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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Residential Satisfaction Theory

Residential Satisfaction Theory

Theorists
George C. Galster and Garry W. Hesser

Keywords
Housing or Residential Satisfaction, Subjective Well-being, Aspirational Conceptualization, Housing Consumption

Summary
Residential Satisfaction Theory is an offshoot of Housing Adjustment Theory (Morris & Winter, 1975) that looks at a household's felt needs and aspirations to assess how the household evaluates their current dwelling situation (Galster & Hesser, 1981). The cognitive construct of satisfaction is a judgment that individuals or households make when they consider the extent to which their actual situation mirrors the ideal situation they imagine for housing (Vera-Toscano & Ateca-Amestoy, 2008). The satisfaction a household feels is determined by three groups of factors (Diaz-Serrano, 2006; Galster 1987):
1. Objective characteristics of the household.
a. These include social, economic and personal characteristics.
2. Objective characteristic of the environment.
a. Both the dwelling itself and the environment surrounding it are considered.
3. Subjective Well-being.
a. Defined by perceptions, values and aspirations.
When a household examines the alignment between their ideal or aspirational housing situation and their lived situation, they will either manifest satisfaction or they will not (Galster & Hesser, 1981). In the event that satisfaction is not achieved, the household will attempt to redefine needs or change their evaluation of the subjective measures. Barring those, we see households manifest dissatisfaction that they then seek to resolve through changing their household characteristics or those of the dwelling.
Residential Satisfaction Theory builds upon Housing Adjustment Theory by explicitly stating the attributes of the household as central to the understanding of the household as well as understanding the ideal housing situation to which they aspire (Galster & Hesser, 1981). Instead of looking to cultural norms in housing, each household constructs their own desired ideal out of their demographics and lived experiences, as well as the peer influences around them (Yang & Zhu, 2006).

Level of Analysis
Residential Satisfaction relates to the household or individuals that constitute a household. The role that the neighborhood plays in the level of satisfaction can be crucial, but the analysis is still happening on the household level; neighborhood satisfaction could only be regarded as the aggregate or average satisfaction of the households in the neighborhood.

Methodology
Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods can all be used to measure Residential Satisfaction. Quantitative measures would include things such as survey instruments that ask residents to rate different facets of their satisfaction on a 1 to 5 scale and the analysis of the objective variables that have been established to correlate to housing satisfaction. Qualitative measures would include interviews or other open-ended explorations of satisfaction and the antecedents of these feelings.

Application to Housing Studies
Research shows that lower self-reported housing satisfaction correlates with a greater likelihood to move to a different residence (Diaz-Serrano, 2006). Following the move, however, different research suggests different outcomes. Some research shows that following a move there is no significant change in satisfaction (Lu, 1999). Other studies show there is an increase in satisfaction following a move (Diaz-Serrano, 2006). These divides suggest that the question of relocation on residential satisfaction will continue to be an active one in the future.
Residential Satisfaction can also be employed to look at housing as a consumer product. While the history of Residential Satisfaction draws on diverse areas from Psychology to Geography (Diaz-Serrano, 2006), it also can incorporate Customer Satisfaction Theory (Yang & Zhu, 2006). Yang and Zhu develop a model looking at expectations, perceived quality and perceived value to arrive at an understanding of satisfaction with housing as a purchased commodity.
Additionally, Residential Satisfaction can be a better theoretical tool than Housing Adjustment Theory when looking at non-traditional or emerging housing formulations (co-housing, for example) because the measure of housing is completely self-created and not concerned with societal norms (Choi, 2011). With the household constructing the measure against which their lived housing is analyzed, you can examine subcultures of housing in their own context, one that may have very different norms from the surrounding society.


References
Choi, J. S. (2011). HOUSING: Evaluation of common activity and life in Swedish cohousing units. International Journal of Human Ecology, 12(2), 133.
Diaz-Serrano, L. (2006). Housing satisfaction, homeownership and housing mobility: A panel data analysis for twelve EU countries. IZA Discussion Papers, NO. 2318.
Galster, G.; Hesser, C. (1981). Residential satisfaction: Compositional and contextual correlates. Environment and Behavior, 13(6), 735-758.
Galster, G. (1987). Identifying the correlates of dwelling satisfaction: An empirical critique. Environment and Behavior, 19(5), 539-568.
Lu, M. L. (1999). Determinants of residential satisfaction: Ordered logic vs. regression models. Growth and Change, 30(2), 264-287.
Morris, E.; Winter, M. (1975). A Theory of Family Housing Adjustment. Journal of Marriage and Family, 37(1), 79-88.
Vera-Toscano, E.; Ateca-Amestoy, V. (2008). The relevance of social interactions on housing satisfaction. Social Indicators Research, 86(2), 257-274.
Yang, S.; Zhu, Y. (2006). Customer satisfaction theory applied in the housing industry: An empirical study of low-priced housing in Beijing. Tsinghua Science and Technology, 11(6), 667-674.


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