This pathbreaking volume expands on the construct of psychological ownership, placing it in the contexts of both individual consumer behavior and the wider decision-making of consumer populations. An individuals feeling of ownership toward a target represents the perception that something is mine!, and is highly relevant to buying and relating to specific goods, economic and health decision-making and, especially salient given todays privacy concerns, psychological ownership of digital content and personal data. Experts analyze the social conditions and cognitive processes concerning shared consumer experiences and psychological ownership. Contributors also discuss possibilities for socially responsible forms of psychological ownership using examples from environmental causes, and the behavioral mechanisms involved when psychological ownership becomes problematic, as in cases of hoarding.

Included among the topics:

Evidence from young children suggesting that even legal ownership is fundamentally psychological.Ownership, the extended self, and the extended object.Psychological ownership in financial decisions.The intersection of ownership and design.Can consumers perceive collective psychological ownership of an organization?Whose experience is it, anyway? Psychological ownership and enjoyment of shared experiences.Psychological ownership as a facilitator of sustainable behaviors including stewardship.Future research avenues in psychological ownership.

Psychological Ownership and Consumer Behavior pinpoints research topics and real-world issues that will define the field in the coming years. It will be especially useful in graduate classes in marketing, consumer behavior, policy interventions, and business psychology.                           

Joann Peck, PhD is an associate professor in the marketing department within the Wisconsin School of Business. She is the recipient of the Emil H. Steiger Distinguished Teaching Award in 2008 and the Lawrence J. Larson Excellence in Teaching Award in 2005. She has also been the recipient of six other teaching awards.Peck researches haptics (the sense of touch), specifically as it relates to a shoppers motivation to touch a product when shopping. She also examines the interactions between an individual difference in motivation to touch (desire to touch), product category differences in whether touch is important, and situational differences that encourage or discourage touch, such as point of purchase signs or online shopping. Additionally, she researches e-commerce boundaries, attitude theory, typicality, and categorization. Peck holds a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Minnesota.

Before Associate Professor of MarketingSuzanne B. Shu, PhD found her calling in academia, she had a career in industry. With undergraduate and advanced degrees in electrical engineering from Cornell University, Shu spent five years with Bell Communications Research. Earning an MBA was a logical part of her professional trajectory. While in business school, Shu realized that the phenomena that had always interested her behavioral economics, judgment and decision-making, consumer psychology were organized into formal areas of study. The MBA experience changed her life, she says, and sealed her decision to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, where she worked closely with renowned behavioral science expert Richard H. Thaler. Shus numerous published papers address the psychological determinants around concepts like the endowment effect, whereby people ascribe higher value to things just because they own them; and the increasingly hot topic of decumulation, that is, spending savings, pension or other assets accumulated during ones working life. She studies consumers behaviors around purchasing annuities or, more precisely, why they might not.

 

Preface.- Chapter 1 - The History of Psychological Ownership and its Emergence in Consumer Psychology.- Chapter 2 - Legal Ownership is Psychological: Evidence from Young Children.- Chapter 3 - Psychological Ownership in Egocentric Categorization Theory.- Chapter 4 - Ownership, the Extended Self, and the Extended Object.- Chapter 5 -Consumer Psychological Ownership of Digital Technology.- Chapter 6 - Can Consumers Experience Ownership for Their Personal Data? From Issues of Scope and Invisibility to Agents Handling Our Digital Blueprints.- Chapter 7 - Ownership by Design.- Chapter 8 - Psychological Ownership in Hoarding.- Chapter 9 - Trading Under the Influence: The Effects of Psychological Ownership on Economic Decision Making.- Chapter 10 -Psychological Ownership in Financial Decisions.- Chapter 11 - Can Consumers Perceive Collective Psychological Ownership of an Organization?.- Chapter 12 - Whose Experience is it, Anyway? Psychological Ownership and Enjoyment of Shared Experiences.-Chapter 13 - Psychological Ownership as a Facilitator of Sustainable Behaviors.- Chapter 14 - Solving Stewardship Problems with Increased Psychological Ownership.- Chapter 15 - Looking Ahead: Future Research in Psychological Ownership.