Difference in place attachment between students in Helsinki and in Belgrade

Abstract

Place attachment refers to the process of human-place bonding; the bonding process includes both physical and social ties formed within an environment. In the last two decades, place attachment has been the subject of many studies, but there have not been many cross-cultural studies. The aim of this study was to determine differences in global attachment to house, neighbourhood and city among young people in Belgrade and Helsinki, with consideration of social and physical dimensions of place attachment. Additionally, the effects of gender on all types of place attachments were tested. Data were collected using the Place Attachment Scale (Hidalgo & Hernandez, 2001) and the Questionnaire on residential and socio-demographic characteristics of the sample. The instrument was translated into Serbian and Finnish, respecting the translation procedure for cross-cultural studies (Brislin, 1986) and administered to subjects in their native language. The study was conducted on the sample of two hundred students of psychology, comprising: 100 inhabitants of Belgrade, and 100 of Helsinki, balanced by gender (60% female, 40% male) and age (average 24.4 years). The following results can be pointed out: 1) young people living in Belgrade show greater degree of global attachment to their city than young people living in Helsinki to their city, 2) young people from Belgrade also show greater social ties within their city and house, in relation to peers from Helsinki, 3) physical attachment to house and city is also significantly higher in young inhabitants of Belgrade. An interesting finding is 4) the existence of significant differences between men and women in the degree of global, social and physical attachment to house and physical attachment to city in the Serbian sample, and non-existence of differences in place attachment between men and women in the Finnish sample. The findings are interpreted within the Hofstede's five Cultural Dimensions.