Sense of Place and Attachment Style in Adults Who Moved as Children

Attachment is widely believed to be a key aspect of child development. Typically this concept has applied only to human relationships, but recent studies show that place attachment may be important as well. Jack (2010) found that individuals internalize their connections to their environment, and may turn to those memories in times of distress or when they need security. However, because of safety concerns and electronics use, the world of childhood is shrinking and fewer connections to place are being made. Another factor of modern life that impacts place attachment is the increasing mobility of many families. Anderson, Leventhal, and Dupére (2013) found that children were impacted negatively if they moved during middle childhood or adolescence, and that teens that moved displayed more acting out and aggressive tendencies than their counterparts. In the current study, approximately 40 men and women over the age of 18, with the majority being college age, will be surveyed. Participants will be gathered using email solicitations and social media, as well as classroom visits. The link to take the survey will also be posted on the researcher’s Facebook page along with an introduction asking for volunteers, and it will be emailed to individuals as well. The survey will be given anonymously. It will ask participants various questions about how often they have moved in their life, and at what age those moves occurred. It will then ask what their self-reported sense of place was using Williams (2012) Sense of Place scale, their feelings about nature using Dutcher (2007) Nature Connectivity scale, and then these two scales will be compared to Descutner (1991) Fear of Intimacy Scale. It is predicted that these will reveal that a child who moves either at preschool age or adolescence from a place to which they are attached will predict later fears of intimacy, and adults who had moved multiple times in their life, or who did not have a strong place attachment for one reason or another had more trouble making and keeping intimate connections later in life