
and
Likert scale A Likert scale ( , commonly mispronounced as ) is a psychometric scale commonly involved in research that employs questionnaires. It is the most widely used approach to scaling responses in survey research, such that the term (or more fully the ...
s are the most commonly used quantitative methods for different dimensions of place attachment, such as belongingness and identity. Meanings of places are often quantitatively studied by asking participants to score a set list of places on the basis of 12 categories: aesthetic, heritage, family connection, recreation, therapeutic, biological diversity, wilderness, home, intrinsic, spiritual, economic, life-sustaining, learning, and future. Another example of quantitative measurements are frequency counts with word associations. Qualitative research has been conducted with the intention to gain insight into meanings that places possess. Some of the techniques used for qualitative research are free association tasks, in-depth interviews, and verbal reports from focus groups.


Memory association

Memories Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
combine
sensation Sensation (psychology) refers to the processing of the senses by the sensory system. Sensation or sensations may also refer to: In arts and entertainment In literature *Sensation (fiction), a fiction writing mode *Sensation novel, a British ...
s and
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
s to create images that can be used to retain and recall information or past experiences. Over time, memories collectively allow an individual to develop feelings of familiarity that comprise a
sense of place The term sense of place has been used in many different ways. It is a multidimensional, complex construct used to characterize the relationship between people and spatial settings. It is a characteristic that some geographic places have and some ...
. When an interactive experience with three-dimensional space does not match these developed expectations, an individual adapts his or her understanding of place through learning and sensory input. For this reason, places are frequently associated with memories that can evoke physical senses. The
plasticity Plasticity may refer to: Science * Plasticity (physics), in engineering and physics, the propensity of a solid material to undergo permanent deformation under load * Neuroplasticity, in neuroscience, how entire brain structures, and the brain it ...
of memories means that place identities are subject to change. Memories of places and individual preferences for specific places both change over time. Adults tend to focus on the emotions, meanings, and contextual implications of feelings in association with places. Children, however, focus on physical aspects of environments and what can be performed in various environments, which can be seen in the popularity of "pretend" and imagination games among children. Consequently, childhood memories of places are typically oriented around heavily emotional, intense, or euphoric events.


Applications


Disaster psychology

A healthy emotional relationship between a city or neighborhood and its inhabitants maintains the culture and positive attitudes despite any detrimental events that may be occurring in that city or neighborhood (i.e. people having an increased sense of security even if they live in a war zone). When forced relocation occurs, refugees experience a
grieving process The five stages of grief model (or the Kübler-Ross model) is popularly known as a model that describes a series of emotions experienced by people who are grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In actuality, the Kübler-R ...
similar to when loved ones are lost. Through reconstruction of place, the familiarity of an attachment to places lost can be mimicked to relieve stress and grief.


Space planning

An understanding of the psychological factors responsible for place attachment is important for the effective development of place loyalty that allows cities and towns to flourish. Additionally, successful places address the needs or maintain the cultural integrities and meanings that communities have placed upon them. More specifically, additions of buildings or monuments and creation of outdoor recreational spaces must be well-aligned with a community’s place attachment to prevent backlash from inhabitants that do not agree with the intended land developments.


Senior communities

Environmental press is often considered with elderly populations transitioning into assisted living or senior communities. Improving the overall
community psychology Community psychology is concerned with the community as the unit of study. This contrasts with most psychology which focuses on the individual. Community psychology also studies the community as a context for the individuals within it,Jim Orfor ...
and
sense of community Sense of community (or psychological sense of community) is a concept in community psychology, social psychology, and community social work, as well as in several other research disciplines, such as urban sociology, which focuses on the ''experie ...
can allow place attachment to develop for both individuals and groups. Developing new place attachment is usually more difficult with increased age, and as a result, recently transitioned senior adults and senior communities are popular subjects for research in order to test the efficacy of various community-building techniques, such as celebrations and neighborhood political organizations.


See also

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Attachment theory Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal ...
*
Behavioral psychology Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual ...
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Community psychology Community psychology is concerned with the community as the unit of study. This contrasts with most psychology which focuses on the individual. Community psychology also studies the community as a context for the individuals within it,Jim Orfor ...
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Environmental psychology Environmental psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the relationship between humans and the external world. It examines the way in which the natural environment and our built environments shape us as individuals. Environmental Psychol ...
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Human geography Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography that studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment. It analyzes spatial interdependencies between social i ...
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Interior design psychology Interior design psychology is a field within environmental psychology, which concerns the environmental conditions of the interior. It is a direct study of the relationship between an environment and how that environment affects the behavior of its ...
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Sense of place The term sense of place has been used in many different ways. It is a multidimensional, complex construct used to characterize the relationship between people and spatial settings. It is a characteristic that some geographic places have and some ...
*
Place identity Place identity or place-based identity refers to a cluster of ideas about place and identity in the fields of geography, urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, environmental psychology, ecocriticism and urban sociology/ecological s ...


References

{{Environmental social science Environmental psychology Environmental social science concepts