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ABSTRACT. To enhance land managers' ability to address deeper landscape meanings and place-specific symbolic values in natural resource decision making, this study evaluated the psychometric properties of a place attachment measure designed to capture the extent of emotions and feelings people have for places. Building on previous measurement efforts, this study examined the validity and generalizability of place attachment across measurement items, places, and dimensions (place dependence and place identity) of attachment. Colorado State University students (n = 65) rated four forest-based recreation sites on two dimensions of place attachment. In addition, data from a sample of University of Illinois students (n = 380) and visitors to Shenandoah National Park (n = 2005) and Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area (n = 369) were analyzed and compared to the Colorado sample. Confirmatory factor analysis of these four data sets demonstrated that subjects distinguish between two dimensions of attachment and assign different levels of attachment to the different areas. Generalizability analysis of the Colorado data provided additional evidence for the two-dimensional structure and suggested that each attachment dimension can be reliably measured with as few as four questionnaire items. Convergent validity was supported through analyses of the relationships between the place attachment measures and both behavioral and psychological variables predicted to be related to place attachment. For. Sci. 49(6):830-840.
Key Words: Measurement, scale development, reliability, recreation, sense of place.
PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT in the United States has been guided for nearly 100 yr by a utilitarian philosophy laid down by Gifford Pinchot and the scientific progressives of his time. Over the past decade, however, a new kind of "ecological" thinking has taken root in governmental and nongovernmental organizations responsible for managing and protecting natural resources. The reasons motivating this shift, though many and complex, appear to have both a scientific and social component. First, ecologists have recognized that typical production management models (e.g., engineering a timber stand to maximize fiber yield) do not adequately account for the ecological changes that may result, particularly in the larger spatial-temporal context of ecosystems (Franklin 1989). Second, society increasingly values natural resources in ways not easily captured by the commodity and production metaphors of "use" and "yield" generally associated with utilitarianism (Bengston 1994).
The emergence of ecosystem management as a...