A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Place Attachment and Pro-Environmental Intention: An Abstract

Abstract

The relationship between place attachment and its behavioural consequences has attracted considerable interest among researchers since this affective bond that people have with the place leads to behaviours that generally benefit that place. In particular, place attachment and its dimensions have often been documented as good predictors to explain people’s intention for pro-environmental behaviours. However, the literature shows that the effect size regarding the impact of place attachment on pro-environmental intention varies across different studies. Thus, a meta-analysis study is needed to clarify the nature of the relationship between place attachment and pro-environmental intention. How big is the impact of place attachment on pro-environmental intention? Does place attachment always have a positive impact on pro-environmental intention? And what are the contextual factors that might influence the relationship between place attachment and pro-environmental intention? This meta-analysis synthesizes the empirical findings in order to better understand the magnitude of the effect of place attachment on pro-environmental intention, and to evaluate the extent to which various operationalizations of place attachment and contextual factors such as type of sample and culture contribute to the variations in the reported effects of place attachment on pro-environmental intention. Our results support prior expectations of the presence of a positive effect of place attachment on pro-environmental intention, and the effect size is small to large. Furthermore, we find that variations in the effect sizes can be explained by the study context and culture. More specifically, the effect of place attachment on pro-environmental intention is stronger for tourists compared to residents—both groups obviously have different forms of relationships with different types of places. Our results also show that the effect of place attachment on pro-environmental intention tends to be stronger in collectivistic countries (e.g., China) than in individualistic countries (e.g., US). We do not find any evidence that the operationalisations of place attachment have an effect on pro-environmental intention.