The Psychology of Place Attachment and Psalm 128

Hendrik Viviers

doi:10.17159/2312-3621/2019/v32n2a10

Abstract

The Psychology of Place Attachment confirms the cognitive-emotional bond that humans, since early times, have with a specific place. A material place is not only shaped physically and psychologically/spiritually by its inhabitants, but it in turn also shapes them, as it mediates the meanings ascribed to it through its sensuous presence. Appreciating Ps 128 through the “readerly lens” of place attachment (also as part of the ma‘a alot-collection and Psalter as a whole), it was found that the poet(s) of this wisdom (-Torah ethical) psalm intuitively grasped the psychological benefits that a place exerts on its inhabitants. The experiences of memory, belonging, positive emotions, privacy and reflection, comfort and security, entertainment and aesthetics are reflected in the psalm. Both the small, intimate household and larger community Zion/Jerusalem, mediate Yahweh’s presence and blessing, also as a retributive response to a wise life-style. Zion/Jerusalem and all it encompasses, become the centre of the universe, the place par excellence for a fulfilled life. https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2019/v32n2a10

Highlights

The Psychology of Place Attachment confirms the cognitive-emotional bond that humans, since early times, have with a specific place
Appreciating Ps 128 through the “readerly lens” of place attachment, it was found that the poet(s) of this wisdom (-Torah ethical) psalm intuitively grasped the psychological benefits that a place exerts on its inhabitants
“Psychology of Place Attachment,” OTE 32/2 (2019): 426-443 427 what fulfilment they experience by bonding with a particular place

Summary

A INTRODUCTION

In a recent newspaper column, the psychologist Wilhelm Jordaan[2] referred interestingly to the “territorial imperative,” the urge to occupy and defend (sometimes at all costs) a chosen territory. Expanding on their 2010 study,[24] Scannel and Gifford[25] identified thirteen psychological benefits that “place bonded” people experience, encapsulating cognition, emotions and behaviour They are the following (from the most to the less commonly experienced, and expressed in percentages in brackets): memories (69%) – place attachment supports and evokes memories, connecting people (often vividly) to the recent past or even early, ancestral history; belonging (54%) – a sense of “at homeness,” rootedness/origin and interpersonal/social ties; relaxation (49%) – restoration of depleted attentional (mental) fatigue, as well as recovery from emotional and physiological stress;[26] positive emotions (38%) – happiness, joy, hope and pride are experienced, of which happiness was the most frequently reported. Confirming our shared human need for a “place,” ever since the early times of humankind

C PLACE ATTACHMENT AND PSALM 128

Findings

D CONCLUSION