Poster Presentation International Positive Psychology Association 8th IPPA World Congress 2023

The association between place attachment and meaning in experimental settings (#713)

Ashley Krause 1
  1. University of Florida, Alachua, FL, United States

People have a fundamental need to see their lives as meaningful. Do our relationships with the places we live in offer one such source of meaning? I investigate whether the places people are attached to afford higher meaning in life. We randomly assigned 200 Prolific workers to either think about a neutral or attached place. After spending at least two minutes describing their place, participants self-reported meaning in life and purpose, significance, and coherence. Participants in the Attachment condition reported greater presence of meaning, search for meaning, and coherence compared to those in the Neutral condition. That is, as predicted, place attachment afforded higher coherence and thus greater meaning in life. In all, we showed experimental evidence that people report higher meaning in life after thinking about a place they feel attached to. 

 

  • Please select up to 3 keywords from the following list to best describe your submission content: Meaning and Purpose, Positive emotions