Chair: Jaeyeon Chung, Columbia Business School, USA
Paper #1: From Tragedy to Benefit of the Commons: Increasing Shared Psychological Ownership
Suzanne Shu, UCLA, USA
Joann Peck, University of Wisconsin – Madison, USA Paper #2: Products as Self-Evaluation Standards
Weiss, Liad, University of Wisconsin – Madison, USA Gita Johar, Columbia Business School, USA
Paper #3: The Consequences of Product Ownership:
Performance Handicap in a Product-unrelated Task Jaeyeon Chung, Columbia Business School, USA Gita Johar, Columbia Business School, USA
Paper #4: Words Speak Louder: Conforming to Preferences More than Consumption
Yanping Tu, University of Chicago, USA Ayelet Fishbach, University of Chicago, USA
SESSION OVERVIEW
“Ownership” is both a legal concept and a psychological state.
Legally, ownership is recognized by society and thus protected by laws. Psychologically, ownership is a feeling that “a product is mine”
(Peck and Shu 2009), even in the absence of legal ownership. When a consumer feels psychological ownership for a product, the prod-uct is often experienced as closely connected to the self (Turk et al.
2011)supported by activation in ventromedial pFC. Recent evidence suggests that similar self-memory advantages can be obtained under nonevaluative encoding conditions, such as when object ownership is used to evoke self-reference. Using fMRI, the current study ex-plored the neural correlates of object ownership. During scanning, participants sorted everyday objects into self-owned or other-owned categories. Replicating previous research, a significant self-memory advantage for the objects was observed (i.e., self-owned > other-owned, or as part of the self (Weiss and Johar 2013). People experi-ence mental synthesis between the psychologically owned object and the self because they feel that the product is part of the self (Weiss and Johar 2013).
This session aims to contribute to the growing body of research on psychological ownership by exploring antecedents and conse-quences of this construct. Four papers explore how feeling (vs. not feeling) psychological ownership for a product affects the way peo-ple (1) behave towards and form preference for the product as well as (2) evaluate themselves and behave in related and product-unrelated domains.
The first paper by Shu and Peck explores factors that facili-tate psychological ownership over shared resources (e.g., rental cars, hotels). Two correlational studies and one field study demonstrate that increasing psychological ownership over a shared resource can increase preservation of shared resources, and reduce the “tragedy of the commons.” The second paper by Weiss and Johar focuses on consequences of feeling product ownership for self-judgment along product-traits, such as physical dimensions (e.g., height) or brand personalities (e.g., sincerity). Two experiments show that feeling ownership (lack of ownership) for a product leads people to judge their personal traits in assimilation (contrast) to respective product traits. The experiments demonstrate downstream implications for overall self-esteem and behavior. The third paper by Chung and Johar identifies consequences of feeling product ownership for be-havior in product-unrelated domains. Many products (e.g., calcula-tor) are relevant for some domains (e.g., algebra) but not for others.
Four studies show that feeling ownership over a product may impair people’s task performance when the task is portrayed as product-irrelevant compared to when it is portrayed as product-relevant. The fourth paper by Tu and Fishbach shows that people may experience feelings of ownership vicariously through others. Such implicit feel-ings of ownership for a product that others acquire was found to re-duce an individual’s preference for that product, as if that individual already owned that product herself. This subsequently decreased their likelihood of choosing the same product.
These four papers raise several overarching research questions pertaining to the antecedents and consequences of psychological ownership. For instance, what is the interplay between shared feel-ing of ownership and personal feelfeel-ing of ownership? What are the unique consequences and antecedents of each? Can the type of fac-tors that induce such feelings affect the types of consequences that such feelings have for behavior? Comments and suggestions from the audiences will be sought so as to enhance the session’s quality and interactivity.
From Tragedy to Benefit of the Commons: Increasing Shared Psychological Ownership
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
Whenever resources are shared among multiple individuals, there is a risk that individuals will put self-interest ahead of common interest and fail to preserve those resources, an issue known as the tragedy of the commons. Recent research on psychological owner-ship has shown that peoples’ perceptions of ownerowner-ship can increase resource valuation, even for items not legally owned. Building upon this idea, we propose that increases in psychological ownership for shared and/or not legally owned resources can lead to behaviors that better care for such resources.
We begin by examining three antecedents of psychological ownership; investing the self in the target, controlling the target, and coming to intimately know the target (Pierce, Kostova & Dirks 2001) and their relationship to psychological ownership. In the first two studies, we find that all three antecedents are correlated with psychological ownership. In our third study, we test how increases in psychological ownership affect behavior by conducting a field ex-periment with a hotel. We find evidence that when guests have more control (choosing their room), their feeling of ownership increases, as does their satisfaction with the hotel, their likelihood of returning, and whether they will tell others. We also find that people feeling more ownership take better care of the resource by leaving the room cleaner. Thus, efforts to increase psychological ownership do appear to increase care for non-owned resources.
Study 1: Investing the Self antecedent
Our initial two studies focus on antecedents to psychological ownership for shared resources in order to guide our creation of in-terventions for later studies of subsequent behavior. In Study 1, we asked 500 people to identify 3 shared objects or spaces (1,413 obser-vations). For each item we asked: customization (investing the self), cleaning/maintenance (investing the self), number of people who shared the object/space, legal ownership, and psychological owner-ship. We found that, as expected, customization (β = .13, p < .001) and cleaning/maintenance (β = .20, p < .001), both requiring invest-ing the self, were positively and significantly related to psychologi-cal ownership. Not surprisingly, legal ownership was also positively
related to psychological ownership (β =.53, p < .001). With psycho-logical ownership as a dependent measure, all predicted antecedents were significant (F (6, 2,455)=321.60, Adj R2 =.44).
Study 2: Controlling the Target and Intimately Knowing the target antecedent
Our second exploratory study used natural variations in car rental procedures as a manipulation of psychological ownership.
Some car rentals allow consumers to select their own car, while oth-ers assign a car. We expected that when a consumer can choose their own car, they would feel more psychological ownership compared to when the car is assigned, since the consumer has more control.
We also hypothesized that if a person rents a car for a longer period of time, they will more intimately know the car and will feel more psychological ownership compared to a consumer who rents for a shorter time.
We administered a questionnaire (n=566) in the context of a car rental. We asked each respondent if they had rented a car recently, whether they were allowed to select the car (control) and the length of the rental (intimately knowing). As expected, both selection of the car (r = .30) and length of rental (r = .16) were positively correlated with psychological ownership. With psychological ownership as the dependent variable, selection of the car and length of rental predicted ownership F (3, 499)=22.08, Adj R2 =.11. Whether a consumer was able to select a car was positively related to their feeling of owner-ship (β = 1.21, p < .001), as was the length of time that they rented the car (β = .018, p < .001).
Study 3: Hotel field study-Control antecedent
While the first two studies lend support to the relationship be-tween the antecedents of psychological ownership and the feeling of ownership, we wanted to conduct an experiment to determine causa-tion by directly manipulating an antecedent of ownership. This study also allows us to measure subsequent behavior and care of the shared resource. The context for this study was a hotel in a university town.
This study had two conditions: guests were either assigned a room as usual (n = 42) or they had a choice between 2 different rooms (n = 39). A survey was left in the room for the guests to fill out and return. As expected, having a choice of room resulted in a greater feeling of psychological ownership compared to not choos-ing (Mchoice = 5.49, Mno choice = 4.74, F (1, 79) = 7.52, p = .008). Simi-larly, having a room choice resulted in significantly greater satisfac-tion with their hotel (Mchoice = 6.13, Mno choice = 5.76, F (1, 79) = 3.83, p = .054) and a greater likelihood of staying at the hotel in the future (Mchoice = 6.15, Mno choice = 5.57, F (1, 79) = 5.68, p = .02). Guests who could choose also indicated that they were more likely to tell others about the hotel in the future (Mchoice = 6.28, Mno choice = 5.64 F(1, 79)
= 10.61, p = .002). Finally, and very importantly, the hotel cleaning staff noted how clean the room was when guests checked out. The scale was 1-5 with 1-very messy, 2- messy, 3 average, 4=clean, and 5-very clean. Guests who felt more ownership left the room cleaner (Mchoice = 4.00, Mno choice = 3.57, F (1,79) = 4.18, p =. 04).
Thus, results indicate that a subtle manipulation such as hav-ing guests choose between two hotel rooms increases both owner-ship and consumer behavior that preserves the resource. We propose that this relationship between greater psychological ownership for a shared resource and increased effort to preserve the resource offers a solution to the tragedy of the commons. Our ongoing work con-tinues to test manipulations that can increase ownership for shared resources and also considers the public policy implications of such efforts.
Products as Self-Evaluation Standards EXTENDED ABSTRACT
The self is a malleable concept and consumers frequently re-evaluate the self on different aspects relative to standards set by other people. By affecting consumers’ self-evaluation, self-standards can shape consumer preferences (Aaker 1999) and thus understanding self-standards in consumption settings is a key interest for marketers.
Extending research on self-evaluation standards (Festinger 1954), the present research examines whether, when people evalu-ate aspects of themselves (e.g., how thin am I?), they use not only standards set by other people (e.g., how thin is this model?), but also standards set by products (e.g., how thin is this MacBook Air?).
Although this idea is consistent with findings that people can use product traits as inputs for self-evaluation (Belk 1988; Park and John 2010), previous research do not suggest nor test our prediction that people may compare and contrast themselves to objects similarly to how individuals judge themselves vis-à-vis others.
It is hypothesized that products-as-standards affect consumers’
self-evaluation in a direction that is modulated by product owner-ship: a consumer is predicted to judge her own traits in assimila-tion with traits of products she owns, but in contrast with traits of products she interacted with but does not own. For example, seeing an ad for a MacBook Air may lead a consumer to compare her own thinness to the slim product she does not own, and thus feel fatter and unattractive (contrast). However, receiving the Mac as a gift may make that consumer feel unity with the thin product and thus feel thinner and attractive (assimilation).
Why should products as self-standards affect how people evalu-ate themselves and why should ownership modulevalu-ate the direction of the effect? Research on Egocentric Categorization (EC, Weiss and Johar 2013) shows that consumers spontaneously classify owned (unowned) objects as “self” (“not-self”). Once classified in this way, consumers are likely to judge the category “self” in assimilation to items that the category includes but in contrast to items the category excludes (Bless and Schwarz 2010). Thus, consumers may judge themselves in assimilation to owned products, which they classify as
“self”, but in contrast from unowned products, which they classify as “not-self.” Notably, categorization principles predict this pattern not only for self-selected items that gained meaning over time (Belk 1988), but also for recently and arbitrarily acquired items, where the decision whether or not to own was not made by the consumer (Turk et al. 2011).
Two experiments supported the prediction that owning a prod-uct leads people to judge themselves in assimilation to that prodprod-uct, but interacting with an unowned product leads people to judge them-selves in contrast from that product, and began testing EC as process.
In Experiment 1, as part of a marketing study, participants assessed a 16oz traveling mug that was either short or tall. Participants random-ly assigned to the “owned” condition received the mug they assessed as gift. Participants randomly assigned to the “unowned” condition received a different mug as a gift, and so did not own the mug they assessed. To capture participants predisposition to classify owned objects as “self” and unowned objects as “not-self,” participants responded to a previously established “Mine-Me” sensitivity mea-sure (Weiss and Johar 2013). As a first DV, participants responded to the Twenty Statement Task, where participants complete 20 self-descriptive statements (“I am ___”). Next, participants reported how they feel about their physical height between “very short” and “very tall,” and subsequently completed the “Appearance” subscale of the State Self-Esteem Scale. Finally, participants coded each of their re-sponses to the Twenty Statement Task (1) by whether they referred
to their physical appearance and (2) by whether they were relatively positive, neutral or negative.
An analysis controlling for gender and actual height in inch revealed that, consistent with our predictions, participants in the
“owned” condition who assessed the short (vs. tall) mug felt shorter (assimilation). By contrast, participants in the “unowned” condition who assess that same short mug felt taller (contrast). Further, con-sistent with EC as the underlying process, although the effect was significant on average, this pattern was driven by participants who are predisposed to classify owned products as “self” and unowned products as “not-self,” namely “Mine-Me” sensitive individuals. Fi-nally, a bootstrap mediation analysis revealed that feeling taller (vs.
shorter) increased, in-turn, overall physical self-esteem, as mani-fested in both the close-ended appearance self-esteem scale, and in a physical appearance index created from the responses to the open-ended “I am....” questions.
Experiment 2 tested (1) the prediction that the pattern observed in Experiment 1 is mediated by the extent people classified owned products as “self” and (2) the generalizability of the results beyond physical traits to brand personality characteristics. As part of a mar-keting study, participants assessed headphones that were positioned as either sincere—authentically reproducing sound—or insincere—
artificially improving sound. Participants were assigned either to own or not to own the headphones similarly to Experiment 1. As a DV, participants responded to the Social Desirability scale, which al-lows people to respond either honestly or in a socially desirable man-ner. To test whether innocuous expected effects on whether people respond in a socially desirable manner can manifest in a consequen-tial behavior, subjects participated in a trivia contest with incentive and opportunity to artificially inflate their performance. Then, to test EC as process, participants reported the extent they classify the head-phones they evaluated as “self.”
A bootstrap mediation analysis revealed that, consistent with our predictions, participants assessing the insincere (vs. sincere) headphones in the “owned” condition classified these headphones as “self,” and, in-turn, demonstrated greater social-desirability (as-similation). By contrast, participants assessing the same insincere headphones in the “unowned” condition classified these headphones as “not-self,” and, in-turn, exhibited lower social-desirability (con-trast). A second bootstrap mediation analysis with two mediators op-erating in serial revealed that greater social-desirability predicted, in-turn, insincerity in the trivia contest.
We discuss (1) consequences for bridging literatures on self-judgment and product-self-judgment and (2) implications for the mod-ern consumer, who often acquires objects without intention to do so (e.g., inheritances, gifts) and is frequently exposed to unowned products through ads.
The Consequences of Product Ownership: Performance Handicap in Product-unrelated Tasks
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
From gifts that we receive and items that we purchase from stores, we often feel that products that we own define who we are.
In fact, consumers perceive themselves to share common character-istics with their products (McCracken 1986; Solomon 1983). These consumers tend to exhibit product-consistent behaviors (Belk 1988;
Wheeler et al. 2007). If the feelings of psychological ownership lead these consumers to identify themselves with characteristics of the products, how would these feelings of psychological ownership af-fect consumers’ behaviors in product-unrelated tasks?
The present work investigates potential downstream effects of psychological ownership. Specifically, we propose that the owner-ship increases the feeling that the product trait is an important part-of-the self, subsequently activating product-consistent aspects of the self (Wheeler et al. 2007). Consequently, we argue that this impairs consumers’ ability to perform well in product-unrelated tasks. Past research shows that different situations and contexts can activate a certain self-concept while deactivating other aspects of the self (Hu-genberg and Bodenhausen 2004). Because consumers activate the self by assimilating with the product traits, we predict that this may deactivate product-inconsistent traits of the self. We, therefore, ex-pect that consumers who feel psychological ownership to a product may perform worse in product-unrelated tasks.
In Experiment 1, eighty students were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions: (psychological ownership: ownership/
baseline × quiz: relevant/irrelevant). Half of the participants in the ownership condition saw a Google Maps app logo and described how the icon looks like to someone who has never seen it (a pre-test revealed that this increases the feelings of psychological own-ership). Participants in the baseline condition summarized a short article. Next, all participants solved a quiz set (e.g., figuring out a color pattern of a 3-D cube and fitting a block into the cube) that was either framed as measuring people’s navigation skills (relevant) or visual art skills (irrelevant). The results showed that within the ownership condition, participants who solved the visual art quiz per-formed worse than those who solved the navigation quiz (Mvisual-art = 3.72, Mnavigation = 5.56; p = .002). Meanwhile, there was no difference between the navigation and visual art quiz scores within the baseline condition (Mnavigation = 4.41, Mvisual art = 4.86; p = n.s.).
Experiment 2 conceptually replicated the findings from Experi-ment 1 using another product, Play-Doh. One hundred one students were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions: (psychologi-cal ownership: ownership/baseline × quiz: relevant/irrelevant). We used the same psychological ownership manipulation identical to Experiment 1, but used Play-Doh as the product stimuli. After the manipulation, all participants solved the same quiz that was either framed as measuring individuals’ hand-crafting skills (relevant) or navigation skills (irrelevant). As expected, participants who felt psy-chological ownership to Play-Doh performed worse in the naviga-tion quiz than in the hand-crafting quiz (Mnavigation = 3.26, Mhand-crafting
= 4.64, p = .006). Participants in the baseline condition did not differ in their scores across the two quiz types (Mnavigation = 4.21, Mhand-crafting
= 4.12; p = .n.s.).
However, one may argue that priming a product may automati-cally activate prime-related contents while inhibiting irrele-vant contents in one’s mind. The inhibited accessibility to prime-irrelevant content may have impeded participants’ performance in product-unrelated tasks. In order to rule out this alternative expla-nation, we added the usage-recall condition, one of the frequently used priming methods referenced in the priming literature (Gillund and Shiffrin 1984; Neath and Saint-Aubin 2011). In Experiment 3, 117 lab participants were randomly assigned to one of the six condi-tions (psychological ownership: ownership/baseline/usage-recall ×
However, one may argue that priming a product may automati-cally activate prime-related contents while inhibiting irrele-vant contents in one’s mind. The inhibited accessibility to prime-irrelevant content may have impeded participants’ performance in product-unrelated tasks. In order to rule out this alternative expla-nation, we added the usage-recall condition, one of the frequently used priming methods referenced in the priming literature (Gillund and Shiffrin 1984; Neath and Saint-Aubin 2011). In Experiment 3, 117 lab participants were randomly assigned to one of the six condi-tions (psychological ownership: ownership/baseline/usage-recall ×