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Cultural and social disconnection in the context of a changed physical environment
Abstract
The context of the study was provided by the enforced relocation of an old coal mining community in the UK and describes the changes that were experienced by relocatees. The study is longitudinal in design over a six year period and this article is based on the qualitative part of the study. The old village had consisted of five straight rows of terraced houses whereas the new village was built in a curvilinear design with additional housing, occupying a much larger space. Reduced visual access to others not only diminished a sense of connectedness but also restricted an information flow which had been part of the functioning of the previous community, leaving indigenous participants with a sense of isolation. This unwanted isolation diluted the previous collective identity and weakened social support. In addition, an abrupt change in the community's socio-cultural patterns occurred and previously learned privacy mechanisms were found to be inappropriate in the new setting. New values, priorities, lifestyles and overt materialism were evident and the data suggest that the earlier mostly collective functioning of the community had been replaced by individual functioning. It is proposed that spatial aspects provide constraints and opportunities for different behaviour patterns, highlighting the crucial importance of the physical environment and illustrating the essentially dynamic relationship between person, group and place.
... Gustafson, 2001;Tabernero et al., 2010;Vidal et al., 2010), including the disruptive impacts of relocation and displacement experienced by military personnel and the homeless (Fullilove, 1996), and place attachment formation amongst relocating individuals striving to maintain continuity across settlement type (e.g. Feldman, 1990Feldman, , 1996Fried, 2000;Speller and Twigger-Ross, 2009). The roles of nostalgia (Lewicka, 2014) and solastalgia ('the pain or sickness caused by the loss or lack of solace and the sense of isolation connected to the present state of one's home and territory', Albrecht, 2007:96) in hindering or facilitating attachment to place(s) have also received some minor attention. ...
... Brown and Perkins (1992) proposed a three-stage model of disruption (pre-disruption, disruption and postdisruption), outlining a process leading to the formation of new bonds following events such as household burglary or forced relocation. Elsewhere, studies adopting Identity Process Theory (Speller & Twigger-Ross, 2009;Timotijevic & Breakwell, 2000), Social Identity Theory (Bonaiuto, Breakwell & Cano, 1996;Carrus et al. 2002), and Place Identity Theory Stedman, 2002), have investigated ways in which place change may threaten place-based identities. Although highly instructive, this literature is limited by implying that disruption is the result of an actual, rather than a proposed, physical change to a place (Devine-Wright, 2009), and by overlooking the ways that change may be seen as enhancing as well as negative or 'disruptive' in nature (Devine-Wright & Howes, 2010;Devine-Wright, 2011a). ...
Research on people-place relations, incorporating place attachment and place identity, has often adopted a structural approach, overlooking the dynamic nature of these relations over time. More process-oriented research has tended to investigate the impacts of single moments or events, neglecting a broader focus upon people's life course. To address this gap, this study investigated patterns of residential place attachments ('life-place trajectories') and used these to better understand current place relations and responses to change, including disruption to pre-existing place bonds. Narrative interviews (n = 25) were conducted in 2013 with residents living in Nailsea, a UK town affected by proposals to construct a high voltage power line. Three notable findings emerged. First, the study indicated five novel lifeplace trajectories characterised by diverse configurations of residential mobility and continuity of settlement type. Second, the study extends our understanding of varieties of relationship with the current residence place, including identifying a novel variety of 'traditional-active attachment'. Third, the study indicates the relevance of the trajectories for understanding responses to place change proposals, including acceptance and opposition. The findings show the value of the narrative interview method for revealing place relations across the life course, informing understanding of people-place relations and infrastructure siting.
... Adjusting to a new community could cause teachers stress and affect their selfefficacy. Psychological research revealed that feeling unconnected from the community where you live and work can lead to negative effects, including personal stress and a decrease in self-efficacy (Kennedy, Cameron, Greene, 2012;Speller & Twigger-Ross, 2009;Zhang & Goodson, 2011). Much of this research indicated people who live and work in new communities experience higher levels of personal and professional anxiety. ...
... Given previous research (Kennedy et al., 2012;Speller & Twigger-Ross, 2009;Zhang & Goodson, 2011), a teacher's general self-efficacy should be related to the level of social connectedness they have within their community and the amount of culture shock they experience based on their interaction with that community. Teacher retention researchers have not examined the relationship of novice teachers' general self-efficacy to the culture shock they may experience living in new communities nor have they related the possible lack of social connectedness to a decline in self-efficacy. ...
The attrition rate for novice teachers can range between 20%-50% in the first five years. This problem has concerned researchers in school-based agricultural education because of the shortage of agriculture teachers and high demands of the job. Researchers narrowed down the reasons why teachers leave the profession including the role of self-efficacy. While self-efficacy of novice teachers in the classroom has been researched, general self-efficacy of novice teachers has not been examined. We investigated the influence of moving into a new community and adjusting to the new culture and social connections of the new community on the teacher’s self-efficacy. The purpose was to determine if culture shock and social connectedness explained general self-efficacy of novice agriculture teachers. It was concluded that the construct of core beliefs and how people react internally to their community within the culture shock theory significantly explained a proportion of the variance in general self-efficacy. The findings implied that the culture distance experienced by a novice teacher in a new community could affect their general well-being and ability to accomplish their goals.
... Thus, promoting social engagement within built environments is a vital consideration for HBI research. Building design should consider how to best connect and strengthen the community using public or shared spaces [96] while balancing the needs of individual privacy [97]. The promotion of meaningful interpersonal interactions can support collective efficacy, that is, enhancing shared experiences among neighbors, co-workers, or other individuals working together for a common good [98]. ...
This paper seeks to address ten questions that explore the burgeoning field of Human-Building Interaction (HBI), an interdisciplinary field that represents the next frontier in convergent research and innovation to enable the dynamic interplay of human and building interactional intelligence. The field of HBI builds on several existing efforts in historically separate research fields/communities and aims to understand how buildings affect human outcomes and experiences, as well as how humans interact with, adapt to, and affect the built environment and its systems, to support buildings that can learn, enable adaptation, and evolve at different scales to improve the quality-of-life of its users while optimizing resource usage and service availability. Questions were developed by a diverse group of researchers with backgrounds in design, engineering, computer science, social science, and health science. Answers to these questions draw conclusions from what has been achieved to date as reported in the available literature and establish a foundation for future HBI research. This paper aims to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations in HBI research to change the way people interact with and perceive technology within the context of buildings and inform the design, construction, and operation of next-generation, intelligent built environments. In doing so, HBI research can realize a myriad of benefits for human users, including improved productivity, health, cognition, convenience, and comfort, all of which are essential to societal well-being.
... By extension, when changes occur in that environment, they may lead to various negative psychological problems. These could be separation distress (Berry and Danquah, 2016;Cox and Perry, 2011), grief (Scannell and Gifford, 2017;Fried, 2000), loss of social networks (Degnen, 2016;Speller and Twigger-Ross, 2009), and even trauma (Fullilove, 1996). In that regard, place attachment is strongly associated with greater well-being in various contexts; rural communities, neighbourhoods, housing or residences. ...
Place attachment is a phenomenon, extensively studied by researchers from different fields, within different contexts and from different perspectives. Within the context of the traditional urban built environment, and using an explanatory narrative mechanism, this study traced the phenomenon by reilluminating its impact evidenced in the perpetual existence of traditional neighbourhoods in urban areas, despite apparent developmental neglect in some of those neighbourhoods. Consequently, place attachment to the traditional urban built environment was PLACE ATTACHMENT IN TRADITIONAL URBAN NEIGHBOURHOODS PJAEE, 18(4) (2021) 6510 shown to be higher than in new urban developments, as a result of satisfaction with the liveliness, neighbourliness and diversity of such environments.
... Likewise, Fullilove (2004) suggests the term "root shock" to represent situations in which the network of the person-place relationship breaks down, affecting health. Also, Fried (2000) and Manzo, Kleit, and Couch (2008) establish that these changes are defined as feelings of pain and loss (Fried, 2000) or loss of one's social networks (Speller & Twigger-Ross, 2009). Although the literature mainly indicates that these changes are negative (Devine-Wright, 2014), Manzo (2014) states that they can also be positive when people leave a place with which they have generated a negative bond (Manzo, 2005). ...
Disasters affect sociospatial links in a dynamic and unstable meshwork of aspects that are reconfigured. In this sense, accounting for this complexity is central to analyze the transformation of the sociospatial linkage of the affected people and communities. Addressing from community environmental psychology, we propose the concept of assemblage to guide a situated reading of subjective, material, and community aspects present in a reconstruction process after a disaster. Following a qualitative methodology, using spatially referenced narrative interviews (n = 16) and thematic analysis, it is described how these links are presented in a community that lived the mega‐fire of a part of the city of Valparaíso in Chile. The results describe that the experience of being a community is a variable flow within a process defined by an ever‐emerging configuration of spatial, technological, personal, social, and sensory characteristics. We conclude by pointing out the qualities of the communities when considered from an assemblage perspective.
... On the other hand, place identity refers to the ways in which physical and symbolic attributes of certain locations contribute to an individual's sense of self or identity (Proshansky et al., 1983). The impact of change or new development, sometimes labelled by literature as 'disruption' to place attachment or 'threat' to place identity, affects not only the physical aspect but also the social networks (Devine-Wright, 2009;Speller and Twigger-Ross, 2009) leading to diverse coping responses such as place-protective behaviors (Stedman, 2002). ...
The Makiling-Banahaw Geothermal Complex was one of the first two geothermal projects for exploration and development in the Philippines. The study aims to identify critical issues and supporting factors for geothermal energy projects in the Philippines by collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data from various stakeholders of the Makiling-Banahaw Geothermal Complex. The case study reveals that stakeholders of barangays with geothermal facilities were agreeable to geothermal energy. Frequent periodic and strategic public engagement initiated by geothermal resource developers and local government can develop trust and improve integration of geothermal energy with the local communities.
... This article explores the professional context of social work by examining how place influences professional distinctiveness, continuity, self-esteem and selfefficacy. Professional distinctiveness is understood as the desire for a unique professional sense of self, as a professional group and as an individual social worker (Speller and Twigger-Ross, 2009). The principle of continuity includes professional place referent continuity where past social work practices informs the present experience of professional self and professional place congruent continuity where the professional self and the new environment is perceived as a fit (Twigger-Ross and Uzzell, 1996). ...
This article explores the experience and influence of place amongst transnational social workers. The concept of ‘place’ may be perceived as quietly existing in the background of everyday social work practice. Yet, transnational social workers in this study tell a different story about what happens to the role of place when social workers become globally mobile.
... A summary of Twigger- Ross and Uzzell's (1996) theoretical framework, including explanatory descriptions of the principles and their dimensions, is provided in Table 1. Speller and Twigger-Ross (2009) propose that distinctiveness is the desire to preserve a unique sense of self, both as part of a group and as an individual, which is subjective as well as projected to others. The principle of distinctiveness has four dimensions, conceptualised as personal distinctiveness (a long history of involvement with place), and local (belonging to a local community), settlement (identifying as being from the country not the city) and regional identification (coming from a specific region). ...
The contemporary farming context across western countries is experiencing a period of dramatic demographic, social, environmental and economic change. This is having a significant impact particularly in countries such as Australia with a long culture of generational family farming sustained by patrilineal farm succession. Generational farmers maintain strong attachment and unique relationships with place as farms are both homes and sites of production. Retirement involves a reconfiguration of place identity and in the context of change, farming couples contemplating retirement now face unprecedented challenges as they age, with the younger generation reluctant to follow. Drawing on Australian data, this article utilises place identity theory to examine the role of place identity in older farming couples' retirement considerations. Findings are drawn from a 'small story' narrative study of six older generational farming couples, all still actively farming the land. A small story approach permits examination of the ways couples position retirement and how place identity affects couples' agency as they contemplate retirement. The collection of data across two time points, 18 months apart, enabled couples to reflect on how they individually and collectively viewed retirement over time. Findings suggest that the uni-dimensionality of farming men's place identities may be marginalising women as couples navigate the prospect of retirement. The implications of this study are broader than the Australian context as the family farming model remains the most prevalent form of agricultural enterprise across the world.
... A forced resettlement and the scale of rehabilitation for local communities seem to be the main bone of contention in land use conflicts associated with coal mining. The resettlement does not mean just a physical relocation of people but it can result in the loss of physical as well as non-physical assets, including jobs, productive land, income-earning sources, disruption to social structures and community networks, increased health risks, social disarticulation, the disruption of formal educational activities, the loss of traditional cultural ties and local cultural identity (Downing, 2002;Nillson, 2010;Speller and Twigger-Ross, 2009). Under-financing -in terms of the financial repayment to residents who are forced to leave the living space, within which their ancestors had often lived for centuries -is the key problem in terms of mitigating potential negative impacts of resettlement. ...
This paper provides new insights about the factors shaping social acceptance of and opposition to coal mining. It is based on a comparative survey of communities living in two towns with different demographic development and residential quality located in a close proximity to expanding opencast mine in the Czech Republic, which are threatened by displacement due to possible revisions of the current territorial mining limits. We analyze social-spatial differences in perceptions of landscape and place attachment, and the influence of geographical and sociodemographic factors on personal attitudes and the involvement in local anti-coal activities. A strong place attachment that is determined by the quality of living environment and the length of residence proved to be significant predictor of anti-coal attitude, while the employment tied to coal industry and weak place attachments are key factors shaping a pro-coal attitude. A typical active opponent of the coal mining expansion has a higher age, university education and strong place attachment. While both studied communities are characterized by strong active engagement in protest activities, a low level of confidence in the effectiveness of protests to affect decisions of political authorities was also detected.
... A summary of Twigger- Ross and Uzzell's (1996) theoretical framework, including explanatory descriptions of the principles and their dimensions, is provided in Table 1. Speller and Twigger-Ross (2009) propose that distinctiveness is the desire to preserve a unique sense of self, both as part of a group and as an individual, which is subjective as well as projected to others. The principle of distinctiveness has four dimensions, conceptualised as personal distinctiveness (a long history of involvement with place), and local (belonging to a local community), settlement (identifying as being from the country not the city) and regional identification (coming from a specific region). ...
Australian farming, predominantly based on a family farming model, reflects a distinct culture and identity within Australia. Generativity can be identified within the longstanding practice of patrilineal generational farm succession. However, the changing social, economic and environmental context facing farmers today, is now threatening the sustainability and viability of the family farming model. The outcome in Australia, as elsewhere, has been a significant decline in the number of farming families and a sharp reduction in the number of young people entering farming. Overall, farmers are increasingly aging on farm in two-person households and without a next generation to follow. In this scenario, the article presents research which aims to explore how older Australian couples construct generativity across their life course. The study draws on constructionist narrative research conducted in the Australian New South Wales Southern Riverina. Generativity, as presented by Erikson (1950) and Kotre (1996), is utilised as a theoretical frame by which to explore the meaning of generational family farming in six couples’ stories of navigating later life challenges. Drawing on Gubrium and Holstein’s (1998) ‘narrative practice’ analytic framework, this article examines tensions between couples’ jointly constructed narratives and the grand narrative of Australian family farming. A ‘narrative practice’ approach permits examination of the meaning of experience, coherence, and the ways contexts, as well as stories of the past influence stories told about couples’ present and future generative expression. This approach is highly consistent with the rapidly changing farming context where couples may be trying hard to construct a coherent story within a distinct family farming grand narrative under considerable tension. Findings show that in this context, and often in the absence of the next generation, there are visible changes in farming couples’ expression of generativity. The grand narrative of Australian family farming is compromised and older farming couples are being pressured to develop a new script for aging. In some cases, this is also causing significant tensions between couples, particularly around individual constructions of retirement. These findings may have some resonance with farming in other western countries, where aging farmers are faced with broad social and economic change.
... The link between traditional neighborhood design (as distinguished from suburban sprawl) and social capital has been explored in other research. Residents from a small mining town in the United Kingdom forcibly relocated from a neighborhood with a consolidated street layout to a lower density area characterized by a curvilinear street pattern, experienced unwanted isolation, deterioration in collective identity, and weakened social support (Speller and Twigger-Ross 2009). Lund (2003), who examined new urbanist neighborhoods in California, also found empirical support for the idea that neighborhoods with consolidated grid like streets, nearby access to shopping, and good pedestrian environments, exhibit increased casual social interaction compared to more suburban cul-de-sac designs. ...
Urban planning has an important role to play in supporting human health. While this is increasingly recognized in a burgeoning interdisciplinary body of literature, there remains an ongoing need to clarify and conceptualize the relationship between planning and health. This is especially the case from the perspective of built environment professionals, as they increasingly focus on health and well-being issues. The key contribution of this article is such a conceptualization-a framework to group and review the literature in this rapidly expanding area of research. We suggest three domains where urban planning can most effectively focus support for health and well-being. These domains address the principle risk factors for contemporary chronic disease-physical inactivity, obesity, and social isolation. Our framework is then used to review an evidence base that supports the development, prioritization, and implementation of healthy built environment practice. This article concludes with a critical discussion of theoretical and practical tensions identified as potential impediments to the progression of this new and exciting interdisciplinary area of research.
... The link between traditional neighbourhood design (as distinguished from suburban "sprawl") and social capital has been further explored in other research. Residents forcibly relocated from a neighbourhood with a consolidated street layout to a lower density area characterised by a curvilinear street pattern, experienced unwanted isolation, deterioration in collective identity and weakened social support (Speller & Twigger-Ross 2009). Lund (2003), who examined new urbanist neighbourhoods in California, also found empirical support for the idea that neighbourhoods with consolidated grid like streets, nearby access to shopping, and good pedestrian environments, exhibit increased casual social interaction compared to more suburban cul-de-sac designs. ...
The built environment has an important role to play in supporting human health as part of everyday living. While this is increasingly recognised in a burgeoning inter-disciplinary body of literature, there is ongoing difficulty in defining the most effective built environment interventions that support human health. This paper proposes a way forward. We suggest three domains where planning can focus its support for human health by addressing the principle risk factors for contemporary chronic disease – physical inactivity, obesity and social isolation. First, the built environment can increase opportunities for, and reduce barriers to physical activity. The varying needs of different population groups, the purpose of the activity (transportation or leisure), and the characteristics of the built environment (such as residential and commercial densities, land use mix, connectivity and accessibility) must be considered in understanding how the environment can best support physical activity. Second, communities can be strengthened and connected by facilitating interaction in public spaces including gardens, town squares, parks and lively streetscapes. Such spaces have to be safe, inviting and meaningful for the communities that they serve. And third, through zoning and land use regulation, the built environment can support healthy eating. Interventions include community gardens and fresh food markets, as well as protecting food production systems and controlling marketing and advertising infrastructure, and food retail outlets. Our paper, based on a systematic literature review, establishes an evidence base that supports the development, prioritisation and implementation of healthy built environment policies and practices through the three identified domains.
... The barriers and motivators surrounding ERB lacks investigation, as historically, transitioning to unfamiliar living environments has required significant adjustment (Speller and Twigger-Ross, 2009). Individual approaches to promoting ERB have been wide ranging and include: ...
Purpose – In this paper, the authors present the Awareness Behaviour Intervention Action (ABIA) framework, a new system developed by them to support environmentally responsible behaviour (ERB).
Design/methodology/approach – Previous ERB programmes have failed to deliver lasting results; they have not appropriately understood and provided systems to address ERB (Costanzo et al., 1986). The ABIA framework has been developed in line with behavioural studies in other disciplines. A preliminary pilot study has been carried out with social housing residents in order to understand the framework's efficacy.
Findings – The ABIA framework enables a better understanding of current attitudes to environmental issues and provides support for ERB alongside technological interventions employed to promote carbon reduction.
Research limitations/implications – The ABIA framework could be tested on individuals and communities in a variety of socio-economic, political and cultural contexts. This will help unpack how it can impact on the behaviours of individuals and communities including stakeholders.
Practical implications – This type of research and the ABIA framework developed from it are crucial if the EU is to reduce is domestic carbon footprint and if the UK is to meet its pledge to become the first country in the world in which all new homes from 2016 are to be zero carbon.
Social implications – The framework encourages both individual and community engagement in solving of sustainability issues.
Originality/value – There are few studies that have developed a framework which can be used in practice to support behavioural change for adaptation to sustainable living in low- or zero-carbon homes.
... Another set of connections altogether are those forced upon us as a consequence of the intentions of others, with other projects. Refugees find themselves connecting to new and strange places, as do, at another scale, those displaced by urban renewal (Speller and Twigger-Ross 2009). ...
The varied and distinct ways we connect can facilitate or impose isolation, our own or someone else's. Different forms of isolation are themselves interconnected and sometimes enrich our connecting. The relation between isolation and connection, we argue, is one of complementarity, like Calvino's ‘two inseparable and complementary functions of life …syntony, or participation in the world around us … [and] focalization or constructive concentration.’ Solitude sought can enhance connections. Imposed isolation weakens connections in ways both obvious and subtle. This contrast between sought and imposed underscores the influence of hierarchy and socially produced inequities, excesses of which fragment the social ties that could constrain or diminish these same inequities. Deep inequity degrades the quality of both connections and isolation, at significant costs to our health, ecology, economy, cultural diversity, and political vitality. From this vantage point, we cull ways to improve our syntony and our focalization, fulfilling by expressing those shared egalitarian moral sentiments that motivate connections of solidarity partly in the interest of being “left alone”.
The paper presents results of an international comparative survey with local communities living in three coal mining areas in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Poland. The survey attempted to answer the questions to what extent do the perceptions of negative impacts and threats of coal mining, the attitudes towards coal mining and preferences for the pace of coal phase-out differ between the study areas and which factors significantly affect them. The survey focused on residents living in municipalities near active open-cast mines, who have personal experience with both the impacts of mining on the living environment and the effects of the closure of mines on the socio-economic situation in their regions. We found out a high degree of variance in perceptions and attitudes between areas but also within areas (between municipalities and specific groups of people). The results show that residents in coal mining areas hold complex and conflicted attitudes towards coal which are affected by specific geographical conditions, the extent of landscape impacts, and people’s relationships with places, communities, and the coal industry. The significant predictors of attitudes to coal proved to be perceptions of negative environmental impacts of mining, work relationship with coal industry, age, and gender, however, these factors have different significance in various local contexts. With this paper we offer a comparative local-level approach to the just transition as a process that is far from disembodied but instead is tied to specific landscapes and places.
In recent years, scholarship in environmental psychology has drawn on a qualitative narrative methodology in order to better understand the temporally dynamic development of different senses of place over the life course, in the form of distinct ‘life-place trajectories’. This research problematises a monistic and static conceptualisation of sense of place, pointing to the development of a plurality of senses of place that evolve temporally across the entire life course, and points to a need to conceptually expand our notions of the concept by recognising the interrelated role of ‘linked lives’ – the influence of interpersonal relations and wider socio-economic, cultural and political forces in the formation of different senses of place and residential mobility decisions over time. Furthermore, this chapter outlines how this life course approach has been applied to better understand the social acceptance of low-carbon energy technology developments.
This study analyzed the co-creation of new initiatives in the communities of Võru County in Estonia from the perspectives of media re ection and communication. A social hackathon was used as a method for co-creation, bringing stakeholders together to develop innovative service solutions. Data were collected during three social hackathons in 2018 and 2019 and included media coverage (n = 120) and opinion notes (n = 300). Findings indicate that media publications re ected the problems of vulnerable groups; the media's role was to support the co-creation processes by creating a stage for active citizens to share ideas and discuss solutions.
This study assesses whether changes in migrants' identity predict changes in their travel behaviour. Data were collected from Western professional migrants in Hong Kong and Macau using open‐ended self‐completed survey questions. Results derived from content analysis indicate that long‐term migrants benefit from greater accessibility to many regional destinations, home‐return trips, and lower fares while temporary migrants and those on contracts felt constrained to pursue pleasure travel. Factors explaining tourism‐oriented motives to move comprise convenient hub, rite of passage, continuation of identity, and career maintenance. Many reasons are also found to account for changes in travel frequency and destination choice over time. These findings can shape marketing actions for destinations in the region as well as provide a platform for future theoretical and empirical research on the relationship between tourism and migration.
(From book cover) This ground-breaking book critically extends the psychological project, seeking to investigate the relations between human and more-than-human worlds against the backdrop of the Anthropocene by emphasising the significance of encounter, interaction and relationships.
Interdisciplinary environmental theorist Matthew Adams draws inspiration from a wealth of ideas emerging in human–animal studies, anthrozoology, multi-species ethnography and posthumanism, offering a framing of collective anthropogenic ecological crises to provocatively argue that the Anthropocene is also an invitation – to become conscious of the ways in which human and nonhuman are inextricably connected. Through a series of strange encounters between human and nonhuman worlds, Adams argues for the importance of cultivating attentiveness to the specific and situated ways in which the fates of multiple species are bound together in the Anthropocene. Throughout the book this argument is put into practice, incorporating everything from Pavlov’s dogs, broiler chickens, urban trees, grazing sheep and beached whales, to argue that the Anthropocene can be good to think with, conducive to a seeing ourselves and our place in the world with a renewed sense of connection, responsibility and love.
Building on developments in feminist and social theory, anthropology, ecopsychology, environmental psychology, (post)humanities, psychoanalysis and phenomenology, this is fascinating reading for academics and students in the field of critical psychology, environmental psychology, and human–animal studies.
When building back post disaster, consideration is currently being made in terms of building in resilience to new and existing housing to deal with repeat catastrophic events and in response to expected changes in sea level, temperature and precipitation due to climate change. However the take up of this approach depends heavily on donor's perceptions of the value of building in resilience and whether they calculate whole life costs in addition to considering the capital cost of any building work. This built-in resilience to a changing climate may be determined by estimating changes to the building code which could take up to a 20 year period to be realised in practice; but which would reflect step changes in climate conditions. This step change in design and construction may result the design and construction of housing that may be very different in character and functionality which will have a significant impact on usage pattern and adaptability. In the first instance individuals and communities must adapt to a heightened awareness of the risks associated with living in environments which are more susceptible to both gradual and catastrophic weather events. In the case of domestic buildings, peoples' expectations e.g. social constructs may need to be adjusted or realigned. In this paper the authors present a discussion of the increased risks associated with climate change relating to housing design and construction and the potential approaches that could be adopted to study the behaviour changes that may be needed to meet these challenges including psychological perspectives such as an understanding of a sense of place. A decision support framework is introduced that could be adopted to ease the transition from current housing to climate-change adapted/resilient structures, and the impact of this on individuals, organisations and community groups in terms of health and well being, adaptability, self efficacy and ownership.
A healthy built environment is one which connects citizens together to create a sense of community. These are influential determinants of good mental and physical health. This paper presents an overview of key research on how the built environment supports the development of community as part of creating and sustaining places for health and well-being. Formal public places such as town squares, plazas, parks and gardens cultivate community in numerous ways. Informal public places such as those in between buildings, on the street, at the train station and bus stop are also important for social encounters and interaction. Careful design of open space, neighbourhood streets and buildings can encourage human interaction as part of community creation. Evidence is presented here as a 'Places Framework' to illuminate the ways in which place strengthens community. The paper concludes by discussing and critically evaluating policy implications for urban planners and designers. Major gaps in the research are identified and suggestions made for future investigative work to strengthen the evidence for building healthy communities through built environment interventions.
Occupation is intrinsic to human health and occupations emerge from environmental opportunities. They are shaped by features of the context in which they happen. Yet the places where many people live out their everyday lives are not supportive of health. Car-dominated transport systems, reduced opportunities to be physically active, limited opportunities to access healthy food, and fewer places for people to connect with each other to build safe and happy communities, are all implicated. These are part of the built environment which plays a critical role in supporting human health and well-being. This article draws on interdisciplinary research evidence to show how the built environment can sustain the everyday and ordinary occupations of living, keeping people physically and mentally healthy.
Moving from a location where one has intimate knowledge of the physical and social aspects of space, with established daily routines, social networks, and attachment to place, can present challenges in later life. The literature supports the optimality of aging in place, and several studies point to the potentially detrimental effects of disruption, particularly in cases of involuntary relocation. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, this exploratory study aimed to examine the experiences and effects of relocation as part of a redevelopment of a community housing older people. Thirty-five interviews were completed with 17 participants across stages of the relocation process. Quantitative indicators of well-being were also compared between residents who had moved and those who had not over this period. No significant differences were found between movers and non-movers in the quantitative data. However, the qualitative data suggested that the relationship with the environment is more nuanced than the duality of optimal and detrimental. Individuals’ agency in relation to their environment was found to be mediated by such factors as lifestyle and daily routine, bereavement, sociospatial factors, and access to nature. The effects of relocation appear to be complex and mediated by a variety of individual and social factors.
Two decades ago, an article was published in Global Environmental Change proposing the importance of place attachments, at local and global scales, for understanding human responses to climate change (Feitelson, 1991). Despite concluding that ‘studies of individual's attachment to place may provide important inputs for strategies to enhance the prospects for sharing the globe’ (p. 406, 1991), the article remains overlooked. This article takes up and extends Feitelson's argument for more systematic research on place attachments and climate change. First, the paper critically reviews interdisciplinary literature on place attachment and the related concept of place identity, drawing on scholarship in human geography, environmental and social psychology. The review identifies a lack of cross-disciplinary dialogue, as well as several limitations to the ways that scalar aspects have been researched. Second, climate change research, encompassing adaptation, mitigation and communication that has incorporated place related attachments and identities is critically reviewed; in particular, emerging research on the role of ‘psychological distance’ is critiqued. The article concludes with five recommendations for future research: to capture place attachments and identities at global as well as local scales; to integrate qualitative and quantitative methods that capture constructions of place as well as intensity of attachments and identifications; to investigate links between attachments, identities and collective actions, particular ‘NIMBY’ resistance to adaptation and mitigation strategies; to apply greater precision when investigating spatial frames of risk communication; and to investigate links between global attachments and identities, environmental worldviews and climate change engagement. Finally, the implications of such research for evaluating area-based climate interventions are discussed.
As a consequence of local population ageing, which is more pronounced in rural areas, the issue of maintaining a positive quality of life for rural older people is attracting significant attention. While environmental psychology theory has advocated the role of place identity in defining the self, there has been little applied research exploring how this occurs in later life. This exploratory, qualitative study (n = 16) utilises 6 and 7 identity process theory to investigate how rural older Australians (retirement migrants and long-term residents) use place to sustain and build a sense of self at a time when many are susceptible to age-related loss. The paper draws on the concepts of distinctiveness, continuity, self-esteem and self-efficacy in order to explore how place identity is supported and maintained. Findings suggest that rural places are beneficial in terms of identity maintenance, with differences between long term and more recent rural residents. Furthermore, findings also highlight that place-related change or growth can potentially threaten older people’s identification as a ‘rural’ person.
Efforts by many governments to mitigate climate change by increasing deployment of renewable energy technologies have raised the importance of issues of public acceptance. The ‘NIMBY’ (Not In My Backyard) concept, although popular, has been critiqued as an appropriate and valid way to explain local opposition. This study applies an alternative approach, empirically investigating the role of place attachment and place-related symbolic meanings in explaining public responses to a tidal energy converter in Northern Ireland, said to be the first grid-connected device of its kind in the world. 271 residents in two nearby villages completed questionnaire surveys, three months post-installation, following up preliminary qualitative research using focus groups. Although results indicated predominantly positive and supportive responses to the project, manifest by emotional responses and levels of acceptance, significant differences between residents in each village were also observed. Contrasting patterns of association between place attachment and emotional responses suggest that the project enhanced rather than disrupted place attachments only in one of the two villages. In regression analyses, place attachment emerged as a significant, positive predictor of project acceptance in both places, affirming its value in explaining public response. Place-related symbolic meanings also emerged as significant, with contrasting sets of meanings proving significant in each context. Implications of the findings for research on place attachment and responses to land-use changes, as well as for developers seeking to engage with residents affected by energy projects are discussed.
Overarching connectivity, technologically mediated co-presence and the flow of social association have become taken-for-granted features in the central narratives used to characterize our contemporary condition. Yet the pervasiveness of such perspectives risks theoretical hubris; there is a need to codify suitable antidotes that reflect on the relative limitations of such positions. This article provides the opening discussion for this special issue on socio-spatial formations of isolation and disconnection. It is argued that to render visible those spaces and populations often ignored become important theoretical, empirical and political projects because of the way that assumptions about the extension of networks has tended to amplify the marginalization of those not attached to them. A consideration of disparate examples, including loneliness, electronic isolation and purposive concealment, guide us perhaps to a less strident and more finely graded account of the fuller range of human experience and myriad contexts in which it occurs.
Presents an integrative theoretical framework to explain and to predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment. This theory states that psychological procedures, whatever their form, alter the level and strength of self-efficacy. It is hypothesized that expectations of personal efficacy determine whether coping behavior will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long it will be sustained in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences. Persistence in activities that are subjectively threatening but in fact relatively safe produces, through experiences of mastery, further enhancement of self-efficacy and corresponding reductions in defensive behavior. In the proposed model, expectations of personal efficacy are derived from 4 principal sources of information: performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states. Factors influencing the cognitive processing of efficacy information arise from enactive, vicarious, exhortative, and emotive sources. The differential power of diverse therapeutic procedures is analyzed in terms of the postulated cognitive mechanism of operation. Findings are reported from microanalyses of enactive, vicarious, and emotive modes of treatment that support the hypothesized relationship between perceived self-efficacy and behavioral changes. (21/2 p ref)
A study of disruptions in psychological processes can provide unique insight into their predisruption functioning as well as the disruptions themselves and their consequences. Place attachment processes normally reflect the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional embeddedness individuals experience in their sociophysical environments. An examination of disruptions in place attachments demonstrate how fundamental they are to the experience and meaning of everyday life. After the development of secure place attachments, the loss of normal attachments creates a stressful period of disruption followed by a postdisruption phase of coping with lost attachments and creating new ones. These three phases of the disruption process are examined with respect to disruptions due to burglaries, voluntary relocations, and disasters, with special attention to the Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, flood and the Yungay, Peru, landslide. Underlying the diversity of disruptions, dialectic themes of stability-change and individuality-communality provide a coherent framework for understanding the temporal phases of attachment and its disruption.
National Centre for Risk Analysis and Options Appraisal, Environment Agency, UK This paper examines the relationship between place and identity. The context is provided by the enforced relocation to a nearby site of Arkwright Town, a one hundred year old North East Derbyshire mining village. The study on which this paper is based was longitudinal in design and monitored the relocation process during the period 1992-1998. The data used for this study was obtained from 22 participants at 5 time points over the 6 years. This paper focuses on how participants made sense of changes in their spatial environment and how these meanings affected their self-perceptions and self-evaluations as well as being implicated in changes within their community which occurred during and after the relocation. Breakwell's (1986) Identity Process Theory was used to examine the degree to which the participants' identity processes were affected by the changes in the spatial environment. This included an examination of the ways in which the spatial change threatened or enhanced distinctiveness and continuity, two of the principles of identity described in Breakwell's theory. Evidence was found for the important role of place in maintaining and enhancing the principles of identity. The role of place in the construction of self and identity has been studied extensively by environmental psychologists (e.g.
This paper examines the role of place and identity processes using Breakwell's model as a framework. This model suggests that there are four principles of identity which guide action: continuity, self-esteem, self-efficacy and distinctiveness. These principles are examined here in relation to attachment to a residential environment. It focuses on residents living in an area of the London Docklands, chosen because of the social, environmental and economic change in that area. It was hypothesized that attached respondents would discuss their relationship with the local environment in ways which supported or developed the identity principles whereas nonattached residents would not consider the local environment in this way. Twenty in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out on a sample of residents from Rotherhithe in the London Docklands. The interviews were transcribed and content analysed. Results showed that there were differences between the attached and nonattached respondents in their discussion of their local environment. In addition, there were differences within the nonattached group such that some residents were not attached and neutral with regards to their residential environment, whereas others were not attached but had a negative evaluation of their residential environment. These results are discussed within the identity process model framework.
The housing stock is being restructured in many Dutch post-war neighbourhoods. Through demolition and upgrading of social rented housing and the construction of new owner occupied dwellings, the housing stock and the living environment are being improved. This policy has triggered major residential moves in and beyond some neighbourhoods, partly involuntary. Residents whose dwelling is being demolished or heavily upgraded, are usually forced to move elsewhere. Knowledge of the social implications of forced relocation in the Netherlands is limited, especially on experiences and opinions of relocated households. This paper covers research in two recently restructured neighbourhoods. Movers were recruited to share their experiences and opinions in focus groups and interviews. Surprisingly, many movers were able to improve their housing situation, mostly due to their priority rights in the housing market. However, movers who were less able to take advantage of these rights reported a certain degree of degradation. Moreover, it appears that relocation processes must still be improved in order to reduce stress and refine communication with residents.
This qualitative study follows one woman through her pregnancy and transition to motherhood, and is concerned with the changes which occur in her accounts of identity. The study has a dual focus: on the changing identity of the woman herself as she becomes a mother, and on the simultaneous construction of an identity for the growing foetus. The complex and ambiguous nature of the process is highlighted, for example, in the woman's move towards self-containment as well as engagement with key others. Consistent with a phenomenological approach, the woman's account is prioritised in the study. Only after a close reading of her account is the material theorised in relation to the existing literature, particularly Mead's notion of a symbiotic or relational self. Finally a deconstructionist reading of some of the material in the case is provided.
Hypothesized that because public evaluative situations are most likely to encourage conditional self-regard, an overevaluation of self-image as a way to compensate for the threat of failure (compensatory self-inflation) is likely to occur if a failure is public but not if it is private. 76 female undergraduates either succeeded or failed on a test of social sensitivity, and the outcome was either known or not known to others. Half of the Ss were subsequently required to evaluate the positive and negative aspects of the test on a social attitudes questionnaire. The favorability of self-image of all the Ss was then assessed. The self-images of Ss who evaluated the test were not affected by the outcome manipulation. Compared with these Ss, among Ss who did not evaluate the test, favorability of self-image was increased after public failure and decreased after private failure. The hypothesis that compensatory self-inflation occurs after public but not private failure was confirmed. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Addresses the centrality of the self-efficacy mechanism (SEM) in human agency. SEM precepts influence thought patterns, actions, and emotional arousal. In causal tests, the higher the level of induced self-efficacy, the higher the performance accomplishments and the lower the emotional arousal. The different lines of research reviewed show that the SEM may have wide explanatory power. Perceived self-efficacy helps to account for such diverse phenomena as changes in coping behavior produced by different modes of influence, level of physiological stress reactions, self-regulation of refractory behavior, resignation and despondency to failure experiences, self-debilitating effects of proxy control and illusory inefficaciousness, achievement strivings, growth of intrinsic interest, and career pursuits. The influential role of perceived collective efficacy in social change and the social conditions conducive to development of collective inefficacy are analyzed. (21/2 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1982 American Psychological Association.
This study examines the importance of local and national identity processes in predicting the perception of a threat to the local environment: pollution of British beaches defined in terms of European Union (EU) regulations concerning cleanliness. Place identity and social identity theories would predict that English people would exhibit positive discrimination when evaluating both their local and national beaches and would allow ingroup preferences to influence their estimates of beach pollution. The study involved administering questionnaires to 347 English students drawn from secondary schools in six seaside resorts (three with ‘polluted’ beaches, and three with ‘unpolluted’ beaches according to the EU criteria). It was hypothesized that degree of both local and national identification would predict variance in perceived levels of pollution independently of either the EU categorization or the physical evidence of pollution available. On the whole, results confirmed this main hypothesis: subjects who were more attached to their town or their nation tended to perceive their local and national beaches as less polluted. Traditional predictors of environmental evaluation (such as socio-demographic variables, environmental concern, use of the environment) did not play an important role in predicting beach pollution perception. Denial of physical assessments of pollution was interpreted as a strategy used to cope with the threat to place identity posed by the labelling of local beaches by a powerful outgroup (the EU).
Correlative links between poor housing and poor health have been well known for many years. A problem for urban studies, however, is that the supposed causal relationships underlying this correlation are ill-understood and only weakly established. Hence the expectation that housing improvement will lead to a corresponding change in the health of the community (and therefore of individuals) has little causal support and remains an assumption. Studies of renewal schemes have rarely operated at the micro process level which would allow this assumption to be tested. Moreover, significant changes in health are likely to occur only over a relatively long period; hence measurement is difficult and ascribing causation problematic. One way of approaching this research problem is to examine what impact the uninvited, and frequently dramatic, renewal process itself has on the health of the individual. In this research an interpretive biographical interview method was used to elicit tenants’ understanding of their situation, of the experience of housing renewal and how it impacted upon their health and well-being. In some cases the process itself was indeed stressful and damaging while in others enjoyable and rewarding. This pointed to a complex web of factors but predominant and influential was that of personal control, its degree of importance to the individual and, crucially, its negotiability. This paper looks at the connections between control and health and re-introduces into the housing policy arena the importance of the individual whose interests are currently submerged in the ‘imperatives’ of community involvement and consultation. The research contributes to a housing-health linkages model (Easterlow et al., 2000) by introducing, as an important factor affecting health and well-being, the nature of the tenant/landlord relationship itself in the social rented sector and examining the potential for a new partnership at this ‘micro’ level.
As a further step in developing a systems model of privacy, variables involved in the process of achieving a condition of privacy were examined cross-culturally. Subjects were students from Ireland, Senegal and the United States. Striking commonalities were found in the reasons why subjects required privacy, the affect that was associated with a desire for privacy, the definition of privacy as a condition of the person, the duration of the average privacy experience and the change in affect at the completion of the experience which supported the suggestion that privacy has a therapeutic effect. Within culture, variability was associated with age, gender and in the case of Senegal, with income. Between culture, variability was hardly noticeable. The majority of the subjects in each culture believed that not being disturbed was the most important element of privacy and grief, fatigue and need to focus were the main affective sets associated with seeking privacy. It is believed that several universals have been identified which may be used in later research, and that the study supports a systems-based model of privacy.
Self-affirmation processes are being activated by information that threatens the perceived adequacy or integrity of the self and as running their course until this perception is restored through explanation, rationalization, and/or action. The purpose of these constant explanations (and rationalizations) is to maintain a phenomenal experience of the self-self-conceptions and images as adaptively and morally adequate—that is, as competent, good, coherent, unitary, stable, capable of free choice, capable of controlling important outcomes, and so on. The research reported in this chapter focuses on the way people cope with the implications of threat to their self-regard rather than on the way they cope with the threat itself. This chapter analyzes the way coping processes restore self-regard rather than the way they address the provoking threat itself.
It is suggested that for each of the role-related identities of an individual, there are physical dimensions and characteristics that help to define and are subsumed by that identity. In addition, there is a general place-identity for each individual which reflects his or her unique socialization in the physical world. This paper argues that it is important to conceptualize place-identity as a specific component (subidentity) of each individual's self-identity. Place-identity is defined as those dimensions of self that define the individual's personal identity in relation to the physical environment by means of a complex pattern of conscious and unconscious ideas, feelings, values, goals, preferences, skills, and behavioral tendencies relevant to a specific environment.
Extending theories of distinctiveness motivation in identity (Breakwell, 1987; Brewer, 1991; Snyder & Fromkin, 1980), we discuss the precise role of distinctiveness in identity processes and the cross-cultural generality of the distinctiveness principle. We argue that (a) within Western cultures, distinctiveness is necessaryfor the construction of meaning within identity, and (b) the distinctiveness principle is not incompatible with non-Western cultural systems. We propose a distinction among three sources of distinctiveness: position, difference, and separateness, with different implications for identity and behavior. These sources coexist within cultures, on both individual and group levels of selfrepresentation, but they may be emphasized differently according to culture and context.
Written from the standpoint of the social behaviorist, this treatise contains the heart of Mead's position on social psychology. The analysis of language is of major interest, as it supplied for the first time an adequate treatment of the language mechanism in relation to scientific and philosophical issues. "If philosophical eminence be measured by the extent to which a man's writings anticipate the focal problems of a later day and contain a point of view which suggests persuasive solutions to many of them, then George Herbert Mead has justly earned the high praise bestowed upon him by Dewey and Whitehead as a 'seminal mind of the very first order.'" Sidney Hook, "The Nation""
The development and testing of an instrument designed to measure '"psy-chological sense of community" (PSC) is described. A discussion of the historical background of the PSC concept is presented and results of the use of the instrument in three U.S. and Israeli communities are described. Specific attention is given to the relationship of PSC and the variables of community satisfaction and competence as well as to applications of the PSC instrument. Since results suggest that certain manipulable variables may be associated with PSC, and that PSC itself may have the properties of a construct, suggestions for further research, and the potential im-portance of PSC for community development and maintenance are given.
Identity is the complex way a person identifies with, and is identified by, his environment. Multiple identities result from the many ways a person has been successfully identified. Identities coexist; sometimes the dominance of one over others becomes evident, and a vertical structure of identities arises. (CS)
This book presents a new theory of the social group which seeks to explain how individuals become unified into a group and capable of collective behaviour.
The book summarizes classic psychological theories of the group, describes and explains the important effects of group membership on social behaviour, outlines self-categorization theory in full and shows how the general perspective has been applied in research on group formation and cohesion, social influence, the polarization of social attitudes, crowd psychology and social stereotyping. The theory emerges as a fundamental new contribution to social psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Presents an animal model of how learned helplessness may manifest itself as depression and anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Although much of the recent concern for privacy as a central issue in the study of interpersonal behavior has arisen within the area of environmental psychology, the environment presented in this literature tends to lack enduring properties which set it apart from the behavior to which it is presumably related. By contrast, a model of the environment is proposed which is sensitive to physical properties which are independent of normative and symbolic associations imposed by tradition. This model indicates how the selection of one's location and orientation within an architecturally bounded setting can affect both the acquisition of information about surrounding activities and the abilities of others to take notice of one's own behavior. Within this framework selective conspicuousness is suggested as the chief means of privacy regulation. Selective conspicuousness involves a trade off between the environmental and behavioral options available for concealing or disclosing information about oneself with the physical environment presenting certain initial conditions upon which behavior is contingent.
In this study place-identity is defined as a product of active environmental self-regulation influenced by the functional principles of self as described in the models of Epstein (1983), Sarbin (1983), and
[37],
[38] and [39]. It is argued that the physical environment is used as a means of maintaining the psychic balance of pain and pleasure, and the coherence of one's self and self-esteem. This interpretation is demonstrated empirically in a pilot study where 9-, 12- and 17-year-old children (N = 63) were asked to write about their favourite places. The thematic analysis of the descriptions shows that the pleasure and pain principle (Epstein (1983)) is concretely experienced in the form of freedom of expression and feelings of pleasure, familiarity, and belongingness in relation to the environment. The unity principle (Epstein, 1983) is realized by being able to clear one's mind in the favourite place in order to ‘find oneself’ and to create coherence for one's self. The descriptions of control of a favourite place, its humanization, the fixing of memories in it, and naming it, seem to be the mechanisms connecting the physical environment to psychic self-regulation, so that one's self-esteem and sense of coherence can be regained when necessary.
On the basis of a critical literature review, the following problems are seen to characterize the psychological research on ‘place identity’: heterogeneity of terms and their spatial extension, differing theoretical foundations and fragmented formulations, lack of adequate measuring instruments, and a scarcity of empirical work. This paper aims firstly, to present a systematic analysis of the theoretical traditions of the work on ‘place identity’. Secondly, it uses constructs of medium range in order to systematize theory and research. An example of the latter is presented with respect to urban-related identity. A framework for conceptualizing urban-related identity and identification is developed on the basis of social psychological work on self-concept. The second part introduces a measuring instrument (the ‘Urban Identity Scale’), which offers an empirically useful operationalization of the theoretical considerations presented in the first part of the paper. The findings of different field studies illustrate the advantages of the empirical approach adopted and provide insights into both the antecedents of urban-related identity and its consequences with respect to perception, cognitions and experience of the urban environment. Finally, remaining problems and further implications are discussed.
This paper examines the role played by historical places in the construction of national identities. It uses data from a sample of 105 Irish adults randomly selected from the members of the three main political parties and those of organisations concerned with the promotion of the Irish language. In particular, it examines the symbolic significance of historical places in maintaining a positive, distinctive national identity and providing a sense of continuity with the past. It is shown that the kind of values and feelings associated with the four Irish target places (namely, the General Post Office, Trinity College, Newgrange and Glendalough) relate to the significance of the places in maintaining national identity. The implications of these results for the literature on place, social memory and national identity are discussed.
Written from the standpoint of the social behaviorist, this treatise contains the heart of Mead's position on social psychology. The analysis of language is of major interest, as it supplied for the first time an adequate treatment of the language mechanism in relation to scientific and philosophical issues. "If philosophical eminence be measured by the extent to which a man's writings anticipate the focal problems of a later day and contain a point of view which suggests persuasive solutions to many of them, then George Herbert Mead has justly earned the high praise bestowed upon him by Dewey and Whitehead as a 'seminal mind of the very first order.'"âSidney Hook, The Nation
This thesis examines the relationship between place and identity; it is concerned with the process of attachment to place and how this process is linked to identity. The study is longitudinal in design and uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The context is provided by the enforced relocation of Arkwright Town, a one hundred year old North East Derbyshire mining village, to a near-by site; this research monitors the relocation process over a six year period. This work is framed within the transactional paradigm which assumes that the process of change involves a dynamic confluence of spatial, cultural and temporal aspects and, furthermore, that individuals and groups influence and are influenced by their spatial environment in a way which cannot be described adequately in terms of a direction of causality. It adopts a social constructivist position which accepts that the participants’ ‘reality’ is shaped by the meanings they attribute to their socio-spatial environment; hence the focus of this work is on how participants to this study experienced the socio-psychological changes during and after the relocation. The interview data were analysed using a combination of grounded theory and interpretative phenomenological analysis to identify the meanings which the relocation had for the participants; a range of theoretical concepts from both social and environmental psychology were then used to interpret participants’ experiences. The findings included participants’ accounts of the degree to which their previous behaviour patterns were disrupted and the meanings which those disruptions held for them. They pointed to interruptions of friendship patterns, to changes in previous privacy regulation mechanisms, and highlighted the degree to which participants’ previous socio-spatial schemata had become redundant after the relocation. It is suggested that the reduced visual access in New Arkwright not only diminished a sense of connectedness to others but also restricted an information flow which had been part of the functioning of the community. Participants’ quotations were also used within the framework of Breakwell’s (1986) Identity Process Theory to investigate the degree to which the participants’ identity processes were affected by the changes in the spatial environment, and especially whether the spatial change threatened or enhanced the four principles of identity described in Breakwell’s theory: self esteem, distinctiveness of the self, self efficacy and continuity of the self. Evidence was found for the important role place has in maintaining and enhancing the four principles of identity and that place is, therefore, an important link to identity. The data show that the relative salience of each identity principle can change over time during a situation of major change and in addition, a marked change from collective to individual functioning was identified. Moreover, participants’ accounts suggested that there are five important factors which, when present, facilitate the development of an emotional bond with place. These are here termed aspects of place attachment; they emerged during the pre-relocation interviews and provide a useful extension of Fuhrer & Kaiser’s (1992) work on attachment to home. Further support for these aspects was found during the post-relocation period both in the qualitative and quantitative data. They comprise a sense of security; a sense of autonomy; the desire and ability to engage in appropriation; an optimal level of internal and external stimulation; and place congruence. Thus this thesis uses existing theory to understand better the effect of the relocation on the villagers; it helps develop the link between environmental and social psychological theory through its investigation of how place can be an integral part of identity, and it extends current theory on place attachment through the concept of the five aspects of attachment to place.
The present article presents an integrative theoretical framework to explain and to predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment. This theory states that psychological procedures, whatever their form, alter the level and strength of self-efficacy. It is hypothesized that expectations of per- sonal efficacy determine whether coping behavior will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long it will be sustained in the face of ob- stacles and aversive experiences. Persistence in activities that are subjectively threatening but in fact relatively safe produces, through experiences of mastery, further enhancement of self-efficacy and corresponding reductions in defensive behavior. In the proposed model, expectations of personal efficacy are derived from four principal sources of information: performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states. The more de- pendable the experiential sources, the greater are the changes in perceived self- efficacy. A number of factors are identified as influencing the cognitive processing of efficacy information arising from enactive, vicarious, exhortative, and emotive sources. The differential power of diverse therapeutic procedures is analyzed in terms of the postulated cognitive mechanism of operation. Findings are reported from microanalyses of enactive, vicarious, and emotive modes of treatment that support the hypothesized relationship between perceived self-efficacy and be- havioral changes. Possible directions for further research are discussed.
This paper explores an accepted but under researched feature of national categories: their complex relationship with social constructions of place. We argue that social psychological work on national identification and mobilization would benefit from closer attention to this relationship. In order to develop this argument, we analyse a series of newspaper accounts published on behalf of the Countryside Alliance, a coalition formed to preserve rural 'ways of life' in the UK and, more specifically, to defend extant practices of hunting. Applying a discourse analytic method, we show how the Alliance has exploited the rhetoric of place in order to portray the preservation of hunting as an issue of national significance. By associating British identity with the 'rural idyll' of the English countryside, the organization has appealed to a place construction in which hunting and its associated activities become cast as essential expressions of the national character. Building on relevant work in geography and discursive psychology, we trace some wider implications of this process for social psychological research on category construction, reification and collective mobilization.
A Community in Transition: A Longi-tudinal Study of Place Attachment and Identity Processes in the Context of an Enforced RelocationA community in transition: the relationship between spatial change and identity processes
- G M Speller
- G M Speller
- E Lyons
- C L Twigger-Ross
SPELLER, G.M. (2000): A Community in Transition: A Longi-tudinal Study of Place Attachment and Identity Processes in the Context of an Enforced Relocation. PhD Thesis, Univer-sity of Surrey, Guildford [available as online document, URL http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/theses/1/]. SPELLER, G.M., LYONS, E. and TWIGGER-ROSS, C.L. (2002): 'A community in transition: the relationship between spatial change and identity processes', Social Psychological Review 4 (2): 39–58.
The conception of space and control of environment
- T R Lee
LEE, T.R. (1967): 'The conception of space and control of envi-ronment', Architectural Association Journal 82: 172–175.
A New Ark-wright? The future and what it holds', taped and transcribed by the Research & Information UnitFoxes, green fields and Britishness: on the rhetorical construction of place and na-tional identity
- Village Meeting Transcript Chesterfield
- J Wallwork
- J A Dixon
VILLAGE MEETING TRANSCRIPT (1990): 'A New Ark-wright? The future and what it holds', taped and transcribed by the Research & Information Unit, North East Derbyshire District Council, Chesterfield. WALLWORK, J. and DIXON, J.A. (2004): 'Foxes, green fields and Britishness: on the rhetorical construction of place and na-tional identity', British Journal of Social Psychology 43 (1): 21–39.
Social differentiation and non-differentia-tion The Social Dimension: European Developments in Social Psychology
- J P Codol
CODOL, J.P. (1984): 'Social differentiation and non-differentia-tion', in TAJFEL, H. (ed.): The Social Dimension: European Developments in Social Psychology, Vol. 1. Cambridge Uni-versity Press, Cambridge, pp. 314–337.
Conceiving the Self Helplessness: On Development, Depression, and DeathConceiving selves: a case study of changing identities during the transition to motherhood
- M Krieger
- Fl Malabar
- M E P Seligman
ROSENBERG, M. (1986): Conceiving the Self. Krieger, Malabar, FL. SELIGMAN, M.E.P. (1975): Helplessness: On Development, Depression, and Death. W.H. Freeman. New York. SMITH, J. (1991): 'Conceiving selves: a case study of changing identities during the transition to motherhood', Journal of Language and Social Psychology 10 (4): 225–243.