Faculty Mentor(s)

Dr. Benjamin Meagher, Psychology

Document Type

Poster

Event Date

4-12-2024

Abstract

Throughout history, one's home has had great significance, typically viewed as "the prototypical place" (Lewicka, 2010a, p. 211). Homes help fulfill many needs in the lives of their occupants, including self-expression (Gosling et al., 2002), feelings of safety and control (Smith, 1994), among others. Even so, psychological research on the topic of home is relatively minimal (Graham et al., 2015; Meagher, 2020).

To evaluate what concepts people most associate with their home, we employed an adapted version of the Twenty-Statements Test (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954; Rees & Nicholson, 2004) that asked participants to respond to the statement "My Home is…." to assess the frequency of particular types of schemas. Specifically, how commonly abstract, psychological terms are used to describe the home relative to physical or objective features.

We collected data from 204 participants from around the U.S. through the online platform Prolific and coded participant responses using the following codes: (1) Location (e.g., next to a park), (2) Activity (e.g., where I sleep), (3) Possessive (e.g., mine), (4) Financial (e.g., expensive), (5) Occupant (e.g., where my dog lives), (6) Objective Physical Descriptor (e.g., brick), (7) Subjective Physical Descriptor (e.g., dark), (8) Evaluative (e.g., good), and (8) Abstract Descriptor (e.g., safe). The most common responses were physical descriptors, either objectively (15.6%) or subjectively (26.6%), followed closely by Abstract Descriptors (37.4%).

In addition to our descriptive analysis, we will also perform an exploratory analysis to test if any differences emerge in the types of home schemas people use, based on: home ownership (owning, renting), gender, and location (urban, suburban, rural). This study will improve our understanding of the common cognitive associations people have about their homes by revealing the schemas most prevalent in this fundamental person-place relationship.

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