Impression Formation in Urban Settings: An Affect Control Theory of City Life

This study explores how social identities, behaviors, and settings interact to shape urban dynamics, with gentrification and neighborhood stigmatization as example phenomena of city life. Using affect control theory (ACT) simulations, we demonstrate how social identities and behaviors recursively influence the affective meanings attributed to urban settings, thus driving local cultural change. In the case of gentrification, the simulation illustrates how positive identities, such as those related to the creative class, transform stigmatized neighborhoods into attractive spaces. Analyses of segregated areas reveal the self-reinforcing cycle of stigma. The simulations are based on a comparative empirical analysis of impression formation in settings in French and German language cultures. Our findings highlight overall similarities in impression formation across these cultures, with some subtle differences: Context effects of behavior are somewhat stronger among German survey respondents, and French participants rely more heavily on fundamental sentiments. This study shows how ACT simulations bridge the gap between qualitative and quantitative analysis and between micro and macro level of analysis, offering a novel framework for explaining urban interactions and local cultural change.