Subcultural and Cross-Cultural Effects on the Experience of Detached Houses

Abstract

Two experiments are reported using variations in house style as a means of investigating two cognitively based theories of affective experience of the environment and cultural differences in environmental experience. In the first experiment, groups of participants with three differing backgrounds but from the same geographic location (Australia) judged the familiarity, typicality, preference, and interest of six house styles. In the second experiment, two age groups from a different culture and geographic location (Italy) made the same set of judgments about the same experimental stimuli. Systematic similarities and differences were found in the first experiment between the groups as a function of house style. In the second experiment, differences were found between the two age groups of Italian participants. Unexpected similarities were found, however, between both age groups from Italy and the Australian groups. These results are related to the two models of affective experience, and their implications for the models are discussed.