Finding Relationship between Sense of Place and Place Attachment in Student Dormitory

Individuals create different links through their interaction with environment. During this connection, unknown spaces become places by meanings which people attach to them. It seems that the meaning, play an important role in sense which people percept from a place. In environment psychology, concepts such as sense of place and place attachment investigate as an emotional relationship between people and places. In fact, the meanings which people percept from different places define these two concepts. Sense of place is a mental concepts of people and their feelings about a special environment that put people into internal relation to that environment. It change a typical space to place with special behavior and sensory characteristics for certain people. Sense of place effect on individual behaviors, social values ​​and people attitudes. People usually participate in social activities according to their sense of places. So it could be assumed that the sense of place is being created when the person encounters with a place for the first time. In this case, the sense is divided into two Categories: positive and negative feelings. Negative feeling about a place lead to disgusting of the place and the positive sense about a place lead to formation of place attachment. It refer to emotional and functional bonds between place and people. In other word place attachment is a symbolic relationship with the place which is formed by giving the emotional meanings and common sense to a particular place or territory. In fact a positive experience of place is the consequence of positive beliefs and emotions that individuals create in their interaction with place and giving meaning to it. However, the relationship between the two is not sufficiently explained. This paper first defines the concepts of sense of place and place attachment and then investigates the factors affecting them. Next, a four-factor model is developed from all factors affecting these two concepts as the theoretical framework of the study. This model was piloted in Eram and Qods dormitories of Shiraz University. In the process of testing, in-depth interview and questionnaires were used to collect data. SPSS software was used in order to analyze the results of surveys. After the questionnaires were administered and collected, the data were processed using descriptive and inferential statistics. At descriptive level, relative frequency and cumulative distribution were used. At inferential level, due to the nature of variables, correlation coefficient, regression and comparison of means tests were used. Findings show that there is a significant relationship between the sense of place and place attachment. If the sense of place is considered as the initial feeling when an individual faces with a place, place attachment is the positive emotional feeling toward the place. The results also showed that physical factors of the environment are important in creating both sense of place and place attachment. The time factor has the lowest degree of significance in creating sense of place. However, in creation of place attachment, the time factor is the second most important factor after physical factor.