Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years?

Sense-of-place writings have proliferated in recent years, yet research suffers from a relative lack of construct clarity and hypothesis testing. This research presents a model of sense of place based in conventional social psychology: cognitions, attitudes, identities, and behavioral intentions located in and fundamentally about place. A survey of property owners in Vilas County, Wisconsin, revealed the importance of symbolic meanings as underpinning both place satisfaction, conceptualized as an attitude toward a setting, and attachment, conceptualized as personal identification with a setting. In turn, attachment, satisfaction, and meanings all have independent effects on willingness to engage in behaviors that maintain or enhance valued attributes of the setting.

Toward a Social Psychology of Place: Predicting Behavior from Place-Based Cognitions, Attitude, and Identity

To enhance land managers’ ability to address deeper landscape meanings and place-specific symbolic values in natural resource decision making, this study evaluated the psychometric properties of a place attachment measure designed to capture the extent of emotions and feelings people have for places. Building on previous measurement efforts, this study examined the validity and generalizability of place attachment across measurement items, places, and dimensions (place dependence and place identity) of attachment. Colorado State University students (n = 65) rated four forest-based recreation sites on two dimensions of place attachment. In addition, data from a sample of University of Illinois students (n = 380) and visitors to Shenandoah National Park (n = 2005) and Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area (n = 369) were analyzed and compared to the Colorado sample. Confirmatory factor analysis of these four data sets demonstrated that subjects distinguish between two dimensions of attachment and assign different levels of attachment to the different areas. Generalizability analysis of the Colorado data provided additional evidence for the two-dimensional structure and suggested that each attachment dimension can be reliably measured with as few as four questionnaire items. Convergent validity was supported through analyses of the relationships between the place attachment measures and both behavioral and psychological variables predicted to be related to place attachment.

https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2003_williams_d001.pdf

The Measurement of Place Attachment: Validity and Generalizability of a Psychometric Approach

Although sense of place definitions nominally include the physical environment, much research has emphasized the social construction of sense of place and neglect the potentially important contributions of the physical environment to place meanings and attachment. This article presents research that tests several models that integrate (1) characteristics of the environment, (2) human uses of the environment, (3) constructed meanings, and (4) place attachment and satisfaction. The research utilized a mail survey of 1,000 property owners in a lake-rich region (the Northern Highlands Lake District of Northern Wisconsin). Structural equation modeling revealed that the best fit model integrating environmental variables with sense of place was a meaning-mediated model that considered certain landscape attributes (i.e., level of shoreline development) as predictive of certain meanings related to attachment and satisfaction. This research demonstrates that landscape attributes matter a great deal to constructed m...

Is It Really Just a Social Construction?: The Contribution of the Physical Environment to Sense of Place

This article illustrates how an attachment to a local natural resource can influence environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) in an individual's everyday life. Our study showed that 4 general (e.g., talking with others about environmental issues) and 3 specific (e.g., sorting recyclable trash) behavioral indicators reflected a single environmentally responsible latent construct. Following previous research, we operationalized place attachment using 2 concepts: (a) place dependence (i.e., a functional attachment) and (b) place identity (i.e., an emotional attachment). The influence of these two concepts on ERB was examined using a structural equation model. Data for this analysis were obtained from a survey of youth, 14-17 years of age (N = 182), who participated in local natural resource work programs. Results supported the predicted relationships. As hypothesized, place identity mediated the relationship between place dependence and responsible behavior. Place dependence influenced place ident...

Place Attachment and Environmentally Responsible Behavior

A theoretical framework is provided to understand a cultural group's definition of and relationship with nature and the environment. The framework draws on a social constructionist perspective that includes aspects of phenomenology and symbolic interactionism to define “landscape” as the symbolic environment created by a human act of conferring meaning on nature and the environment. This landscape reflects the selfdefinitions of the people within a particular cultural context. Attention is directed to transformation of the physical environment into landscapes that reflect people's definitions of themselves and on how these landscapes are reconstructed in response to people's changing definitions of themselves. Case studies from sociology and anthropology illustrate the social construction of nature and the environment. A discussion of the applied implications of the theoretical framework in social impact assessment and the global implications in the shifting power struggle over competing landscapes concludes the paper.

Landscapes: The Social Construction of Nature and the Environment

Assessing the influence of farm women's self-identity on task allocation and decision making.

The image of the family farm as storehouse of the traditional values that built this nation -- self-reliance, resourcefulness, civic pride, family strength, concern for neighbors and community, honesty, and friendliness -- persists, as many recent surveys show. But the reality of this rich tradition is rapidly changing, eroding the security once represented by these nostalgic images of rural America.Although the United States is still by far the world's leading overall producer of agricultural products, the number of American families making their livelihood through farming is much diminished, and if our demographers are correct, the number of family-operated farms is destined to fall still further in the coming decades as consolidation, cycles of boom and bust, and corporate invasions redefine who will farm the land. "Harvest of Hope" is a story of farm family life through the words of those who live it. The saga of the generations who have lived and worked on Basin Spring farm in western Kentucky is the thread that binds together the stories of eighty other farm families. They talk about their family businesses, their way of life, and the forces reshaping their lives.The challenges of making a living in farming either strengthen families or break them. Technology, government programs, and community changes that are supposed to be the hope for their future often come with unexpected drawbacks. The stories in this book -- tales of growing up in farming, working in a multifamily business, juggling jobs on and off the farm, and struggling to maintain financial security and comfortable working relationships -- reveal what American farming families know about hope and survival in a changing world.The authors offer a multifaceted view of the present situation, as well as suggestions for ways of enhancing the positive elements that have enriched and inspired Americans in the past. It is an analysis that highlights the myths and realities of a business and way of life that has a powerful hold on the American imagination. The reader comes away from this work with a clear idea of the tribulations farming families endure and the delicate balance between the spiritual and other rewards of farm life.

Harvest of Hope: Family Farming/Farming Families

Farm business and operator variables associated with bulk tank somatic cell count from dairy herds in the southeastern United States.

The population turnaround [in the United States] was a dramatic change in population distribution patterns that occurred in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Five characteristics of the turnaround suggest that factors other than purely structural changes produced this phenomenon: (1) its large size (2) the quickness with which it occurred (3) the pervasiveness of the turnaround (4) the diversity of participants and (5) the noneconomic motivations of many migrants. The authors present "a collective behavior model for examining the turnaround as a specific form of the craze called the mass movement. The article specifies the value-added process that produced this particular episode at this particular point in social history and explores the factors influencing the decline of the turnaround migration." (EXCERPT)

Lorraine Garkovich

Papers

Landscapes: The Social Construction of Nature and the Environment

Assessing the influence of farm women's self-identity on task allocation and decision making.

Harvest of Hope: Family Farming/Farming Families

Farm business and operator variables associated with bulk tank somatic cell count from dairy herds in the southeastern United States.

Turnaround Migration as an Episode of Collective Behavior.