Cheryan called the phenomenon documented in her study “ambient belonging,” defined as individuals’ sense of fit with a physical environment, “along with a sense of fit with the people who are imagined to occupy that environment.” Ambient belonging, she proposed, “can be ascertained rapidly, even from a cursory glance at a few objects.” In the research she has since produced, Cheryan has explored how ambient belonging can be enlarged and expanded—how a wider array of individuals can be induced to feel that crucial sense of “fit” in the environments in which they find themselves.
