Imagining the loss of social and physical place characteristics reduces place attachment

Place attachment – the cognitive-emotional bond people have to specific places – is associated with various psychological outcomes and behaviors. While it is well-established that both important social as well as physical features determine how strongly people attach to a place, it is largely unexplored how the loss of such features causally affects place attachment. In two online experiments (N1 = 161; N2 = 199), participants were asked to name physical and/or social features of their place of residence that were important to them. Subsequently, we asked participants to imagine the loss of these social or physical features, or the loss of both. Results revealed that imagining the loss of both a physical and a social feature combined resulted in lowest anticipated attachment to the place. Closer data inspection suggests that social features seem more important than physical features. The experiments, introducing a novel experimental manipulation of place attachment, thus provide a systematic, causal test of place characteristics’ influence on place attachment.