The antecedents of place attachment in the context of an Australian national park

Psychological Needs Satisfaction and Attachment to Natural Landscapes

“…The relationship between competence and place dependence supports an extensive history of research illustrating the utility of place for satiating desired experiential outcomes (Anderson & Fulton, 2008; Budruk & Wilhelm Stanis, 2013; Kyle, Mowen & Tarrant, 2004; van Riper et al, 2019). Wilderness settings afford unique opportunities for the visitor.…”

“…Our data do not reveal the attributes of these identities other than to suggest the perception that a place affords for an individual's need to affiliate with others' significantly girds the individuals' bond to that setting. The relationship between competence and place dependence supports an extensive history of research illustrating the utility of place for satiating desired experiential outcomes (Anderson & Fulton, 2008;Budruk & Wilhelm Stanis, 2013;Kyle, Mowen & Tarrant, 2004;van Riper et al, 2019). Wilderness settings afford unique opportunities for the visitor.…”

“…Given the demonstrated potential for natural landscapes to support IM, autonomy, and agentic behavior, it is reasonable to hypothesize that interaction with these landscapes leads to attachment. Some preliminary evidence supports these associations (Anderson & Fulton, 2008; Budruk & Wilhelm Stanis, 2013; Kyle, Mowen, & Tarrant, 2004; van Riper et al, 2019), but this research has not framed the association around the tenets of theory underlying IM (i.e., SDT). Rather, these studies are loosely rooted in Vroom’s (1964) and Lawler’s (1973) expectancy theory and suggest that attachment arises from the perceived ability of place to provide for preferred recreational outcomes.…”

“…However, from a theoretical perspective, the ability of a place to afford opportunities for recreational activities is not in and of itself a sufficient quality to account for one’s identification with it, among other forms of attachment. This is evidenced by the limited explanatory power of motivation, defined as one’s subjective evaluation of place attributes, with respect to place attachment in previous studies (Anderson & Fulton, 2008; Budruk & Wilhelm Stanis, 2013; Kyle, Mowen, & Tarrant, 2004; van Riper et al, 2019). Drawing on SDT, and the work of Scannell and Gifford (2017a, 2017b), we propose that attachment arises from the ability of a place to provide for basic psychological needs, including autonomy, competence, and relatedness.…”

“…Guided by empirical evidence, these authors reported that place preferences, in the form of motivation, may be an outcome of attachment, not an antecedent. Finally, van Riper et al (2019) extended the motivation–place attachment relationship to demonstrate that an individual’s environmental worldview influences their subjective perceptions of the qualities of a landscape, and ultimately the form of their attachment to it. These authors further suggested that IM and the ability of places to satisfy psychological needs may play a role in the formation of place attachment.…”