Sense of Place Among Adolescents: Factors Influencing the Place Attachment on Shopping Malls

This research aims to find the push factors that create relationships between youth and shopping centers and examines how different mall environments also help create different emotional bonds towards the malls. This topic is further observed with an explorative study that obtained its primary data from interviews and secondary data from various supporting literatures as well as from a number of observations. The informants were 15 visitors of each of the following shopping centers: Tunjungan Plaza and Ciputra World in Surabaya; and Mal Ciputra and Gandaria City in Jakarta. The total informant number is 60. The research found several affective factors that support the formation of place attachment: physical factors that lead to indirect place attachment, social factors or social interactions that happen in the shopping center, cultural factors, personal factors (including gender, race and ethnicity), memories and experience, place satisfaction, interaction and activity features, and time factor. The different age of shopping centers also had an effect to the factors present.


Introduction
In its development, a mall can accommodate the characters of adolescents. To this day, adolescents are described as a group of people who have a connectedness with mall environment. Spending time at the mall has even become a culture of its own. This connectedness can be seen mostly among teens and young adults, and youths are included in it. Wilhelm and Mottner (2005) state that they are focused on the age between 12-17 years old because this age span is still very close to the shopping malls (Baker & Haytko, 2000). This notion is also supported by a research by Maharani (2009) who states that there is place attachment between adolescents and shopping centers in Bandung, Indonesia. Furthermore, Altman & Low (1992) state that teenagers aged 17-18 years have a connectedness with the mall. In addition, Kusumo-widagdo, Sachari, and Widodo (2012b) write that university students have been able to identify physical and social features of Surabaya, which means that they can also feel the sense of place of a mall. This research also verifies the adolescents' intensity in visiting a mall, which averages from once to twice a week. When they go with friends these youngsters can spend 3-4 hours in a mall, with their parents they spend around 2-3 hours, and they only spend 1-2 hours with their community.
From the facts above, it is safe to say that these youths' lives influence one another because of the deep bond they have with their friends and communities which happens in the shopping mall environment. Their behavior has become trendsetters and the number of youths is on the rise. Therefore, their culture and dependency on shopping center need to be studied. People of these ages possess a special characteristic as it is a time for transition towards young adulthood, leaving behind their childhood traits and aiming for the characteristic of high achievement people. Here the mall environment serves as one of the settings that influence their lives (Vural, Arslan, Senkali, & Isigicok, 2010). They use malls for other activities in addition to merely having fun and shopping.
The abovementioned condition is widely evident in large cities of Indonesia, and often causes both positive and negative excesses. The positive excess means that various inspirational activities can be done in the shopping mall with the aid of the basic facilities available there. The multiple activities done by the young generation stem from the fact that this generation is the quickest to grasp the changes in the economy and technology fields. When it is time to enter the concept of economic experience (Pine & Gilmore, 1998), they quickly adopt the concept in their daily lives, getting used to all functional products, objects, and places which are coupled with an experiential added value. For instance, a mall environment can be used for more than just a shopping ground. In other words, the shopping center has other functions beside a transactional space-it is also a space for socializing and conducting several cultural activities. Meanwhile, the negative excess involves the triggering of teenage consumerism through a shopping experience which is conditioned to be very ideal (Kushendrawati, 2006;Goss, 2008, Palan, Gentina, Muratore, 2010Shim, et al. 2011). Several studies explain that shopping environment can give adolescents the opportunity to develop the their social life, increase social quality of love, (Spilkova & Radova, 2011;Baker & Haytko, 2000;Anthony, 1985), entertain and help them relax (Baker & Haytko, 2000), have a family time-especially for girls and their mother (Spilkova & Radova, 2011;Anthony, 1985), and also do activities supported by free internet connection (Baker & Haytko, 2000).
However, a shopping mall can actually become a strategic place when it offers a positive impact for adolescents. This happens when positive activities, which aim to develop their potential, are held inside the mall. In addition, young people, who are not originally seen as potential segment for shopping malls, can now become one of the segments to boost the business sustainability of the malls in the future. Therefore, in addition to commercial objective, there should also be a social mission that will strengthen the social connectivity between shopping malls and the society. This connectivity will help shopping mall to mutually exist with its surrounding. Furthermore, this connectivity will create relationships between visitors of a mall and their surroundings.
The proximity of the relationship causes several shopping centers built in the early era of rapid mall growth, such as Tunjungan Plaza in Surabaya, Blok M and Mal Ciputra in Jakarta, to still exist to this day. The number of crowds flocking these older malls can still rival newer shopping malls, and they also offer more extensive facilities compared to malls built in later era.
According to , shopping centers in the era of 1990-1998, like several mall that mentioned above, tend to have a similar design, with a ramp-shaped corridor, a panoramic elevator, and atrium that looks high, and have a functional performance to support the efficiency of shopping function. In contrast, shopping centers built after 1998, like Senayan City and Gandaria City in Jakarta, and Ciputra World Surabaya, come up with their iconic and theatrical shapes, and give more experience to the activities.
For the university students, who are in their adolescent age, they responded that during their childhood, they were very familiar with plaza/mall in the era of 1990-1998. Thus although they are now adolescent, they have memories of past activities of the shopping centers that are strong enough for them to revisit the place, although they are still interested at new shopping centers which offer new stimulus, spirit and information.
Based on adolescents' penchant for the mall environment, both for the older and newer malls, this research aims to find factors influencing sense of mall in adolescents. The focus is on on the factors that create the interaction between people and the shopping mall environment in various cases of malls built in different eras (Hasemneshad, Heidari, Hoseini, 2013).
Earlier researches that have led to this research include researches with adolescents as the main theme and researches about place attachment. It was found in the researches about adolescents that age affects perception and attachment towards shopping center as a part of their sense of place in shopping center (Hu & Jasper, 2007).
Sense of place can be defined as a relation process between people and as a result of complete sensory experiences to both physical setting and social setting environment, which can give experiences to create status of intentionality of a place. Tuan (1976) stated that the concept of experiences can become a stimulus to human senses. Experience of being in a place as one intentionality of sense of place is described as place of attachment, which can also be driven by physical and social factors, especially if the place becomes very significant. Place attachment arises due to some factors such as emotional and cognitive bond, as well as cultural and social belief (Altman & Low, 1992). The presence of activity in a place encourages a relationship between men, and between men and their physical environment (Relph, 1976, & Lowand Altman, 1992 Furthermore, for researches with place attachment as topic, Hasemneshad, Heidari, & Hoseini (2013) discover that affective factors that prompt an attachment between people and their environment are physical factors, social factors, cultural factors, personal factors (including gender, race and ethnicity), memories and experiences, place satisfaction, interaction and activity features and time factor.
Both physical and social factors are believed to have the same role in the formation of place attachment. In the physical factors, place setting can influence place attachment.  stated that place setting with high intentionality can influence place attachment. In social factors, the most important aspect is the social interaction element that happens inside. In the context of this research, this interaction provides meaning when visitors are inside the shopping center.
Cultural factors are largely motivated by the personal presence of an observer within the influence of peer group and family member. Cultural similarity prompts the occurrence of place attachment. When linked to the context of adolescents and shopping mall, advancement of time, and the availability factor of various mall facilities as public spaces drive adolescents' dependency towards the shopping center.
In addition, there is the fourth factor: personal factors. The personal factors are distinctive for each individual because it involves a different background in each sampling process. The fifth factor, memories and experience, can be defined as all the experience that happens on a site/place so there is interaction and connection between people and the place. Place satisfaction factor as the sixth factor is usually formed because of a feeling of contentment towards a place and comprises the physical, social and meaning elements of a place. Tuan (1967) writes that each place provides experience. The next factor is the interaction and activity in a place. The emergence of people participation, when they are given the chance to do so, will increase place attachment towards the place. The last factor is time factor, where place attachment might happen because people are in that place for a long period of time. This can be caused by intensity of visitations as well the process of close proximity to the place because a repeated visit to a place is a cyclical process. The list of factors mentioned above will also be linked to the context of shopping mall environment.
This research is beneficial for shopping center managements, psychologists, parents, and architects. For shopping center managements, the research will provide an insight to devise an accurate strategy as well as to build a positive atmosphere for adolescents so that there will be a mutual social bond and long-term sustainability for the shopping center. For psychologists, the research will help find out about the attachment pattern in teenagers towards the shopping center. For parents, it will shed a light in their understanding about the influence of shopping malls as a significant place for teenagers as part of their development.

Methods
The research is an explorative study. Explorative study is one of research strategies that empower social research (Somantri, 2005), as in this research, to fit the context in subject (adolescence) and object (shopping centers in two periods of construction).
The objects of the research are four shopping centers in Surabaya and Jakarta. They were chosen based on their period of construction as well as research accessibility. Kusumowidagdo, Sachari, Widodo (2012a) has provided the base to differentiate the lifecycle of these shopping centers.
In this research, Jakarta was picked as it is the largest city in western Indonesia and Surabaya was chosen to represent the eastern part of Indonesia. In Surabaya, two malls were observed, Tunjungan Plaza and Ciputra World. In Jakarta, we observed Mal Ciputra and Gandaria City. Tunjungan Plaza and Mal Ciputra can be categorized into the older shopping center category but are still able to maintain their existence. On the other hand, Ciputra World and Gandaria City are new and experiential shopping centers.
As subjects of research, 15 university students from each mall (4 malls) were chosen as purposive sampling to sample respondents who think of the malls as the ideal environment for activities and have a connectedness to the environment. It is expected that the choice of construction period which is similar to the age group Table 1

. Protocol Interview and Sample of Informants's Questionnaire
Protocol Interview 1. Informants were chosen based on their interest, bound to shopping center, and ability to identity shopping center spatially. 2. Informants were chosen to fill in preliminary questionnaire to check their level of bound to shopping center, were they interested, bound to, or were willing to participate actively in the shopping center. 3. Interview was conducted 2-3 times at the intended shopping center for 30-60 minutes.
Additional communications were also conducted via email. 4. Interview was conducted face-to-face and individually. could yield the desired outcome. In each city there were a total of 30 informants who shared their opinion in an in-depth interview process regarding adolescent attachment to the shopping center environment.
In addition to the interview, data sampling was done by observation and exploring supporting secondary data. The research was completed in approximately 3 months.

Results and Discussion
During the interview with the informants in the four shopping centers, it was found that there are several supporting factors that cause place attachment towards a shopping center. These are physical factors, memories and place experience, place satisfaction, interaction and activity features.
Physical factors. Similar to other researches (Hasemneshad, Heidari, Hoseini, 2013), a study about place attachment is inseparable from physical factors or the architecture and interior design factors, which in the context of shopping center become extremely important. From visitors' experience, it is evident that the influencing physical factors include grouping, circulation arrangement, and thematic shapes. Grouping refers to the location of tenants based on similar characteristics of products that are offered. The more preferred circulation arrangement is single corridors face towards the atrium. For the shopping centers in the era of 1990-1998, satisfaction is based more on the recognition to familiar physical and social environment, familiar tenants, and other easiness. For the shopping centers in the era of 1998 up to now, satisfaction is based more on the new information, experience, and product consumption.
Interaction and activity features. The most important element in the formation of place attachment is the interaction between people and place as well as between people and other people (Borges, A., Chebat J.C., Babin, B.C, 2010; Hasemneshad,Heidari, Hoseini, 2013). In this research, interaction between people inside a shopping center happens mostly because of the interaction amongst the people in an event held in the shopping center or in a get together with friends of the same community. The interaction and activity of visitor can be shown below:

There are usually events on national days as well as interactive demos that involve visitors. They feel down-to-earth and are a success with visitors, which can be seen not only from the responses but also the willingness to join the events. (Female,19) Community events are often held here such as oldies community with their vintage bicycles, Festival Cap Tugu Pahlawan (Heroes Monument Festival). Bottom line, these events feel very laidback and amiable. (Female, 21)
For the shopping centers in the era of 1990-1998, interaction activities are focused more on the social activities with families, friends and its purposes are to fulfil daily needs. For the shopping centers in the era of 1998 up to now, interaction activities are focused more in explorative social activities, with new friends and even look for new communities.
Time factor. Time factor, or the use of place for a long period of time, can be a booster for place attachment (Hasemneshad, Heidari, Hoseini, 2013). In this research, time factor might be in the form of a cyclical time period (the intensity of visitation to a place) as well as biographical factor. The time factors that are the trigger of place attachment can be shown in visitors' comments below: I like going to Tunjungan Plaza because when I was little my mother often used to take me there. I know this place and I'm familiar with it. (Male,21) My apartment is nearby so I often visit the mall. It almost feels like home because everything I need is available here. (Female,22) In this research, time factor might be in the form of a cyclical time period (the intensity of visitation to a place) as well as biographical factor. For the shopping centers in the era of 1990-1998, this arises because of biographical factors, and cyclical continuous visits. For the shopping centers in the era of 1999 and above, it can appear in in an instant (Topophilia: excited/fall in love with a place).

Social factors.
The triggers for social factors in this research are visiting with friends and family as well as a good interaction between visitors and shop assistants. For adolescents, togetherness, especially with friends, is the most important factor compared to other factors. Togetherness with parents is also a supporting factor for them to enjoy mall atmosphere. This result is parallel to the one found in the research of Kusumowidagdo, Sachari, Widodo (2012c), which states that interaction with friends and family is a supporting factor for place attachment. Cultural factors. There are some similarities in these cultural factors, including the influence of local custom of getting together on certain days and also the need to be inside a shopping center because of the modern lifestyle. This is evident from this following opinion.
Because society nowadays views malls as identical to the lifestyle of modern urban people. (Female,23) An article in Kompas (September, 2012) states that socially malls have turned into new public spaces, replacing communal spaces inside living areas, which are increasingly shrinking in size. Family and community meetings held in malls are more efficient in terms of time and distance. Moreover, performances and events in malls have become alluring treats for visitors such as the yearly events held at Christmas, Idul Fitri, New Year and Chinese New Year, which attract the attention of the people, especially people of the young generation.
This research also finds several elements of the culture which prompts place attachment in the mall. These include the prevailing values of life (togetherness in a family and friendship which is typical of the Indonesian culture), mobility because of time constraints, the function limitedness of mass dwelling, the need for free public space, the availability of parking facilities and the desire to visit interesting places to browse around.
Besides, the consumer culture is also influential for the mall's imaging and existence, which refers to an implementation of lifestyle. It includes the desire to see and be seen, a functional design that serves as a recreation media and the benefits that can provide experiential as well as functional values, as shown in comments below, This is my favorite location when I go with my family because I can take my toddler siblings who are still in Kindergarten to the Fun World playground. Then almost routinely we go to the restaurants to eat and then browse the clothes counters. There are 5 of us, including my father and mother, brother, sister and myself, and also our cousin, who is still a toddler. (Female,24) For the shopping centers in the era of 1990-1998, cultural factors that have influence are modern and local culture, while for the shopping centers in the era of 1998 up to now, modern culture and globalization play significant role to create dependency on shopping centers.
Personal factors. Hasemneshad, Heidari, Hoseini (2013) mention that in the formation of place attachment there are personal factors which are different for each person. In this study it was found that regarding personal factors most adolescent visitors like an atmosphere that is safe, comfortable, and that matches their ethnic and social class. This is linked to and becomes an element of their satisfaction to be in a certain place, in this case in a shopping center. Some of the personal factors are mentioned below,  Factors to consider here are more at time efficiency, functionality, and effectiveness. Physical environment recognition is more important. Physical condition has no visual novelty, yet is related to memories and biographical experiences.
Physical factors that important are iconic shapes, environment novelty, surprises by design, and dramatic themes of the shopping centers.

Memories and experience
Memories of childhood and environment recognition play significant role New experiences are important.

Place satisfaction
Satisfaction is based on recognition of familiar physical and social environment, familiar tenants, and other convenience.
Satisfaction is more on new information, experiences, and new products consumption Interaction and activity features Interaction activities are more focused on social activities with family and friends, and its purpose is to fulfill daily needs For the shopping centers in the era of 1990-1998, branding and promotion are more preferred when focusing on highlighting the already exist, on the community events and for familiarity and togetherness. For the shopping centers in the era of 1998 up to now, the more preferred branding and promotion factors are those which focus more on sophisticated life, new, modern, and inspiring.
To simplify the result, Table 3 describes the comparison of adolescence shopping mall attachment trigger between two construction periods of malls.
From the many factors mentioned above we can summarize several points, including the list of affective factors of place attachment in a shopping center and their supporting elements as well as the condition (age) of the shopping center that might influence the affective factors.
Firstly, regarding the list of affective factors of place attachment in a shopping center and their supporting elements. These include physical factors, social factors, memories and experience, place satisfaction, interaction and activity features, time factor, and branding and promotion factor. Branding and promotion factor is a new finding in this research.
Secondly, the research finds that different factors are discovered in shopping centers with different ages. In shopping centers built in earlier period of 1980-1998, some of the affective factors are different from shopping centers built in later period.
Third, branding and promotion factor is a new factor found in the attachment pattern of teenagers as the object of study is shopping centers. As a commercial object, shopping centers is inescapable from branding and promotion. The creation of image because of both branding and promotion can result in a new way of thinking as a reflection of hope and expectation towards the shopping center. In shopping centers built between 1980-1998, it is evident that branding and promotion effort is more directed at getting visitors to come and maintain their number while in shopping centers built after 1998, the effort is aimed at introducing their brand and strengthening their image.
Fourth, in addition to the different factors found in each of the four shopping centers as seen from the point of view of adolescent visitors, some factors are perceived to be the same, namely social factors, cultural factors, and personal factors.
The schematic below describes the outline of the elements that form the affective factors of place attachment in adolescents towards a shopping center (Figure 1).
At last, by referring to the above table, this research has found its specific context. If previous researchers have identified general factors to support their studies (Borges, A., Chebat J.C., Babin, B.C, 2010;Steele, 1981;Hashemneshad, et al. 2013) cover physical factors, memory and experiences, place satisfaction, interaction and activities features, time factors, social factors, personal factors, and personal factors.
This research has identified more detail in defining the factors based on the context of year and location of the shopping centers. For instance, factors that are considered as physical factors are explained more detail as grouping and zoning, circulation and thematic space, whereas factors that are considered as memory factors are shaped from both nostalgic and experiential events. Place satisfaction could be developed from perception and personal motivation, economic value, socio economic, facilities and visual cues. Interaction and activity features can be developed by people interaction, people-place interaction. Time factor that affect the place attachment can be occurred by cyclic phases or biographional. Besides those possibilities above. Social factors, also influenced the place attachment, such as family and friends relationship.
Cultural factors, like modern lifestyle and consumer culture, the needs of public space, togetherness in Indonesian culture also has relation with the place attachment. Further, personal factors are explained in more detail with ethnicity and social class. Lastly, branding and promotion that formed place attachment could be triggered by advertising, promotion, and events.
This research has also found one newly significant factor, which is the combination factor of branding and promotion that was not covered in the findings of previous studies. This factor is of course contextual in the context of shopping center as commercial place.
The contextual factor is found within some specific limitations already explained, which are year and location of shopping centers. Furthermore, this research has offered possibilities to cover new aspects to study about shopping centers based on the position of shopping centers (urban and sub urban), the selection of subjects of different range of ages and the total of subjects, and the research method.

Conclusions
It can be concluded that factors that support place attachment in a shopping center include physical factors, social factors, memories and experience, place satisfaction, interaction and activity features, time factor, and branding and promotion factor. For shopping centers built in the era of 1990-1998 familiar atmosphere and familiar environment recognition, resulted from continuous shopping visits time after time, are important. For shopping centers built in the era of 1998 up to now, novelty of environment and new and inexperienced interaction experiences are more important.