This research finds that merely touching an object results in an increase in perceived ownership of that object. For nonowners, or buyers, perceived ownership can be increased with either mere touch or with imagery encouraging touch. Perceived ownership can also be increased through touch for legal owners, or sellers of an object. We also explore valuation of an object and conclude that it is jointly influenced by both perceived ownership and by the valence of the touch experience. We discuss the implications of this research for online and traditional retailers as well as for touch research and endowment effect research.

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This research proposes that the concept of emotional attachment, and specifically the independent constructs of psychological ownership and affective reaction, can help explain many of the endowment effect findings documented in the literature. We define these constructs and then test them across a set of nine studies in which we both replicate previous and generate new endowment effect findings, and then show that psychological ownership and affective reaction can mediate the effects. In doing so, we offer direct empirical support for the idea of emotional attachment as a driver of loss aversion while also providing practitioners and future endowment effect researchers with new insights about the psychological processes that underlie the endowment effect.

How can consumers be encouraged to take better care of public goods? Across four studies, including two experiments in the field and three documenting actual behaviors, the authors demonstrate that increasing consumers’ individual psychological ownership facilitates stewardship of public goods. This effect occurs because feelings of ownership increase consumers’ perceived responsibility, which then leads to active behavior to care for the good. Evidence from a variety of contexts, including a public lake with kayakers, a state park with skiers, and a public walking path, suggests that increasing psychological ownership enhances both effortful stewardship, such as picking up trash from a lake, and financial stewardship, such as donating money. This work further demonstrates that the relationship between psychological ownership and resulting stewardship behavior is attenuated when there are cues, such as an attendance sign, which diffuse responsibility among many people. This work offers implications for consumers, practitioners, and policy makers with simple interventions that can encourage consumers to be better stewards of public goods.

Technological innovations are creating new products, services, and markets that satisfy enduring consumer needs. These technological innovations create value for consumers and firms in many ways, but they also disrupt psychological ownership––the feeling that a thing is “MINE.” The authors describe two key dimensions of this technology-driven evolution of consumption pertaining to psychological ownership: (1) replacing legal ownership of private goods with legal access rights to goods and services owned and used by others and (2) replacing “solid” material goods with “liquid” experiential goods. They propose that these consumption changes can have three effects on psychological ownership: they can threaten it, cause it to transfer to other targets, and create new opportunities to preserve it. These changes and their effects are organized in a framework and examined across three macro trends in marketing: (1) growth of the sharing economy, (2) digitization of goods and services, and (3) expansion of personal data. This psychological ownership framework generates future research opportunities and actionable marketing strategies for firms aiming to preserve the positive consequences of psychological ownership and navigate cases for which it is a liability.