Science Says We Care More About Places Than Things

A memory of a place is worth a thousand gift-shop souvenirs.

What’s a better souvenir from a trip: that sand-dollar foraged from a hidden beach, or the memory of hours spent gazing out at the ocean, your loved ones within reach? If you believe recent research from Britain’s National Trust, a conservation organization, it’s those memory caches that have real cachet.

Nino Strachey oversaw the project, dubbed Places That Make Us—an ambitious attempt to unpack the idea of topophilia, or place attachment, the emotional bond between someone and somewhere. It’s no surprise that the National Trust would fund such research, given that its mission is protecting many of Britain’s historic places to visit, such as parks and stately homes. But Strachey stresses that the origins of this project lie with UNESCO, and its decade-old manifesto: the Declaration of the Spirit of Place. “We’re a heritage body, so we do everything according to that declaration, which aims to preserve the physical and spiritual elements that give meaning, value, emotion and mystery to a place, whether those attributes are tangible, or intangible,” she says.

If UNESCO is right, she reasoned, how, and how much, can we become attached to somewhere rather than something, and how strong can that emotional connection prove? The research team was tasked with answering those questions—and the results were startling.

It was broken into two phases. The first was lab-based, and involved twenty volunteers who underwent fMRI scanning of the brain. As the scans took place, they were shown photographs: some featured places to which the volunteer had strong personal ties, while others showed objects of sentimental value. Consistently, the emotional centers of the brains flared more strongly when shown the images of somewhere, rather than something—the sight of where someone got married, for example, had greater emotional power than their wedding ring. There was particular activity in two regions of the brain: the left amygdala, to which science currently ascribes a role in regulating our emotional responses, and the Media Prefrontal Cortex, which activates positive emotions and memories. Strachey, of course, was delighted. “Finding that places can light up everyone’s brains and fill them with joy and calm?” she marvels, “What could be better?”

But the National Trust went further with the report’s second phase. This involved an in-depth survey of 2,000 Brits, which looked at how that innate, emotional response to a place is expressed by our conscious minds. Asked to pick phrases that encapsulated their response to favorite places, almost 80 percent chose "I’m drawn here by a magnetic pull"; two thirds of those surveyed ascribed a sense of calm and safety to the same locales. The response wasn’t limited to longtime haunts, or childhood favorites: 40 percent of people said that they felt such emotions toward newer places, like a recent vacation spot, just as strongly.

The survey’s results don’t surprise Alastair Bonnett. He’s a professor and author of the upcoming book Beyond the Map. Bonnett describes himself as a “psychogeographer,” and has spent his career exploring our emotional, irrational connections to places, although he wasn’t involved in the National Trust’s project. “We’ve all had that feeling—arriving somewhere, knowing very little about it, and something clicks in your head that you can’t quite put a finger on. It’s a response that makes us feel strangely at home somewhere we’ve only just arrived. The fact that human identity is wrapped up in place is something we don’t talk about much, partly because it’s common sense,” he continues, “But remember that people will fight and die for a place.”

The relationship we have to objects and possessions is transactional: We can always buy and sell something of monetary value. The same isn’t true of a favorite spot. “Places are never just ours—they’re a shared endeavor, so you have to show a certain kind of humility,” says Bonnett. Even when billionaires buy an island, it still doesn’t create the same sense of possession as a sports car or a McMansion. “It never feels entirely theirs—places talk to our sense of sharing stories and sharing our lives.” So next time you’re frustrated on a trip when you haven’t found the perfect souvenir, remember: the best, most impactful take-home is the memory you’re in the midst of making.