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The Measurement of Place Attachment: Personal, Community, and

Environmental Connections

Article  in  Journal of Environmental Psychology · December 2010

DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.08.002 · Source: OAI

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 Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Environmental Psychology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jep

The measurement of place attachment: Personal, community, and environmental

connections
Christopher M. Raymond a, *, Gregory Brown b, Delene Weber c
a
Centre for Rural Health and Community Development, University of South Australia and Enviroconnect Pty Ltd, PO Box 190, Stirling SA, 5152, Australia
b
School of Geography Planning and Environmental Management, University of Queensland, St. Lucia Campus, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
c
Barbara Hardy Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Boulevard, Mawson Lakes, SA 5095, Australia

a b s t r a c t
Keywords: Place attachment has been researched extensively in the social and behavioural sciences over the past
Sense of place two decades. However, it is challenging for researchers to assimilate the mixed messages presented in
Place identity
the place attachment literature and to understand the multiple place attachment terms. In this study,
Community attachment
Scale development
a four-dimensional model of rural landholder attachments to their natural resource management region
Place attachment was conceptually and empirically developed with the aim of developing an integrated approach to the
Construct validity measurement of place attachment that clearly distinguishes between different elements of place
scholarship. A 29-item place attachment scale with the dimensions of place identity, place dependence,
nature bonding, and social bonding was tested on a random sample of rural landholders in the Adelaide
and Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia (N ¼ 320). The majority of respondents were male (69.3%) and
the average age was 59 years. The scale was reduced to 20-items and then administered simultaneously
and in the same response format to rural landholders in two other areas of South Australia: the Northern
and Yorke region (N ¼ 664) and South Australian Murray-Darling Basin region (N ¼ 659). In both studies,
the majority of respondents were male (85%) and the average age was 55 years. Exploratory factor and
reliability analyses of Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges and Northern and Yorke datasets produced
a five-dimensional model of place attachment with high reliabilities. Social bonding divided into the
constructs of family bonding and friend bonding. The refined five-dimensional model was then exam-
ined for convergent validity, with moderate but significant correlations found between individual
attachment constructs and dependent variables expected to be related to the construct, such as place
identity and length of residence, and nature bonding and time currently spent in nature. We used
confirmatory factor analysis to test the goodness-of-fit of the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin
(SAMDB) dataset to the proposed five-dimensional model and then compared its fit to the traditional
two-dimensional model of place identity and place dependence. The five-dimensional model provided
moderate fit for the SAMDB data. We conclude with a discussion of the validity and reliability of the five-
dimensional model and its future role in place attachment research.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Trentelman, 2009 for reviews). Trentelman (2009) provides an

The construct of place attachment has received considerable
attention in the environmental psychology and environmental
management literatures over the past two decades. However, it has
been challenging for researchers to assimilate the different place
attachment concepts in these literatures and to understand its
jargon (see Patterson & Williams, 2005; Scannell & Gifford, 2010a;
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ61 423 299 986; fax: þ61 8 8303 8590.
E-mail addresses: chris.raymond@enviroconnect.com.au (C.M. Raymond), greg.
brown@uq.edu.au (G. Brown), delene.weber@unisa.edu.au (D. Weber).
eloquent review of the different strands of place scholarship, and
highlights the tensions between the disciplines interested in: 1) the
socio-cultural dimensions of place, such as community attachment;
2) the biophysical dimensions of place, with emphasis on the
“setting or container”, and; 3) the integration of both socio-cultural
and natural setting dynamics within place attachment research.
Researchers interested in the biophysical dimension of place have
placed considerable emphasis on a two-dimensional model of place
attachment comprising of place identity and place dependence (see
Williams, Patterson, Roggenbuck, & Watson, 1992). Place identity
refers to those dimensions of self, such as the mixture of feelings
about specific physical settings and symbolic connections to place

0272-4944/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.08.002
 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434
that define who we are (Proshansky, Fabian, & Kaminoff, 1983). Place
dependence refers to the functional or goal-directed connections to
a setting; for example, it reflects the degree to which the physical
setting provides conditions to support an intended use (Schreyer,
Jacob, & White, 1981). The validity and reliability of this two-dimen-
sional model is supported by several studies in the United States (e.g.,
Bricker & Kerstetter, 2000; Jorgensen & Stedman, 2006; Kyle, Graefe,
& Manning, 2005; Williams & Vaske, 2003) and Australia (e.g., Brown
& Raymond, 2007; Pretty, Chipuer, & Bramston, 2003).
However, this two-dimensional model overlooks important
connections to the natural and social environment which we
propose are related constructs to the highly personalized attach-
ments associated with place identity and place dependence.
Gustafson (2001) provides a three-pole self-other-environment
theoretical framework to highlight these differences. The “self” pole
suggests some places are associated with highly personal meanings
related to life path, emotion, activity, and self-identification. The
“other” pole suggests characteristics of the inhabitants influence
place attachment. The “environment” pole, on the other hand,
reflects the role of the physical environment in developing place
attachment. Recent empirical studies offer some support for this
view. Techniques have been developed for measuring the extent of
individual’s connections to nature (the physical environment as it
exists without human beings), defined in terms of the extent of one’s
identity with nature (Clayton, 2003), affinity to nature (Kals,
Schumacher, & Montada, 1999; Perkins, in press) or connectedness
to nature (Schultz, 2001; Schultz, Shriver, Tabanico, & Khazian, 2004;
Schultz & Tabanico, 2007). Researchers interested in social attach-
ments have found that the social and geographic context of place
bonds requires greater consideration in place attachment research
and have proposed constructs such as belongingness, and neigh-
borhood attachment (Brown, Perkins, & Brown, 2003; Hay, 1998a;
Hidalgo & Hernandez, 2001; Kyle & Chick, 2007).
Recent studies have developed psychometric scales for
measuring individuals’ attachments to place based upon their
interactions with both the community and the natural environment.
Brehm, Eisenhauer, and Krannich (2006) examined the connection
between two dimensions of community attachment named social
and natural environment. Social attachment and natural environ-
ment were distinct and separate dimensions of place attachment
and they had significant associations with environmental concern.
Scannell and Gifford (2010b) developed and tested a place attach-
ment scale comprising of natural and civic attachment dimensions.
The physical aspects were represented by natural environment
attachment and the social aspects were represented by civic
attachment. Whilst both approaches clearly articulate the physical
and social dimensions of place attachment, they overlook how the
physical and social dimensions of place interact with the highly
personalized attachments related to place identity and place
dependence (see Williams et al., 1992; Williams & Vaske, 2003).
Researchers are now calling for new integrated models which
consider the interactions between place as a natural and social
setting and how the setting supports one’s self-identity or func-
tional goals (Davenport, Baker, Leahy, & Anderson, 2010; Sampson &
Goodrich, 2009). Linking nature-based and social attachments with
more traditional measures of place attachment, such as place
identity and place dependence, may begin to address this need.
In this study, we conceptualize and empirically examine a four-
dimensional model of place attachment among three samples of
rural landholders in regional South Australia for use in natural or
rural land-use contexts. The model includes place identity and place
dependence (personal connections to place), nature bonding
(connections to the natural environment), and social bonding
(connections to the community in place). The validity and reliability
of the item-scales were examined among rural landholders who live
423
in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges region of South Australia
using principal component and reliability analyses. The scale was
refined and then included in a survey mailed to 1300 landholders in
each of the Northern and Yorke and South Australian Murray-
Darling Basin (SAMDB) regions of South Australia. The construct
validity and convergent validity of the refined scale was then tested
across all Northern and Yorke landholders. Finally, we tested the
goodness-of-fit of our conceptual model of place attachment against
the SAMDB place attachment data. First, the theoretical basis for
a three-pole conceptualization of place attachment is expounded.
Each of the proposed place attachment dimensions are defined and
discussed.
1.1. Place attachment in personal context
Place researchers have paid significant attention to the strength
of individual or personal attachments to place. Most researchers
have operationalised these personal place attachments using
constructs of place identity and place dependence (Bricker &
Kerstetter, 2000; Kyle, Absher, & Graefe, 2003; Moore & Graefe,
1994; Williams et al., 1992). Although place identity and place
dependence are highly correlated, different relationships have been
found between these constructs and dependent variables such as
recreation skill level (Bricker & Kerstetter, 2000), experience use
history (Hammitt, Backlund, & Bixler, 2004; Hammitt, Kyle, & Oh,
2009), landscape values (Brown & Raymond, 2007) and visitors’
spending preferences (Kyle, Graefe, Manning, & Bacon, 2004a,b;
Kyle et al., 2003). Researchers have also examined the relation-
ships between this two-dimensional model of place attachment
and pro-environmental behavior, with significant positive rela-
tionships found between place identity and willingness to engage
in pro-environmental behaviors (Stedman, 2002; Vaske & Kobrin,
2001) and place-protective actions (Devine-Wright & Howes, in
press).
1.2. Place attachment in community context
A second area of place scholarship highlights the importance of
the role of the community in forming place attachments. This social
context has been operationalised in a variety of ways, including
community attachment, belongingness, rootedness, and familiarity.
The term ‘community’ is based on a systemic model of connection
between residents and their communities (Kasarda & Janowitz,
1974). This systemic model posits that community attachment is
strongly related to individual connections to local social networks
(bonds) and the interactions which occur with them. Kasarda and
Janowitz (1974) compared community attachments based on
a linear model of population size and density vs. the systemic model
of social connection. They found that the social connectedness that
developed between people over the course of their residence in
a given place was a more powerful predictor of community
attachment than population size or density of the community
population. More recent studies build upon the systemic model in
different settings. Perkins and Long (2002) referred to these social
connections in place as social bonding or the feelings of belonging-
ness or membership to a group of people, as well as the emotional
connections based on shared history, interests or concerns.
Researchers interested in the socio-cultural dimension of place
argue that the two-dimensional model of place attachment is
inadequate in addressing place attachment and highlight the need
to consider the social context of place bonds, including the social
interaction through which place meanings are mediated (Hay,
1998a; Hidalgo & Hernandez, 2001; Kyle & Chick, 2007; Sampson
& Goodrich, 2009). Hay (1998b) found that ancestral and cultural
connections are important to the development of a rooted
424 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434
attachment to place. Fishwick and Vining (1992, p. 57) studied the
experiences of college students in Illinois state parks and found that
students’ connections to these sites were an assortment of “setting,
landscape, ritual, routine, people, [and] personal experiences”.
Hidalgo and Hernandez (2001) observed that social attachments
were stronger than setting attachments within houses, neighbor-
hoods, and cities. Kyle, Bricker, Graefe, and Wickham (2004)
examined the relationships between involvement and place
attachment for hikers along the Appalachian Trail. As recreationists’
social ties to the setting grew so too did their emotional attachment
(in terms of place identity) to the setting. Kyle and Chick (2007)
highlighted the importance assigned to place experiences shared
with family and close friends on the development of place meanings
within agricultural fairs.
Social attachments to places have been explained using a variety
of constructs that in some instances have overlapping meanings.
These constructs include: place belongingness where people feel
a ‘membership’ to an environment (Mesch & Manor, 1998; Milligan,
1998), place rootedness which refers to a very strong bond to home
(Hay, 1998b; Tuan, 1980), place familiarity defined as pleasant
memories, achievement memories, and environmental images
associated with places (Roberts, 1996), and neighborhood attachment
which captures one’s emotional connection to his or her immediate
surroundings (Brown et al., 2003). Hammitt and colleagues
(Hammitt, Backlund, & Bixler, 2006) considered belongingness,
rootedness, and familiarity (as well as place identity and place
dependence) in their design of a new place attachment scale.
Exploratory and reliability analyses indicated that these constructs
were three separate and reliable dimensions of recreational place
bonding. However, there were strong correlations between place
identity and place belongingness, and place identity explained most
of the variance in place attachment. Other researchers have inte-
grated these three concepts under the term of social bonding. Kyle
et al. (2005) developed a scale for measuring social bonding in
terms of the social relationships which occur and are maintained in
recreational settings along an Appalachian Trail. Whilst their social
bonding scale had low validity and reliability (i.e. low factor loadings
and t-values, low internal consistency), it explicitly addressed the
role of community as the intermediary between individuals and the
natural environment, as proposed by Gustafson (2001) and rein-
forced by Sampson and Goodrich (2009). Kyle and colleagues also
encourage the consideration of additional items of social bonding to
improve the validity and reliability of this construct. Such refinement
is one focus of this paper.
1.3. Place attachment in natural environment context
Another area of place scholarship highlights the importance of
connections to the natural environment without human beings,
which we refer to as nature bonding. Nature bonding has been
operationalised in a variety of ways, including environmental
identity, emotional affinity towards nature, and connectedness to
nature. Environmental identity theory (Clayton, 2003), which has its
origin in “deep ecology”, describes people’s experiences with nature
as integral to one’s sense of self (Bragg, 1996; Fox, 1990; Nash, 1990;
Zimmerman, Callicott, Sessions, Warren, & Clark, 1993). This theory
also relates to the biophilia hypothesis (Kellert & Wilson, 1993;
Wilson, 1984) which claims that human’s connection to nature
and well-being is strongly influenced by their relationships with the
surrounding natural world. Research on environmental identity,
otherwise termed emotional affinity towards nature (Kals et al., 1999;
Perkins, in press) focuses on individual emotional connections to
nature, such as a ‘love of nature’. Unlike the definition of place
identity presented in the leisure and recreational sciences, it has
a much greater emphasis on the connections between the
individual and the natural world. Kals and colleagues showed that
emotional affinity can be distinguished from its cognitive equivalent
of ‘interest in nature’ and that emotional affinity is a powerful
predictor of nature-protective behavior. More recently, researchers
have developed a 7-point connectedness to nature scale (Dutcher,
Finley, Luloff, & Johnson, 2007; Mayer & Frantz, 2004) with high
validity and reliability. Gosling and Williams (in press) used this
scale to examine the relationships between place attachment and
connectedness to nature. Significant, but weak correlations were
identified between these three constructs (r ¼ .25, p < .01). They also
found significant, but weak correlations between the desire to
protect remnant vegetation and affinity to nature (r ¼ .27, p < .01).
A separate line of work has focused on the cognitive dimensions
of environmental identity. Dutcher (2000) and Schultz (2001) used
a modified version of the Inclusion of Other in Self scale (IOS) which
was developed by Aron and colleagues (Aron, Aron, & Smollan,
1992; Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991) to measure the extent to
which an individual includes nature within his or her cognitive
representation of self, in what is otherwise referred to as
a connectedness to nature scale. Schultz and colleagues suggest that
individuals hold implicit cognitive associations between them-
selves and the natural environment which influence their envi-
ronmental concerns (Schultz et al., 2004; Schultz & Tabanico, 2007).
The recreational literature has also examined how the charac-
teristics of the natural environment influence place attachment. A
number of studies have examined relationships among place
attachment, human use or experience of the leisure activity and the
characteristics of the natural environment. Hammitt, Backlund, and
Bixler (2004, 2009) found a negative relationship between place
dependence and experience use history. The authors suggest that
the availability of substitute natural settings moderate the degree of
place dependence for any specific place. Kyle and colleagues
examined the relationships among place attachment, leisure
activity involvement, and the characteristics of specific natural
environments. In a study of hikers, boaters and anglers, the strength
of place attachment was related to specific motivations to be
involved in leisure activities and the type of natural setting in which
this activity was undertaken (Kyle et al., 2004). When examining the
relationships among place attachment, activity involvement, and
setting density, place identity and place dependence were signifi-
cant predictors of setting density, but to different degrees (Kyle
et al., 2004a). Respondents scoring high on the place identity
dimension were more inclined to feel crowded in the setting than
those respondents with high place dependence. Similarly, respon-
dents scoring high on the place identity dimension were more likely
to negatively appraise user impact on the natural environment
(Kyle, Graefe, Manning, & Bacon, 2004b).
A separate recreation and leisure literature has emphasized the
role of both communities and physical settings in the formation of
place attachment. Stedman (2003, p. 673) encourages an “empirical
investigation between aspects of the natural environment, and its
meanings.” For example, he and colleagues explored the place
meanings and attachments of visitors to Jasper National Park,
Alberta, using photography. They observed that the meanings
visitors associated with the park were driven by complex interac-
tions between ecological and socio-cultural factors (Stedman,
Beckley, Wallace, & Ambard, 2004). Sampson and Goodrich
(2009) support Stedman’s (2003) view that there are interactions
between communities and the natural, physical setting. Commu-
nities have particular characteristics which bind them to specific
locales, but they are also bounded by particularities of the natural
environment. They also argue that communities provide the filter
through which individuals can develop identity with place.
Coasters from the West Coast of the South Island, New Zealand,
shared strong anti-government sentiments about the loss of
 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434
forestry from their region which reinforced notions of identity and
distinctiveness of place; however, they also described the capacity
of the natural environment (e.g., amount of rainfall) to influence
the practices of people. Their study builds upon the concepts of
place distinctiveness and continuity (Twigger-Ross & Uzzell, 1996).
Distinctiveness theory suggests that individuals develop strong
identity with place because it facilitates “distinctiveness” from
other place or affirms the uniqueness of the group. Continuity
theory suggests that the physical environment is conceptualized by
individuals as a reference for past action and experience. Past
action and experience in place plays an important role in main-
taining individual and group identity.
We acknowledge that place attachment researchers have
considered connections to the physical environment beyond
natural settings. Manzo’s (2003) review of the place attachment
literature indicates that individual connections to places are
dynamic and encompass a broad range of physical settings, such as
residential, recreational, and leisure settings. Kaltenborn (1997)
investigated the place meanings of recreational homes. He
defined two dimensions of place attachment: nature-culture
which relates to the place as both a natural environment and
a cultural landscape and family-social concerning family life at the
recreational home. Gustafson (2001) asked participants to identify
attachments to their community/village, city, and country. Build-
ings and nature were coded under “physical environment.” Low
(2000) showed the importance of town plazas for Costa-Ricans.
Manzo (2005) identified the place experiences of residents of New
York City. Individuals were attached to different types and scales of
physical settings. Some attachments related to beaches, parks, and
lakes; others were churches, bars, Laundromats, and airports.
Rollero and De Piccoli’s (2010) found that participants with high
place attachment described the city in a positive way, such as
beautiful and welcoming, whereas participants with low place
attachment described the city negatively, such as the presence of
pollution. Whilst these studies show the importance of place
attachment to built environments, they do not provide scales for
measuring the intensity of these attachments across multiple
place contexts, including personal, community and natural envi-
ronment contexts.
Personal Context
Place identity
Place dependence
Rootedness
PLACE IDENTITY &
DEPENDENCE
Community Context
Neighborhood SOCIAL
attachment BONDING
Belongingness
Familiarity
Fig. 1. Three-pole and four-dimensional conceptual model of place attachment which will be subject to empirical examination in this paper. Note: Place identity and place
dependence are included in the same pole (personal context) because they are related to highly personalized connections to place which are either symbolic (identity) or functional
(dependence) in nature. They may form through memories, experiences or events which are unrelated to the wider community or to the natural environment.
425
1.4. An integrated model of place attachment e personal,
community, and natural environment connections
The preceding literature review highlights that there are
multiple, overlapping meanings of place attachment and its oper-
ational measures that have developed in different disciplines, such
as social psychology, environmental psychology, and community
sociology. This section provides a model of place attachment that
attempts to integrate conceptually and empirically the many ways
which place attachment has been examined (Fig. 1). Researchers
interested in the biophysical dimension of place have either
focused on: 1) the personal context of place attachment, specifically
examining the highly individualized attachments of place identity
and place dependence (Table 1), or; 2) the natural environment
context, examining the related constructs of environmental iden-
tity, emotional affinity, and connectedness to nature, which we
propose can be considered using the overarching construct of
nature bonding (Fig. 1) defined in Table 1. Nature bonding may not
be applicable for the measurement of place attachment in urban
settings, but it is relevant to natural and rural land-use contexts,
which is the focus of this paper. Researchers in the socio-cultural
dimension of place have largely focused on the community context
of place attachment which has been examined using the constructs
of neighborhood attachment, belongingness, and familiarity. We
propose these constructs form part of a larger construct of social
bonding (Fig. 1, Table 1).
Similarities and differences exist between the four hypothesized
dimensions of place attachment presented in Fig. 1. Both place
identity and nature bonding include emotional connections about
physical settings. Following continuity theory, place identity is
strongly related to residential history (see Hay, 1998a; Twigger-
Ross & Uzzell, 1996); however, we argue that nature bonding is
unrelated to residential history within a given place. Rather, it is
related to experience or time spent in the natural environment. For
example, a landholder who has lived in a region for a long period of
time may strongly identify with that region, but may have weak
nature bonds because he/she has not spent time visiting the natural
areas found in that region. We also recognize that there are inter-
connections between nature bonding and social bonding. Nature,
Natural Environment Context
NATURE Connectedness to nature
BONDING Environmental identity
Affinity to nature
426 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434

Table 1
Operational definitions of the four proposed dimensions of place attachment.

Pole Construct Definition Supporting literature

Personal Place identity Those dimensions of self, such as the mixture of feelings about
specific physical settings and symbolic connections to place,
that define who we are.
Place dependence Functional connection based specifically on the individual physical
connection to a setting; for example, it reflects the degree to
which the physical setting provides conditions to support an
intended use.
Community Social bonding Feelings of belongingness or membership to a group of people,
such as friends and family, as well as the emotional connections
based on shared history, interests or concerns.
Environment Nature bonding Implicit or explicit connection to some part of the non-human
natural environment, based on history, emotional response or
cognitive representation (e.g., knowledge generation).
Proshansky et al., 1983; Williams et al., 1992;
Williams & Vaske, 2003.
Schreyer et al., 1981; Williams et al., 1992;
Williams & Vaske, 2003.
Kasarda & Janowitz, 1974; Hay, 1998a; Perkins & Long, 2002;
Hidalgo & Hernandez, 2001; Stedman et al., 2004;
Kyle & Chick, 2007; Sampson & Goodrich, 2009;
Trentelman, 2009.
Kals et al., 1999; Clayton, 2003; Schultz, 2001;
Schultz et al., 2004.

or the physical setting, provides the container for social experi-
ences and the bonds which form through these experiences.
Our model is conceptually similar to the tripartite model of
place attachment presented by Scannell and Gifford (2010a), but
there are some important differences. Both models recognize that
connections to place can be based upon social or environmental
attributes of place. Scannell and Gifford (2010b) separated the
social and environmental attributes of place into civic attachment
and natural environment place attachment, respectively, and we
divide these attributes into social bonding and nature bonding,
respectively. We explicitly separate attributes of the person into
place identity and place dependence and the attributes of the
community into social bonding, but these object differences are
implicit within the natural environment place attachment and civic
place attachment dimensions of the tripartite model. Our model
does not consider how affect, cognition, and behavior are man-
ifested in place attachment, whereas the tripartite model considers
the psychological process as a separate dimension of place
attachment. We empirically test our model at the regional scale,
whereas Scannell and Gifford (2010b) test their model at the
community scale. Despite the differences, both models make an
important contribution to the place attachment literature.
Our integrated model is based on a positivistic or psychometric
approach to place scholarship which involves hypothesis testing
researcher-defined variables (see Trentelman, 2009). We develop
a series of scale items to measure four dimensions of place attach-
ment and then test hypotheses about the validity and reliability of
the place attachment model. Whilst we adopt a positivistic method,
there are also qualitative approaches to place scholarship which have
an important role in place attachment research. Qualitative research
has focused on place-specific, unique meanings (e.g., Devine-Wright
& Howes, in press; Gustafson, 2001; Manzo, 2003, 2005; Stokowski,
2002) using social constructionist or applied natural resource social
sciences approaches. Social constructionism is concerned with how
place is socially constructed, by whom, and with what interests,
while the applied approach attempts to convince environmental
managers to include meaning-oriented dimensions of “place” in
management decisions (see Trentelman, 2009).
The remainder of this paper aims to empirically test our
conceptual model. Following other studies (e.g., Williams & Vaske,
2003), it is expected that place identity and dependence will
emerge as two separate dimensions of place attachment. Consistent
with the connectedness to nature theory (Schultz et al., 2004), we
hypothesize that nature bonding will emerge as a separate dimen-
sion of place attachment with high construct validity and reliability.
Further, in line with the community attachment theory presented by
Kyle and colleagues (Kyle et al., 2005), we hypothesize that social
bonding will emerge as a separate dimension of place attachment
with high construct validity and reliability. Another important
component of our model is that each individual is situated within
a place that has a personal, community, and natural environment
context. It is hypothesized that the strength and nature of our
attachments to place change in accordance with the personal,
environmental, and community context in which landholders
operate. For example, the strength of social bonds that ‘landholder A’
has with ‘natural resource management region A’ may be weaker
than the social bonds ‘landholder B’ has with ‘natural resource
management region B’.
Our approach involved three mail-based surveys across three
distinct populations: The Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges, South
Australia, Northern and Yorke region, South Australia, and the
South Australian Murray-Darling Basin (SAMDB). Semi-structured
interviews conducted with landholders in the Eyre Peninsula
region informed the development of the original place attachment
scale (Raymond, 2009). This scale is first tested in the Adelaide and
Mount Lofty Ranges region (study 1). Results from this survey were
then used to inform and refine the survey instrument in the
Northern and Yorke and SAMDB regions (study 2).
2. Study 1: dimensionality of the place attachment scale
The first study aimed to examine whether the place attachment
instrument could reliably distinguish four place attachment
dimensions (place identity, dependence, nature bonding, and social
bonding) in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges region. The
Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges covers an area of 5355 km2 and
includes Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. The pop-
ulation of the region is approximately 1.1 million, with the majority
of population found in the Adelaide metropolitan area. The region
is known for multiple land uses (Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges
Natural Resources Management Board, 2008).
2.1. Method
2.1.1. Respondents and procedure
In 2009, 400 mail-based surveys were administered to a random
sample of rural landholders in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges
region, South Australia. Surveys were administered using a modified
Tailored Design Method (Dillman, 2007), which entailed sending
out a hand signed introductory letter (at time t), a first survey packet
comprised of the survey and reply paid envelope (t þ one week),
reminder postcard (t þ three weeks), and second survey packet to
non-respondents to the first round of mailing (t þ five weeks). All
survey packets included two postal stamps as an incentive to
 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434 427

participate. The survey consisted of three parts: 1) attachments to
the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges; 2) landholders’ personal
values, and; 3) socio-demographics. In total, 320 respondents
completed the survey (77.8% valid response) of which 69.3% were
male and 30.7% were female. The mean age was 59 years (SD ¼ 11.5).
Respondents were older and had completed a higher level of
education (42.9% with tertiary or postgraduate degree) than would
be expected based on comparable regional statistics collected by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, 2006). Further, proportionately
more males than females completed the survey when compared to
regional ABS statistics.
2.1.2. Place attachment measures
Part 1 of the survey instrument consisted of 29 place attachment
statements, taken from studies previously demonstrating high
internal consistency, in addition to items developed by the
researchers. We measured place identity and place dependence
using 11 scale items developed and validated by Williams and
colleagues (Williams et al., 1992; Williams & Roggenbuck, 1989;
Williams & Vaske, 2003). Items concerning nature bonding were
developed according to descriptors of affiliation and connectedness
with nature (Kals et al., 1999; Schultz, 2001). An additional item
was also included based on results from semi-structured interviews
with 30 rural landholders in the Eyre Peninsula region of South
Australia (Raymond, 2009). Items concerning social bonding were
developed based on measures proposed by Kyle and colleagues
(Kyle et al., 2005) in addition to connections to family and friends
which emerged during the thematic analysis of interviews con-
ducted in the Eyre Peninsula region (Raymond, 2009). Both the
nature bonding and social bonding scale items were examined for
face validity by a panel of researchers and subsequently refined by
the authors prior to survey administration.
In the survey, scale items were preceded by the following
directions: “Below are a set of statements about your attachment to
the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges. Please indicate your level of
agreement or disagreement with each statement”. Items were
presented on a 5-point Likert scale where “1 ¼ Strongly Disagree”,
“5 ¼ Strongly Agree”, and “3 ¼ Neither Agree or Disagree”.
2.1.3. Analyses
We first created summated scales and analysed the item-to-total
and inter-item correlations between the place attachment scale
items. None of the item-to-total and inter-item correlations were
less than .5 and .3, the thresholds for deletion (Hair, Black, Babin,
Anderson, & Tatham, 2006). The items’ ratings were then sub-
jected to exploratory factor analysis (principal component analysis
with varimax rotation) to examine initial support for the place
attachment items and proposed concept dimensions. The criteria
used by Hammitt et al. (2006) was followed in forming factors, i.e.:
Eigenvalues  1.0; factor loadings.40; item loadings on more than
one factor had to differ by .10 in loading to be retained.
2.2. Results
2.2.1. Dimensionality and internal consistency of the place
attachment scale
Principal component and reliability analyses of responses to the
29-point place attachment scale in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty
Ranges indicated five underlying dimensions with moderate reli-
abilities (Table 2, Cronbach alphas > .72). These five dimensions
comprised 19 items. Eight of the remaining 10 items were excluded
because of high cross-loadings. A further two items loaded on a sixth
dimension interpreted to be unrelated to place attachment (the
importance of agriculture in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges).

Table 2
Principal component analysis of place attachment in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges region.

Item Factor Grand Item Standard Cronbach

loading mean mean deviation alpha
Place identitya (Eigenvalue ¼ 6.95; variance explained ¼ 36.6%) 3.95 .87
The Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges is very special to me .72 3.97 .73
The Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges mean a lot to me .75 4.10 .65
I am very attached to the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges .76 4.19 .74
I identify strongly with the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges .74 4.07 .77
Living in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges says a lot about who I am .57 3.70 .88
I feel the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges is a part of me .58 3.67 .92
Nature bondingb (Eigenvalue ¼ 2.11; variance explained ¼ 11.1%) 3.83 .81
When I spend time in the natural environment in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges, .84 3.83 .87
I feel a deep feeling of oneness with the natural environmentc
I would feel less attached to the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges if the native plants and .74 4.11 .90
animals that live here disappeared
I learn a lot about myself when spending time in the natural environment in the .73 3.50 .89
Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges
I am very attached to the natural environment in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges .69 3.89 .76
Place dependencea (Eigenvalue ¼ 1.60; variance explained ¼ 8.5%) 3.47 .81
No other place can compare to the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges .78 3.21 1.08
I would not substitute any other area for the activities I do in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges .73 3.11 .96
Doing my activities in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges is more important to me .61 3.80 .93
than doing them in any other place
The Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges is the best place for the activities I like to do .60 3.77 .82
Family bondingb (Eigenvalue ¼ 1.33; variance explained ¼ 7.0%) 3.11 .72
I live in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges because my family is here .87 3.18 1.35
My relationships with family in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges are very special to me .82 3.63 1.15
Without my relationships with family in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges, I would probably move .65 2.54 .97
Friend bonding/belongingnessb (Eigenvalue ¼ 1.03; variance explained ¼ 5.4%) 3.36 .83
Belonging to volunteer groups in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges is very important to me .90 3.30 .94
The friendships developed by doing various community activities strongly connect .87 3.41 .92
me to the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges

Place attachment items were measured on a scale ranging from 1 ¼ Strongly Disagree, 2 ¼ Disagree, 3 ¼ Neither Agree or Disagree, 4 ¼ Agree, 5 ¼ Strongly Agree.
a
all scale items which measure this dimension were developed and validated in previous studies (e.g., Williams et al., 1992; Williams & Vaske, 2003).
b
all scale items which measure this dimension are newly developed, unless otherwise specified.
c
scale item adapted from Kals et al. (1999).
428 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434
The two previously validated dimensions of place identity and
place dependence (e.g., Williams & Vaske, 2003; Brown &
Raymond, 2007) were identified in this study. Six items previ-
ously found to be related to place identity loaded on a place identity
dimension and a further four items found to be related to place
dependence loaded on a place dependence dimension with high
reliability (Table 2, Cronbach alpha > .81). The scale items of “living
in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges says a lot about who I am”
and “I feel the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges is a part of me”
loaded less strongly on the place identity dimension than other
measures of place identity; however, they were still significant and
strong contributors to overall place identity (factor loadings > .58).
Nature bonding also emerged as a separate dimension of place
attachment with high construct validity and reliability. Four items
loaded strongly on this dimension (Table 2, Factor loadings > .69)
with equal reliability to that of place dependence (Cronbach
alpha ¼ .81). Paired samples t-tests indicate that nature bonding
was significantly stronger for landholders in the Adelaide and
Mount Lofty Ranges than place dependence (t ¼ 7.88, p < .05).
However, our hypothesis that social bonding would emerge as
a separate dimension of place attachment with high construct
validity and reliability was not supported. The five scale items
hypothesized to be related to social bonding divided into two
dimensions (Table 2, factor loadings > .65) that relate to connec-
tions to place based upon family relationships (termed family
bonding) and connections to place based upon other friendships
(termed friend bonding). The item “Belonging to volunteer groups in
the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges is very important to me”
appears related to the dimension of place belongingness discussed
by Hammitt et al. (2006). For this reason, we have termed the
dimension friend bonding/belongingness.
3. Study 2: refinement of the place attachment scale
In the second study, we tested the construct and convergent
validity of a revised place attachment scale in the Northern and
Yorke region. We then conducted a confirmatory test of this revised
scale in the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin (SAMDB) region.
Hair et al. (2006) suggests that a construct should be reflected by
a minimum of three items, preferably four. For this reason, we
included two extra friend bonding items in a mail-survey to land-
holders in each of the Northern and Yorke and SAMDB regions of
South Australia. The new items were: 1) “The friendships devel-
oped through volunteer activities in the Northern and Yorke region
are very important to me”, and; 2) “The friendships developed
through sporting activities in the Northern and Yorke region are
very important to me.” To further increase the reliability of the
nature bonding scale, we included the additional item of “When I
spend time in the natural environment in the Northern and Yorke
region, I feel at peace with myself.”
The Northern and Yorke region covers an area of 34,500 km2 and
includes the townships of Hawker to the north, the Yorke Peninsula,
the Northern Mount Lofty Ranges and the Southern Flinders Ranges.
The region supports a population of 89,000, with the major urban
centres being the cities of Port Pirie, Port Augusta, Clare, and ‘The
Copper Triangle’ towns of Kadina, Moonta, and Wallaroo. Dryland
farming (crops and livestock) is the dominant land-use of the region
(Northern and Yorke Natural Resources Management Board, 2009).
The SAMDB region spans an area of just over 56,000 km2 and covers
the lower basin area of the Murray-Darling system. Around 81,000
people reside in the region. The region includes the Coorong (a
100 km long coastal wetland). The River Murray, a critical source of
fresh water for South Australia, flows through the region entering
the Ramsar listed lower lakes and Murray mouth. Land use in the
region is dominated by dryland (23,304 km2) and irrigated
(1023 km2) agricultural production (South Australian Murray-
Darling Basin Natural Resources Management Board, 2009).
3.1. Method
3.1.1. Respondents and survey procedure
In 2010, 1300 mail-based surveys were administered to
a random sample of rural landholders in each of the Northern and
Yorke and SAMDB regions, using the same survey administration
method as study 1. The two regional surveys were administered
concurrently and contained the same questions. Research areas
addressed in the survey included rural landholders’ place attach-
ments, native vegetation conservation behavior, environmental
concerns, human values, and attitudes toward government assis-
tance programs for the management of natural resources. Part 3 of
the survey instrument consisted of the refined 20 place attachment
items developed in study one. All items were randomly listed and
presented in an identical response format as study one.
A total of 664 Northern and Yorke rural landholders returned
a completed survey (53.1% survey response after removing non-
deliverable surveys). The majority of respondents were male (85.9%)
and the mean age was 55 years (SD ¼ 11.90). Over half of SAMDB
rural landholders completed a survey (51.7% survey response)
providing a sample of 659. The majority of respondents were again
male (86.9%) and the mean age was 55 years (SD ¼ 11.89). Response
rate from females was lower than expected given ABS (2006) data
indicates that females represent 18.2% of all farm owners or
managers in the Northern and Yorke region and 25.9% of all farm
owners or managers in the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin.
3.1.2. Analyses
3.1.2.1. Construct validity. We repeated principal component anal-
ysis with a varimax rotation to test the dimensionality of the
refined place attachment scale. Factor loading thresholds of >.50
were used to discriminate between components. Reliability anal-
ysis was used to test the cohesiveness of the sub-scales. We also
compared the amount of variance in overall place attachment
explained by two-dimensional place identity and place depen-
dence model with our five-dimensional model. Similar or
improved explanatory power will provide additional support for
our five-dimensional conceptualization.
Another way to test the dimensionality of the place attachment
scale is to compare the mean differences among place identity,
place dependence, nature bonding, family bonding, and friend
bonding scores. To identify significant differences, paired samples
t-tests were run between the five dimensions. Significant difference
among mean response scores would support the hypothesis that
there are five rather than four dimensions of place attachment.
Another measure of construct validity is the sensitivity of the
place attachment scales for measuring attachments to different
places. Williams and Vaske (2003) suggest that place attachment
should differentiate how one feels about various places. We used
analysis of variance to examine the mean differences in place
identity, dependence, nature bonding, family bonding, and friend
bonding scores among the three study regions of the Adelaide and
Mount Lofty Ranges, Northern and Yorke and SAMDB.
3.1.2.2. Convergent validity. To test convergent validity, we exam-
ined the expected correlations between the place attachment
dimensions and the variables of length of residence, length of
farming, and time currently spent in nature. Additionally, we ran
correlations between the place attachment dimensions and length
of time the family has owned or operated the farm, generations the
family has been involved in farming, and longest period of time an
immediate family member has lived in the region. We also ran
 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434 429

a three-way full factorial model to determine potential interaction
effects between these respondent variables and the five place
attachment dimensions.
3.1.2.3. Confirmatory test. We used confirmatory factor analysis to
determine the extent to which the SAMDB landholder place
attachment data fit the five-dimensional model of place attach-
ment. In the hypothesized model, identity, dependence, nature
bonding, family bonding, and friend bonding were latent variables
and the corresponding scale items were the indicator measures.
Maximum likelihood estimation was used to estimate the model fit.
A variety of fit indices were used to test model fit, including the
Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), and Root Mean
Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA). We then conducted post-
hoc modifications to improve the fit of the model using the
modification indices provided in structural equation modelling
(SEM) with AMOS Version 17.0. To compare the fit of the 2-
dimensional and 5-dimensional place attachment models, we used
the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC; Akaike, 1987) and the
parsimony measure named the Expected Cross-validation Index
(ECVI).
3.2. Results
3.2.1. Dimensionality and internal consistency of the refined place
attachment scale
Despite refining the social bonding scale items, principal
component analysis of the 20-item scale continued to show family
bonding and friend bonding loading on separate dimensions (Table
3, factor loadings > .64). Paired samples t-tests (Table 4) indicate
significant differences between mean responses to family bonding
and friend bonding across all Northern and Yorke landholders
(t ¼ 6.52, p < .001). Significant mean differences also exist between
the other four dimensions of place attachment in the Northern and
Yorke region (t > 3.10, p < .01), with the exception of place depen-
dence and family bonding (p > .05). The largest mean differences
exist between place identity and place dependence (t ¼ 22.09,
p < .001) and place identity and nature bonding (t ¼ 13.97, p < .001).
Significant, but weak differences exist between place dependence
and family bonding (t ¼ 1.97, p < .05).
We used principal component analysis to compare the explana-
tory power of the two-dimensional, four-dimensional (place
identity, dependence, nature bonding, family bonding) and five-
dimensional models of place attachment. The two-dimensional
model explained 66.6%, the four-dimensional model explained 66.4%
and the five-dimensional model explained 67.9% of the variance in
overall landholder attachment to the Northern and Yorke region.
3.2.2. Convergent validity
Previous studies indicate that place attachment develops over
time, and is linked to length of residence, experience use history and
knowledge of a particular region (Altman & Low, 1992; Bricker &
Kerstetter, 2000; Brown & Raymond, 2007; Hammitt et al., 2009;
Moore & Graefe, 1994; Williams et al., 1992). Further, a study by
Kals et al. (1999) suggests significant positive relationships between
time spent in nature and connectedness with nature. To test the
convergent validity of our place attachment scale, we examined the
relationships between the five place attachment dimensions and the
respondent variables of length of residence, perceived knowledge of
the region, years involved in farming, and time spent in nature
(Table 5). We first ran a three-way full factorial model to determine
potential interaction effects between these respondent variables
and the five place attachment dimensions; however, no interactions
were statistically significant. The length of residence, length of
farming, and time spent in nature variables explained 12.8% of the
variance in place identity, 9.1% of the variance in place dependence,
16.8% of the variance in nature bonding, 12.3% of the variance in
family bonding, and 6.5% of the variance in friend bonding.

Table 3
Principal component analysis of place attachment in the Northern and Yorke region.

Item Factor Grand Item Standard Cronbach

loading mean mean deviation alpha
Place identitya (Eigenvalue ¼ 6.12; variance explained ¼ 41.4%) 3.80 .91
The Northern and Yorke region means a lot to me .75 3.79 .74
I am very attached to the Northern and Yorke region .72 3.76 .81
I have a lot of fond memories about the Northern and Yorke region .71 4.00 .68
The Nothern and Yorke region is very special to me .69 3.71 .77
I identify strongly with the Northern and Yorke region .70 3.77 .84
I feel the Northern and Yorke region is a part of me .66 3.77 .79
Nature bondingb (Eigenvalue ¼ 2.15; variance explained ¼ 9.8%) 3.55 .86
When I spend time in the natural environment in the Northern and Yorke region, .72 3.52 .88
I feel a deep feeling of oneness with the natural environmentc
I would feel less attached to the Northern and Yorke region if the native plants and animals that live here disappeared .77 3.65 .91
I learn a lot about myself when spending time in the natural environment in the Northern and Yorke region .68 3.25 .80
I am very attached to the natural environment in the Northern and Yorke region .68 3.55 .78
When I spend time in the natural environment in the Northern and Yorke region, I feel at peace with myself .66 3.79 .86
Place dependencea (Eigenvalue ¼ 1.33; variance explained ¼ 6.1%) 3.31 .85
I get more satisfaction out of living in the Northern and Yorke region than any other place .56 3.56 .92
No other place can compare to the Northern and Yorke region .82 2.96 .91
I would not substitute any other area for the activities I do in the Northern and Yorke region .79 3.07 .86
Doing my activities in the Northern and Yorke region is more important to me than doing them in any other place .55 3.45 .86
The Northern and Yorke region is the best place for the activities I like to do .64 3.50 .84
Family bondingb (Eigenvalue ¼ 1.12; variance explained ¼ 5.1%) 3.39 .70
I live in the Northern and Yorke region because my family is here .79 3.66 1.11
My relationships with family in the Northern and Yorke region are very special to me .64 3.79 .99
Friend bondingb (Eigenvalue ¼ 1.03; variance explained ¼ 4.7%) 3.63 .65
The friendships developed through volunteer activities in the Northern and Yorke region are very important to me .79 3.67 .85
The friendships developed through sporting activities in the Northern and Yorke region are very important to me .67 3.58 1.00

Place attachment items were measured on a scale ranging from 1 ¼ Strongly Disagree, 2 ¼ Disagree, 3 ¼ Neither Agree or Disagree, 4 ¼ Agree, 5 ¼ Strongly Agree.
a
all scale items which measure this dimension were developed and validated in previous studies (e.g., Williams & Vaske, 2003).
b
all scale items which measure this dimension are newly developed, unless otherwise specified.
c
scale item adapted from Kals et al. (1999).
430 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434

Table 4
Mean differences between place attachment construct scores in the Northern and Yorke region.

Construct 1 Construct 2 Paired Paired mean Standard t

correlation difference deviation
Place identity Nature bonding .70 .30 .51 13.97 ***
Place identity Place dependence .69 .50 .52 22.09 ***
Place identity Family bonding .23 .42 .86 11.42 ***
Place identity Friend bonding .41 .20 .79 5.89 ***
Place dependence Nature bonding .64 .20 .58 7.99 ***
Place dependence Family bonding .19 .07 .91 1.97 ns
Place dependence Friend bonding .32 .32 .87 8.61 ***
Nature bonding Family bonding .12 .12 .93 3.10 **
Nature bonding Friend bonding .26 .12 .90 3.09 **
Family bonding Friend bonding .35 .24 .87 6.52 .***

Note: ***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05.

Place attachment items were measured on a scale ranging from 1 ¼ Strongly Disagree, 2 ¼ Disagree, 3 ¼ Neither Agree nor Disagree, 4 ¼ Agree, 5 ¼ Strongly Agree.

Bivariate correlations were then run between the respondent
variables and the place attachment dimensions (Table 5). As
expected, we found significant positive relationships between
length of residence, place identity, and place dependence (r > .19,
p < .01), as well as perceived knowledge of the Northern and Yorke
region and place identity and place dependence (r > .12, p < .01). The
strongest positive relationship exists between time currently spent
in nature and nature bonding (r ¼ .40, p < .01), and length of resi-
dence and family bonding (r ¼ .34, p < .01). Those respondents who
have been involved in farming or lived in the region for a longer
period of time have stronger family bonds (r > .22, p < .05)
compared to those who have been involved for shorter lengths of
times. Further, no significant relationship was found between
length of residence and nature bonding (r ¼ .07, p > .05).
We examined the relationships between each place attachment
dimension and the number of years the farm has been owned or
operated by the family, the number of generations the family has
been involved in farming, and the longest period of time the
respondent has lived in the Northern and Yorke region (Table 5). The
factorial model again indicated no interaction effects. The number of
years the farm has been owned or operated by the family, the
number of generations the family has been involved in farming and
the longest period of time the respondent or their family lived in the
Northern and Yorke region variables explained 2.6% of the variance
in place identity, 2.1% of the variance in place dependence, 1.5% of
the variance in nature bonding, 12.4% of the variance in family
bonding, and 2.8% of the variance in friend bonding. Bivariate
correlations indicate significant, moderate relationships between
family bonding and the longest period of time lived by an immediate
family member in the Northern and Yorke region (r ¼ .37, p < .01),
the number of years the respondent’s family has owned the prop-
erty on which they currently live (r ¼ .25), and the number of
generations the family has been involved in farming (r ¼ .22).
Significant, but weaker, relationships were identified between each
of these variables and friend bonding (r > .10, p < .05, Table 5).
Rural landholders’ place attachments were compared across the
three natural resource management regions (Table 6) in order to test
the sensitivity of the place attachment scale for measuring attach-
ments to different places. Significant differences were found in the
strength of place attachments across the three regions (F > 9.40,
p < .001). Rural landholders in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges
had significantly higher place identity, place dependence, nature
bonding, and family bonding than Northern and Yorke and SAMDB
landholders. Northern and Yorke landholders had significantly
higher place identity than SAMDB landholders.
3.2.3. Confirmatory factored dimensions
We used confirmatory factor analysis to determine the extent to
which the SAMDB landholder place attachment data fits the five-
dimensional model of place attachment. We then compared the five-
dimensional model fit to the previously validated two-dimensional
model of place identity and dependence (Williams & Vaske, 2003). It
is important to note that the c2 statistic, the main measure of model
fit, is sensitive to sample size. With a larger sample, the c2 value is
also likely to be bigger and the model more likely to be rejected.
Complex models with more parameters will also increase the c2

Table 5
Correlations between respondent variables and the five place attachment dimensions.

Variable Place Place Nature Family Friend

identity dependence bonding bonding bonding
Length of residence (0e100 yrs)
Pearson Correlation r .25** .19** .07 .34** .22**
Years involved in farming (0e100 yrs)
Pearson Correlation r .19** .16** .04 .22** .13**
Generations family involved in farming (0e6 generations)
Pearson Correlation r .01 .05 .08 .22** .10*
Years property on which currently live has been owned or operated by family (0e200 yrs)
Pearson Correlation r .08 .07 .08 .25** .13**

Nowadays, I spend a lot of time in the natural environment (1 ¼ strongly disagree to 5 ¼ strongly agree)
Pearson Correlation r .23** .21** .40** .03 .01
Longest period of time lived by an immediate family member in the Northern and Yorke region (0e100 yrs)
Pearson Correlation r .18** .11* .03 .37** .18**
Knowledge of Northern and Yorke region (1 ¼ Poor, 2 ¼ Fair, 3 ¼ Good, 4 ¼ Excellent)
Spearman Correlation r .25** .12** .21** .04 .09*

Note: **p < .01, *p < .05.

Place attachment items were measured on a scale ranging from 1 ¼ Strongly Disagree, 2 ¼ Disagree, 3 ¼ Neither Agree or Disagree, 4 ¼ Agree, 5 ¼ Strongly Agree.
 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434 431

Table 6 effort to integrate disparate place attachment literatures. Overall,

Comparison of place attachments across the three natural resource management our findings indicate that a five-dimensional model of place
regions.
attachment comprising of place identity, dependence, nature
Place Overall Adelaide Northern SA Murray- F bonding, family bonding, and friend bonding is a valid and reliable
attachment and Mt Lofty and Darling measure of rural landholder attachments to their natural resource
dimensions Ranges Yorke Basin
management region. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses
Place identity 3.79 3.94a 3.80b 3.69c 14.58 ***
revealed that our five-dimensional model explained a greater
Place dependence 3.32 3.47a 3.31b 3.25b 9.40 ***
Nature bonding 3.58 3.83a 3.50b 3.53b 26.25 *** amount of variance in overall place attachment than the traditional
Family bonding 3.30 3.12a 3.39b 3.30b 10.94 *** two-dimensional model of place identity and place dependence
Friend bonding N/A 3.62a 3.31b 10.94 *** in two of the three natural resource management regions, but the
Note: Note: ***p < .001. two-dimensional model provided a better fit for the SAMDB rural
Means were based on a scale ranging from 1 ¼ Strongly Disagree, 2 ¼ Disagree, landholder place attachment data.
3 ¼ Neither Agree or Disagree, 4 ¼ Agree, 5 ¼ Strongly Agree. Lettered superscripts A number of validity and reliability tests were undertaken as
indicate the mean is significantly different from the corresponding mean in the
part of this study. The first validity question tested was whether the
indicated cluster based on Bonferroni post-hoc testing (where p < .001).
N/A denotes not applicable. four hypothesized dimensions of place attachment constitute
distinct forms of place attachment. Exploratory factor analyses of
the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges and Northern and Yorke
region revealed five statistically distinct factors comprising of place
value (Byrne, 2001); for example, Hair et al. (2006) state models identity, place dependence, nature bonding, family bonding, and
containing greater than 12 variables can be expected to have friend bonding. It was not expected that family bonding and friend
significant p-values for the chi-square test. The five-dimensional bonding would load on two separate dimensions. Place bonds
model was first tested using the SAMDB data, yielding only weak related to friends were generally stronger than those related to
support: chi-squared/degrees of freedom ratio (c2/d.f.) ¼ 4.58, family. One possible reason for this difference is that rural land-
comparative fit index (CFI) ¼ .91, root mean square error of holders, particularly commercial farmers, rely heavily upon their
approximation (RMSEA) ¼ .07. Post-hoc modifications were per- farm neighbors and friends as sources of information and support
formed in an attempt to develop a better fitting and more parsi- for on-farm practice. Northern and Yorke survey respondents most
monious model. According to the modification indices in AMOS, frequently cited farm neighbors or friends as their preferred source
model fit could be improved by adding co-variances between the of information about on-farm practices (>15.2% of responses,
indicators of family bonding and friend bonding and removing Raymond, 2010). The social bonding scale items were modified
a nature bonding indicator (“I learn a lot about myself when between the two studies with the goal of improving construct
spending time in the natural environment in X region”) which was validity and to develop a single social bonding measure, but they
strongly correlated with indicators of place identity. Rerunning of continued to load on separate dimensions. There are only marginal
the constrained model (Table 7) produced a substantially improved differences in explanatory power of the four and five-dimensional
fit ((c2/d.f.) ¼ 3.09, CFI ¼ .97, NFI ¼ .95, RMSEA ¼ .06). models, with the latter model explaining a slightly greater amount
We then compared the fit of the two-dimensional and five- of the variance in overall place attachment (67.9% vs. 66.4%).
dimensional model. AIC is a goodness-of-fit measure which adjusts Principal component analysis of the Adelaide and Mount Lofty
model chi-square to penalize for model complexity. Models with ranges data revealed that belonging to a volunteer group loaded on
smaller AIC values are favoured over models with larger AIC values the friend bonding factor. A number of studies have shown that
(Burnham & Anderson, 1998). A difference of greater than ten is feelings of belongingness or a communal bond with special friends
desired to provide compelling evidence that one model is superior is one of the significant sources of attachment to place (e.g., Guest &
to another (Akaike, 1987). The Expected Cross-Validation Index Lee, 1983; Hammitt, 2000). Volunteer groups in regional Australia
(ECVI) is also used to compare non-nested models and has the are an important outlet for the development of friendships. Those
advantage that it considers differences in parsimony. The smaller who feel they belong to volunteer groups may be more likely to
the ECVI value, the better the model. With this in mind, the two- have very strong friend bonds. The friendships developed through
dimensional model shows better fit overall to the SAMDB data volunteering may be one reason why Australia has a very high
(AIC ¼ 165.33 vs. 477.96, ECVI ¼ .26 vs. .75). volunteer rate. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2006) found that 5.2
million people (34%) of the Australian population aged 18 years and
4. Discussion over participate in voluntary work. The volunteering rate is higher
outside of cities (38%) and for people in the 45e54 age group (39%).
4.1. Validity and reliability of the place attachment model The internal consistency or reliability of the individual items
was determined. Place identity, place dependence, and nature
The objective of this study was to conceptualize and empirically bonding formed cohesive scales (Cronbach alphas > .80). However,
examine a four-dimensional model of place attachment among family bonding showed larger variance due to the negatively
three samples of rural landholders in regional South Australia in an worded statement of “without my relationships with family in the

Table 7
Confirmatory factor analysis of the five dimensions of place attachment across all South Australian Murray-Darling Basin landholders.

Dimensions c2 d.f. c2/d.f. 6c2 p CFI NFI RMSEA AIC ECVI

2 71.3 18 3.96 .98 .98 .07 165.33 .26
5 312.0 101 3.09 .97 .95 .06 487.96 .75
Model 2 vs. Model 5 240.7 <.001

Note: 2 dimensions ¼ place identity and place dependence; 5 dimensions ¼ place identity, place dependence, nature bonding, family bonding and friend bonding.
Acceptable ranges for the fit indices are c2/d.f. ratio of 2:1e5:1 (Marsh & Hocevar, 1985). CFI and NFI values in excess of .90 indicate an acceptable fit (Bentler, 1990; Bollen,
1989).
432 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434
Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges, I would probably move.” This
item was subsequently removed from further analyses.
The spatial context of the population being measured appears to
determine the relative strength and importance of the place
attachment dimensions. Analysis of variance and Bonferroni post-
hoc tests indicate that landholders in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty
Ranges identify more strongly with place than landholders in the
Northern and Yorke and SAMDB regions (F ¼ 14.58, p < .001). Further,
Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges have stronger place identity, place
dependence, and nature bonding, but weaker family bonding
attachments than Northern and Yorke and SAMDB landholders. One
reason for this difference is that the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges
region has a higher proportion of hobby farmers than SAMDB and
Northern and Yorke regions. Results from the 2010 landholder
surveys indicate that hobby farmers have stronger nature bonds than
commercial farmers (Raymond, 2010). The social bonds of SAMDB
and Northern and Yorke residents may be stronger because of their
remoteness from a major city. Landholders in remote areas have
access to fewer services and are therefore more likely to require the
support of family and friends to achieve everyday farming tasks. We
also recognize that the results presented here are based on rural
landowners who live in three natural resource management regions.
While they are geographically different regions, they are all similar
place types (rural and natural settings). Future research would
benefit from the application of a consistent multi-dimensional model
of place attachment across different places (a type of meta-analysis)
to determine how the population location influences the relative
importance of the various dimensions.
The identification of five dimensions of place attachment has
some important implications for place attachment theory. Our
results support previous studies (e.g., Hammitt et al., 2006;
Williams & Vaske, 2003) who found that the personal meanings
of place identity and place dependence are separate dimensions of
place attachment. This personal context is missing from recent
studies (e.g., Brehm et al., 2006; Scannell & Gifford, 2010b) which
suggest that place attachment is related only to attributes of the
physical or social setting. Researchers are encouraged to examine
how the community context of place attachment may be an
intermediary between the personal context and natural environ-
ment context. We also expand upon Hammitt and colleagues work
(Hammitt et al., 2006, 2009) by showing that attachments directly
related to family and friends as well as the natural environment
need to be considered alongside the personal context of identity
and dependence in natural resource management research. There
are important differences in the magnitude of family, friend, and
nature bonds which cannot simply be aggregated into place iden-
tity, dependence or place belongingness measures.
The convergent validity analyses suggest that bonds to the
natural environment are largely independent of how long one has
lived in a region or farming experience. When landholders
acknowledge that they spend significant time in nature, rather than
a farming environment, bonds to nature increase. However, place
identity increases with farming experience. These results are
consistent with place continuity theory (see Hay, 1998a; Twigger-
Ross & Uzzell, 1996), which suggests that past action and experi-
ence in place plays an important role in maintaining individual and
group identity. Our results also support environmental identity
theory and biophilia hypothesis which suggest that connection to
nature and well-being is strongly influenced by a landholder’s
experience and relationship with the surrounding natural world
(Clayton, 2003; Kellert & Wilson, 1993; Wilson, 1984). Future
studies should further examine these proposed distinctions
between place identity and nature bonding by contrasting the
experience in the region with other life experiences. For example,
childhood experiences with nature could contribute significantly to
nature bonding without necessarily contributing to place identity
as an adult.
Our final test examined the fit of the revised five-dimensional
model of place attachment against SAMDB landholder attachment
responses. The revised five-dimensional model of place attachment
provided reasonable fit for the SAMDB dataset (chi-squared/
degrees of freedom ratio ((c2/d.f.) ¼ 3.09, CFI ¼ .95, NFI ¼ .95,
RMSEA ¼ .06)). The model could be improved by increasing the
reliability of the family bonding and friend bonding constructs. We
had to allow covariance between the errors on friend bonding and
family bonding in the constrained model in order to improve model
fit, suggesting that family bonding and friend bonding may form
part of the one construct of social bonding in the SAMDB dataset.
Hence, it is still unclear whether family bonding and friend bonding
are separate dimensions of place attachment or part of a larger
construct named social bonding. One possible reason is that,
despite our best efforts to develop cohesive sub-scales of family
bonding and friend bonding, only two scale items loaded highly on
each construct in the Northern and Yorke study. Future research
should increase the number of family bonding and friend bonding
scale items prior to undertaking confirmatory analyses. Qualitative
analyses of rural landholder attachments to place would have an
important role in the development of these new scale items.
We also need to be cautious about generalizing the place
attachment results across regions. Confirmatory factor analysis
revealed that the two-dimensional model provides a better fit for
the SAMDB rural landholder place attachment data. Place identity
and place dependence may be more robust measures of place
attachment because they may be less dependent on the character-
istics of the social setting of a given study region than family bonding
and friend bonding. Following the systemic model of connection
between residents and their communities (Kasarda & Janowitz,
1974), it would be expected that the region with the largest mean
length of residence would have the strongest family and friend
bonds and this would be independent of the region’s population.
Our results offer some support for this theory. Landholders in the
Northern and Yorke region have a significantly longer mean length
of residence (p < .05) and their friend bonds are significantly
stronger than the SAMDB region. However, the SAMDB region has
a much larger population than the Northern and Yorke region. This
theory also holds for the differences in family bonds between the
Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges and SAMDB regions (Table 7).
4.2. Limitations
The data collected in this study have several limitations. The first
limitation is that the place attachment dimensions such as nature
bonding may be more relevant to rural than urban populations,
particularly those who own rural agricultural land or patches of
native vegetation. We therefore cannot conclude that the place
attachment findings here are generalisable to all land-use contexts.
Further research could expand the place attachment model pre-
sented here to urban and peri-urban populations and contexts.
The scale items used to measure the friend bonding construct in
the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges and the Northern and Yorke
region were different and therefore the structure of the construct is
not directly comparable. Another limitation is that significantly
more males than females completed the survey in all three study
regions. Researchers could compare and contrast the dimension-
ality of place attachment based upon male and female responses,
although to date, there is little empirical evidence that place
attachment is significantly related to gender.
We are concerned about the less than desired amount of vari-
ance in place attachment accounted for by the different constructs.
The five constructs accounted for over 68% of the variance in place
 C.M. Raymond et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 422e434
attachment; however, place identity accounted for the majority
(>39%) of it. Other studies (e.g., Hammitt et al., 2006, 2009) have
reported similar findings. Whilst multiple conceptualizations of
place were synthesized within the one model, other important
conceptualizations such as belongingness and familiarity have not
been adequately considered. Further research could consider how
these and other dimensions of place attachment interact with place
identity, such as the negative attachments that people have with
place (Manzo, 2003). This is particularly important in rural South
Australia where recent drought times have led to a high suicide rate
and people leaving their farms.
5. Conclusions
The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model of
place attachment which integrates multiple approaches to place
scholarship, including personal, community, and natural environ-
ment contexts. Whilst not conclusive, our findings indicate that
a five-dimensional model of place attachment comprising of place
identity, dependence, nature bonding, family bonding, and friend
bonding is a valid and reliable measure of rural landholder
attachments to their natural resource management region. In
support of our integrated conceptual model of place attachment,
the results suggest that rural landholders develop strong attach-
ments to both the physical and social characteristics of place. These
characteristics also have an important role in supporting place
identity and place dependence. The attributes of the physical and
social setting therefore cannot be viewed in isolation of the highly
personalized emotions formed in these settings which we refer to
as the personal context to place attachment. Convergent validity
tests also revealed some conceptual and empirical distinctions
between place identity and nature bonding, highlighting the
importance of considering the personal context of place attachment
separately to the environmental context. The interactions between
the personal, social, and physical context of place have implications
for the systemic model of social interaction, place continuity theory,
and environmental identity theory. Individual connection with
place is not just a function of experience with nature or social
interaction with friends and family in setting, but also how indi-
viduals construct their own identity through their residential and
farming histories. It is possible that the spatial location and context
of the population being measured also influences the strength and
relative importance of the place attachment dimensions. Future
research could expand the place attachment model presented here
by comparing urban and regional attachments, or across different
sub-regions of residence. The model presented does however
provide researchers with a valid and inclusive method to measure
place attachment in rural and natural settings.
Acknowledgements
Christopher Raymond acknowledges the generous financial
support provided by Jean Pearce. We thank the three anonymous
reviewers and Prof. Guy Robinson for their thorough and
constructive feedback on this publication. Funding for this project
was provided by the Centre for Rural Health and Community
Development, University of South Australia, South Australian
Murray-Darling Basin Natural Resources Management Board and
the Northern and Yorke Natural Resources Management Board.
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