COUV ACTES - Psychologie communautaire

Community Psychology: Common Values, Diverse PracticesDoes place attachment contribute to social well-being? Anempirical study on first-year undergraduatesby Chiara Rollero 1 & Norma De Piccoli 1AbstractWell-being refers to satisfaction concerning interpersonal relations, family life, employment, health and finances.Considering that persons remain embedded in social communities and face innumerable social tasks andchallenges, it is particularly important to take into account the individuals’ appraisal of their social relationships,how others react to them and how they interact with social institutions and community. These last are thepsychosocial dimensions considered by the concept of social well-being (Keyes, 1998). The present study aimedto investigate the direct relation between the dimensions that characterize social well-being and the affective linkto a place. Participants were 443 first-year undergraduates attending the University of Turin, in Italy. Resultsshowed that social well-being is globally connected to place attachment, but noteworthy distinctions have to bespecified both in relation to the spatial range investigated and to the different dimensions of social well-being.IntroductionLiterature showed that the feeling of being at home in the neighbourhood is closely connected with a sense ofwell-being (Moser et al., 2002), whilst, on the contrary, the lack of environmental quality may be seen as animportant threat to quality of life (Uzzell & Moser, 2006). Theoretical and empirical works tied place attachment tophysical and psychological well-being (i.e. Brown & Perkins, 1992). Considering that persons remain embeddedin social communities and face innumerable social challenges, it is particularly important to take into account theindividuals’ appraisal of their social relationships, how others react to them and how they interact with socialinstitutions and community. For this reason Keyes (1998) proposed the concept of social well-being,characterised by five dimensions: social integration (individuals’ appraisal of the quality of their own relation withsociety and community), social acceptance (trusting others and having favourable opinion of human nature),social contribution (the feeling of being a vital member of the society, with something of value to give to theworld), social actualisation (the evaluation of the potentials of society) and social coherence (the perception of thequality and the organization of the social world).The researchAlthough a voluminous literature on the connection between place and well-being yields some insights, to datethe direct influence of place attachment on social well-being has not been explicitly investigated. Thus, the main1Department of Psychology. University of Turin – Italy - rollero@psych.unito.it311