Effects of Size of Home Town on Environmental Perception

Abstract

168 subjects used a 23-item semantic differential to rate forest, beach, small town, desert, and large city. The ratings served as dependent variables for 23 3 × 56 × 5 analyses of variance employing size of home town, subjects within size of home town, and type of environment. Size of home town was a significant effect on one of 23 scales; subjects from large and medium-sized cities rated environments more toward the good end of the good-bad scale than subjects from small towns. All main effects for type of environment were significant. The order in which environments were rated depended upon the particular rating scale. Significant interactions of home town by environment were examined in terms of the differential patterns of environmental ratings produced by subjects from various sized home towns.