Abstract
The current study focuses on residents’ perceptions of residential quality. The influence of two psychological factors is examined: cognitive restructuring and future perspectives. For cognitive restructuring, it is hypothesized that residents who cannot change a suboptimal housing situation show higher appreciation scores in order to prevent unhappiness and psychosocial complaints. By contrast, the future perspectives hypothesis argues that residents who can change a suboptimal housing situation show higher appreciation scores because they have a better situation to look forward to. Respondents indicated their appreciation of 23 dwelling aspects on a scale ranging from 0 (extremely unattractive) to 100 (extremely attractive). A weak impact was found for cognitive restructuring: residents living in a suboptimal housing situation and who do not intend to move showed a higher mean appreciation for an owner-occupied house and for a traditional architectural design than similar residents who did intend to move. No effect was observed for future perspectives. Why is housing always satisfactory? A previous study and the current one show that residents who live in a suboptimal housing situation might show relatively high residential satisfaction because they lower their aspirations (“I don’t need much”), because they are satisfied with what they have (“what I have is fine”) and, to a lesser extent, because they make the best of a situation that they cannot change (cognitive restructuring).
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Jansen, S.J.T. Why is Housing Always Satisfactory? A Study into the Impact of Cognitive Restructuring and Future Perspectives on Housing Appreciation. Soc Indic Res 116, 353–371 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0303-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0303-1