People’s Spatial Habits of Mind: Average Level and Regional Differences in China

Spatial habits of mind refer to individuals’ habitual use of spatial thinking to understand patterns, relations, and structures in the environment. Habits, some of which are revered and others that are not, can be evaluated as high or low level. This study provides the first large-scale quantification of the general public’s spatial habits of mind. It contributes to filling the research gap in regional quantitative benchmarks for spatial habits of mind, a key cognitive trait in geography. Using stratified random sampling methods, a questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate the spatial habits of mind of 1,158 participants in China’s thirty-one mainland provinces. The study established the average level and identified regional variations in the public’s spatial habits of mind within the Chinese mainland. The results reveal that gross domestic product per capita explains regional differences in spatial habits of mind, whereas factors such as spatial updating, traveling with family, exposure to directional vocabulary, traveling alone, seeing sunrise and sunset, directional metacognition, and landmark universality influence spatial habits of mind at the individual level. This study enriches the theoretical research on spatial habits of mind in geography and provides empirical evidence for improving public spatial habits of mind in the field of geography education.