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PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP, TOUCH, AND WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR
AN EXTENDED WARRANTY
Simon Lessard-Bonaventure and Jean-Charles Chebat
This study investigates the relationship between touching products and consumers’
willingness to pay (WTP) for a related extended warranty, whose relation is hypothesized to be
mediated by psychological ownership (PO) and moderated by both the hedonic versus utilitarian
nature of the products and the financial risk involved in the products. A 2 (hedonic versus
utilitarian products) × 2 (touching–no touching the products) factorial design experiment was
conducted to test the hypotheses (N= 133). PO mediates the relation between touch and WTP.
PO increases WTP only if the financial risk is low. Touching products increases WTP only for
utilitarian products. This study contributes to understanding how haptic information generates a
sense of ownership when consumers buy warranties. Managerial implications for retailers are
proposed.
Extended warranties are a major source of revenue for
retailers (Chen, Kalra, and Sun, 2009; Maronick, 2007).
When buying extended warranties, consumers pay a
premium up front for protection against potential pro-
duct failures over a fixed period of time (Chen, Kalra,
and Sun, 2009). A recent worldwide survey of 1,795
retailers and 275 manufacturers showed that the U.S.
market for extended warranties and related product
insurance for consumer electronics reached a total of
USD 5.7 billion in 2012 and it is expected to increase to
USD 7.1 billion in 2016 (Finaccord, 2013). Though
extended warranties play such a crucial role for retai-
lers, the processes underlying consumers’willingness to
pay (WTP) for extended warranties remain underre-
searched and unclear.
The extant literature on the topic points out that
consumers’willingness to pay for extended warranties
depends on several factors: the hedonic versus utilitarian
nature of products (Chen, Kalra, and Sun, 2009;Hseeand
Kunreuther, 2000), consumers’risk aversion (Cicchetti
and Dubin, 1994; Padmanabhan and Rao, 1993), the
peace of mind provided by extended warranties
(Almeida, 1995; Huysentruyt and Read, 2010), and the
nature of perceived risk (Bryant and Gerner, 1982;Kelley
and Conant, 1991; Shimp and Bearden, 1982).
However, this literature fails to explore other key ele-
ments of the buying process, such as the consumer’s
propensity to value and protect products that they feel
as belonging to them (Pierce, Kostova, and Dirks, 2003;
Shu and Peck, 2011; Strahilevitz and Loewenstein, 1998)
and the fact that consumers touch (or do not touch) the
products (Peck and Shu, 2009; Reb and Connolly, 2007;
Wolf, Arkes, and Muhanna, 2008).
The present research investigates the effects of
touching a product on psychological ownership and
on the willingness to pay for a related warranty. We
developed a theoretical model where the relations are
moderated by both perceived financial risk and the
(hedonic vs. utilitarian) nature of the products. The
present research highlights new managerial avenues
for retailers to promote the sale of extended warranties
at the point of purchase.
Some 75 percent of consumers who buy electronic
products also buy related extended warranties (Desai
and Padmanabhan, 2004), which are sold at the
point of purchase by retailers before the transaction
is completed, that is, before the product formally
belongs to them. The basic research question of the
present study is whether touching the product
increases willingness to pay for an extended warranty
for the product. If so, through which psychological
Simon Lessard-Bonaventure (M.S., HEC-Montreal), Senior
Marketing Data Scientist, Yellow Page Group, Montreal,
Quebec, Canada, simon.lessard-bonaventure@hec.ca.
Jean-Charles Chebat (Ph.D., University of Montreal),
Honorary Professor HEC-Montréal, Adjunct Professor
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Professor, Geneva
Graduate School of Governance, William Davidson Faculty
of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion City,
Haifa 32000, Israel, jean-charles.chebat@hec.ca.
The authors thank Germain Belzile (HEC-Montréal), Claire
Gélinas-Chebat (UQAM), Daniel Chebat (Ariel University),
and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and rele-
vant contribution during the writing of this article.
Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 2015), pp. 224–234.
Copyright ÓTaylor and Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1069–6679 (print) / ISSN 1944–7175 (online)
DOI: 10.1080/10696679.2015.1002341
processes do customers buy the warranty? More spe-
cifically, what role is played by psychological owner-
ship in this process?
LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
The Effects of Touching Products on Their
Valuation
Touch is gaining growing research attention because it
advances understanding of how cognition operates
(Ackerman, Nocera, and Bargh, 2010; Peck and
Childers, 2003). Hands provide haptic sensations from
the environment and are a tool to interact with it
(Ackerman, Nocera, and Bargh, 2010). Touch increases
psychological ownership (Peck and Shu, 2009; Reb and
Connolly 2007) and promotes impulse-buying beha-
vior (Peck and Childers, 2006). Consumers are more
willing to buy a product when they can touch it than
when they cannot (Bushong et al. 2010; Peck and
Shu, 2009; Reb and Connolly, 2007; Wolf, Arkes, and
Muhanna, 2008).
Touching the Product and Psychological
Ownership
Psychological ownership is the state at which indivi-
duals regard a product as “Theirs”or “Mine”(Pierce,
Kostova, and Dirks, 2003). Psychological ownership
increases the value of the product (Gawronski,
Bodenhausen, and Becker 2007; Pierce, Kostova, and
Dirks, 2003). If the feeling of owning a product is
strong, so is the desire to protect it. This effect is called
loss aversion (Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler, 1990;
Thaler, 1980).
Touch and psychological ownership increase loss
aversion for products (Peck and Shu, 2009; Reb and
Connolly, 2007; Shu and Peck, 2011). Since warranties
protect consumers against the consequences of losing a
product, we expect that touch increases psychological
ownership. In turn, psychological ownership will
increase the willingness to pay (WTP) for a related
warranty.
This is our first hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: Psychological ownership mediates the
effect between touch and the willingness to pay for
an extended warranty.
Moderating Effects of the Hedonic Versus
Utilitarian Nature of Products on
Psychological Ownership
We propose that the effects of touch on psychologi-
cal ownership are moderated by the hedonic versus
utilitarian nature of the products. Products differ in
terms of the utilitarian versus hedonic benefits they
provide to consumers (Dhar and Wertenbroch,
2000). Hedonic products provide affective and plea-
surable consumption experience (Hirschman and
Holbrook, 1982;ShivandFedorikhin,1999).
Utilitarian products are primarily bought to accom-
plish practical tasks and elicit a low level of positive
affect (Okada, 2005).
Hedonic products elicit more psychological owner-
ship and more positive affect than utilitarian products
(Shu and Peck, 2011). Hedonic products also generate
more loss aversion (Chen, Kalra, and Sun, 2009; Dhar
and Wertenbroch, 2000). Consequently, we propose
that consumers are more likely to feel more psycholo-
gical ownership for hedonic products than for utilitar-
ian products (H2a) and are more likely to be willing to
pay for a warranty to protect hedonic products than
utilitarian products (H2b):
Hypothesis 2a: The hedonic versus utilitarian nature
of the product moderates the relationship between
touch and psychological ownership: Touching hedonic
products increases more psychological ownership than
touching utilitarian products.
Hypothesis 2b: The hedonic versus utilitarian nature of
the product moderates the relationship between touch
and willingness to pay for the warranty: Touching
hedonic products increases willingness to pay for the
warranty more than touching utilitarian products.
Moderating Effects of Perceived Financial Risk
We propose that perceived financial risk moderates the
relation between psychological ownership and the will-
ingness to pay for the warranty. Risk perception is a major
element of consumers’decision-making processes (Cox
and Rich, 1967): The higher the risk, the less likely the
purchase (Akaah and Korgaonkar, 1988; Roselius, 1971).
Warranty is a key marketing tool to reduce risk perception
of consumers (e.g., Shimp and Bearden, 1982).
Spring 2015 225
The question of our research is different from the
mainstream studies related to risk and warranties. First,
we are interested in the moderating effects of risk, not
its direct effects. Few marketing studies concern the
moderating effects of perceived risk. For instance, per-
ceived risk reduces the effects of advertising on the
willingness to pay more for a product (Liu, 2010) and
moderates the relation between product (in)congruity
and its evaluation (Campbell and Goodstein, 2001).
Second, no study deals with the moderating effects
of risk on the specific relation between psychological
ownership and the willingness to pay for a related
warranty. This relationship is central to our model.
We offer the following interpretation for the potential
moderating effects of risk on this relation. Shoppers are
willing to protect the goods they own, even if the own-
ership is only psychological. They are also willing to
pay for this protection, but not at any price. If they
perceive the financial risk as high, they are likely to pay
less for the warranty to compensate for the potential
financial loss involved in the purchase. Conversely, if
the financial risk is low, the likely cost of owning the
good is also low, which leaves all the more financial
resources to protect the good with a warranty. Another
argument can reinforce this direction of the moderat-
ing effects of the financial risk. Most consumers are risk
averse. Consumers are less likely to develop a positive
psychological link with products involving a high level
of risk, including financial risk. Consequently, consu-
mers will be less likely to protect them. This reasoning
leads us to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: The effects of psychological ownership
on the willingness to pay for a warranty are moderated
by perceived financial risk: These effects are significant
only if the perceived financial risk is low.
Conceptual Model
Our model proposes that touching a product enhances
psychological ownership, which, in turn, increases the
willingness to pay for the warranty that protects the
product. Touching hedonic products generates more
psychological ownership and WTP than touching utili-
tarian products. Psychological ownership enhances the
willingness to pay for the warranty of products invol-
ving low financial risk more than products of high
financial risk. Figure 1 shows the model integrating
these hypothesized relationships.
STUDY DESIGN AND PROCEDURE
One hundred thirty-three students from a major
Canadian business school participated in the study (50.4
percent men; average age: 22.6 years). Participants
received a raffle ticket in exchange for their participation.
They were randomly assigned to one of the four condi-
tions of a 2 (touch: yes vs. no) × 2 (product nature: hedonic
vs. utilitarian) between-subject design. The experiment
took about 15 minutes to complete for each participant.
The product nature was manipulated by present-
ing either an MP3 player (hedonic product) or a
voice recorder (utilitarian product). The product
price($109.99)wasthesameforthetwoproducts.
Subjects were also informed of the product charac-
teristics in a way similar to the actual advertisements
of major retailers. Touch was manipulated as fol-
lows. Participants were requested either to touch
the product (Touch condition) or to watch it
through a glass window (No-Touch condition); in
both conditions the interaction with the product
lasted 90 seconds.
Figure 1
Conceptual Model
Psychological
Ownership
(Hedonic Vs.
Utilitarian)
Product
Perceived
Financial Risk
Willingness to
Pay
Touch:
(Yes Vs. No)
226 Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice
Scenario
Participants were then presented the extended war-
ranty with the following scenario: “Imagine you arrive
at the cashier of retailer ABC to pay for your product.
The cashier now offers you a two-year extended war-
ranty with the following terms. The plan covers breaks
and malfunctioning resulting from materials and hand-
ling, through a normal use of the product. The product
will be replaced or repaired following your complaint at
the point of purchase with the original receipt.”This
scenario was followed by the question: “You must now
determine the maximal amount of money you are will-
ing to pay for the extended warranty proposed by the
retailer.”
Measures
In the questionnaire, hedonic and utilitarian pro-
ducts were defined as follows: “Ahedonicproductis
defined as pleasant and fun. Consumption of such
goods is enjoyable and appeals to the senses. A utili-
tarian product is defined as functional, practical and
useful; consumption of such goods helps achieve a
precise goal.”The hedonic and utilitarian dimensions
of the products were assessed by a scale adapted from
Dhar and Wertenbroch (2000). The items were
anchored from 1 (this product is not at all hedonic)to
6(this product is totally hedonic). Similarly, the utilitar-
ian dimension was defined as follows assessed by one
item presented after the following sentence: The item
was anchored from 1 (this product is not at all utilitar-
ian)to6(this product is totally utilitarian).
Psychological ownership was measured by a three-
item scale, adapted from Peck and Shu (2009). The
three items were anchored by endpoints 1 (strongly
disagree) and 7 (strongly agree): “I feel like this is my
voice recorder (MP3) player,’’ “I feel a very large degree
of personal ownership for the voice recorder (MP3)
player,’’ and “I feel like I own this voice recorder
(MP3) player.’’ The items loaded on a single factor
(α= 0.95) and were averaged.
Perceived financial risk was measured with a two-item
scale designed and tested by Stone and Grønhaug (1993).
The items were anchored by endpoints from 1 (strongly
disagree)to7(strongly agree): “my purchasing of a voice
recorder (MP3) player such as this one within the next 12
months would be a bad way to spend my money”and “If
I bought a voice recorder (MP3) player such as this one
within the next 12 months, I would be concerned that
the financial investment I would make would not be
wise.”The Cronbach αwas high (α= 0.85). The items
were averaged.
The willingness to pay for the extended warranty
(WTP) was measured by presenting the participants
with a choice of value between 0$ and 35$ in incre-
ments of 1$. The questionnaire ended with demo-
graphic questions.
RESULTS
Manipulation Checks and Descriptive Statistics
As expected, the MP3 player was perceived as
significantly more hedonic than the voice recorder,
M_
MP3
=4.22,SD =1.24versusM
vrec
=2.17,SD =
1.23, F(1, 131) = 94.45, p< 0.001. However, the two
products were not significantly different in terms of
utilitarian scores (M_
MP3
=4.7,SD =1,24versusM
vrec
=4.8,SD =1,07;ns). From now on, we will refer to
the voice recorder as the nonhedonic product and
the MP3 as the hedonic product. We checked that
touch was not related to the perception of product
hedonic and utilitarian benefits. Neither touch nor
product nature were significantly related to the per-
ceived financial risk. Table 1 presents the descriptive
statistics and correlation matrix for the variables of
the model.
The four subsamples of the factorial design were not
significantly different in terms of age and in terms of
gender (see Table 2 and 3).
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Matrix
Descriptive
statistics Correlations
Mean SD
Psychological
ownership WTP
Perceived
financial
risk
Psychological
ownership
2.07 1.39 —
WTP 12.69 6.44 0.12 —
Perceived
financial risk
4.28 1.64 0.01 0.05 —
Notes: WTP = willingness to pay.
None of the correlations were significant.
Spring 2015 227
Hypotheses Testing
To test our conceptual model and resulting hypotheses,
we followed Hayes (2013, model 22; p. 38) and used a
bootstrapping procedure that generated a sample size
of 5,000 to assess regression models and 95 percent bias
corrected confidence intervals to test for indirect
effects. Psychological ownership and perceived finan-
cial risk were mean-centered prior to the analyses.
Results of the regression model are presented in
Tables 4 and 5and illustrated in Figure 1.
Hypothesis 1 proposes that psychological ownership
mediates the relationship between touch and willing-
ness to pay for the warranty. Touch affects psychologi-
cal ownership directly and positively (β= 0.77, t= 3.3,
p= 0.001). However, psychological ownership does
not directly impact willingness to pay for the warranty
(β= 0.27, t= 0.65, p= 0.26).
Following Hayes (2013), we calculated bootstrapped
bias corrected confidence intervals to test for indirect
effects. The test yielded an indirect effect of 1.32 with a
95 percent bias-corrected bootstrap confidence interval
of [0.40, 2.84], which does not include 0. This confirms
a conditional effect of touch on WTP through psycho-
logical ownership. These findings support H3.
Hypothesis 2 proposes that the nature of the product
moderates the effect of touch on psychological owner-
ship (H2a) and on WTP (H2b). As for H2a, the interac-
tion between touch and product nature on
psychological ownership is significant (β=–0.74, t=–
Table 2
Gender by Experimental Conditions
Touch Product nature
Gender Yes No Hedonic Nonhedonic Total
Male 24.8% (33) 25.6% (34) 24.1% (32) 26.3% (35) 100% (67)
Female 23.3% (31) 26.3% (35) 26.3% (35) 23.3% (31) 100% (66)
Total 48.1% (64) 51.9% (66) 50.4% (67) 49.6% (66)
χ
2
= 0.07, p= 0.79 χ
2
= 0.37, p= 0.54
Table 3
Age by Experimental Conditions
Conditions Mean SD p value
Touch 22.4 0.36 p> 0.05
No touch 22.8 0.24
Hedonic 22.9 0.33
p> 0.05
Nonhedonic 22.3 0.28
Table 4
Model 22 (Hayes, 2013) Regression Model on
Psychological Ownership
Psychological ownership
BSET P
Intercept –0.01 0.12 –0.06 0.48
Touch 0.77 0.23 3.30 0.001
Product nature 0.11 0.23 0.4497 0.33
Touch x Product nature –0.74 0.47 –1.59 0.057
R
2
0.095
Ffor change in R
2
F(3, 129) 4.9, p= 0.005
Note: SE = standard error.
All pvalues presented for variables in the models are one-tailed.
Significance of two-tailed results is valid for most of the variables in
the model.
Table 5
Model 22 (Hayes, 2013) Regression Model on
Willingness to Pay
Willingness to pay
BSETP
Intercept 12.63 0.54 23.30 0.00
Touch 0.68 1.15 0.59 0.28
Touch x Product nature –4.17 2.19 –1.9 0.03
Psychological ownership 0.27 0.42 0.65 0.26
Perceived financial risk 0.25 0.33 0.76 0.23
Psychological ownership x
Perceived financial risk
–0.54 0.23 –2.38 0.001
R
2
0.11
Ffor change in R
2
F(6, 126) 2.5, p= 0.03
Notes: All pvalues presented for variables in the models are one-tailed.
Significance of two-tailed results is valid for most of the variables in
the model.
228 Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice
1.59, p= 0.057). We investigated the slopes for both
hedonic versus nonhedonic products. In the case of
the nonhedonic product, touch had significant and
positive effects for psychological ownership (β= 1.14, t
= 3.46, p< 0.01). In the case of the hedonic product, the
effects were not significant (β= 0.39, t= 1.193, ns). These
results confirm the predicted moderating effects of the
nature of the product on the relation between touch and
psychological ownership. Since the product nature did
not have a significant direct effect on psychological
ownership (β= 0.11, t= 0.45, ns), product nature is a
genuine moderator. However, the moderating effects are
the opposite of those predicted by H2a: Touch increases
the psychological ownership of nonhedonic products
and has no effects in the case of hedonic products.
As for H2b, we found significant interactive effects
of touch and product nature on WTP (β=–4.17, t=–
1.9, p=0.03).Specifically, for the nonhedonic pro-
duct (voice recorder), touch significantly increases
willingness to pay (β=2.75,t=1.71,p<0.05).For
the hedonic product, touch does not significantly
impact WTP (β=–1.42, t=–0.908, p>0.10)(see
Figure 2). Contrasts show that willingness to pay is
greater for the hedonic product than for the
nonhedonic product in the no-touch condition,
M_
MP3
= 10.26 versus M
vrec
= 13.01, F(1, 129) =
7.29, p< 0.01. However, in the touch condition, will-
ingness to pay is not significantly affected by the
nature of the product, M_
MP3
= 12.91 versus M
vrec
=
14.33, F(1, 129) = 0.32, p>0.10(seeFigure 3).
Figure 2
Process Model 22 (Hayes, 2013): The Conditional Indirect Effects of Touch on Willingness to Pay
(WTP) Through Psychological Ownership
β = −4.17*
β = −0.54**
β = −0.74*
Low risk
β = 1.17 ***
High risk
β = −0.62 (ns)
Perceived
financial risk
Psychological
ownership
WTP
Touch
Product
nature
Nonhedonic
β = 2.75**
Hedonic
β = −1.42 (ns)
Product
nature
Nonhedonic
β = 1.14***
Hedonic
β = −0.39 (ns)
Note: WTP = willingness to pay.
*p< 0.06; **p< 0.05; ***p< 0.01.
Figure 3
Willingness to Pay (WTP) as a Function of
Touch and Product Nature
Spring 2015 229
Hypothesis 3 proposes that the effects of psycholo-
gical ownership on the willingness to pay for a war-
ranty are moderated by the perceived financial risk.
Neither psychological ownership nor perceived finan-
cial risk had direct effects on WTP (see Table 5).
However, the two-way effects of psychological owner-
ship and perceived financial risk on WTP are significant
(β=–.54, t=–2.38, p< 0.01). More specifically, as
predicted from the theory reviewed, psychological
ownership increases WTP (β= 1.17, t= 2.27, p< 0.05)
if the perceived financial risk is low (one standard
deviation below the mean). If the perceived financial
risk is high (one standard deviation above the mean),
this effect is not significant (β=–.62, t=–1.03, ns).
These effects are presented in Figure 4. This finding
supports H3.
CONCLUSION
This research provides evidence of the key roles of
touch and psychological ownership in the process of
purchasing a warranty, mostly in the case of nonhedo-
nic products. Previous research only investigated inde-
pendently the effect of touching products, product
nature, and psychological ownership on WTP for pro-
ducts. The current research provides an integrative fra-
mework for a relevant and underresearched question
related to the psychological process through which
consumers buy extended warranties. We also show
the key moderating role of the perceived financial
risk: psychological ownership increases mostly if the
perceived financial risk is low.
The current research makes four contributions to the
literature.
First, touching products does more than just
enhance the psychological valuation of the product
(Peck and Shu, 2009; Reb and Connolly, 2007; Wolf,
Arkes, and Muhanna, 2008); it also increases the
amount of money customers are willing to pay for an
extended warranty. This relation is not direct but
mediated by the psychological ownership.
Psychological ownership is a key concept in the
process of buying a warranty. Paradoxically, psycho-
logical ownership has been neglected in the
extant literature related to warranty. In our study,
we show that consumers are willing to pay to protect
products that they own psychologically, even if they
are not theirs formally, that is, before reaching the
cashier.
The second contribution of this study is to show the
key moderating role played by the hedonic versus non-
hedonic nature of the products. Whereas previous
research suggests that the relationship between touch
and WTP for the product is direct and monotonic (Peck
and Shu, 2009), our research shows that the relation is
mediated by psychological ownership. This finding
departs from this literature because our study does not
focus on the WTP for the product but on the WTP for
the warranty of the product. We also show that touch
does not impact WTP directly but through two mod-
erators, that is, the nature of the product and the per-
ceived risk related to the product. It thus seems that
extending the touch literature related to purchasing
products to the process of purchasing extended war-
ranty is not appropriate.
We show that the effects of psychological owner-
ship on WTP for a warranty are significant only in the
case of nonhedonic products. This finding suggests
that touch brings about cognitive input and informs
consumers’judgments about the extended warranty of
the affect-poor products attributes such as weight, size,
and materials. Conversely, touch has no significant
effect on psychological ownership and the WTP in
the case of hedonic products. We understand that
the haptic relation consumers entertain with a pro-
duct is different from the haptic relation they enter-
tain with the warranty associated with the product.
While the extant literature shows that touch may
increase the emotional relation with the product,
touch also conveys utilitarian information to be used
for assessing the economic value of the warranty.
Figure 4
Willingness to Pay (WTP) as a Function of
Psychological Ownership and Financial Risks
230 Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice
Haptic sensations inform consumers about practical
aspects of products, such as texture, weight, and qual-
ity of their components (Grohmann, Spangenberg,
and Sprott, 2007; Peck and Childers 2003), which are
of definite relevance in the case of nonhedonic
products.
The third contribution of this research is to bring
some nuance to the claim that consumers are willing
to pay more for hedonic products (Chen, Kalra, and
Sun, 2009; Hsee and Kunreuther, 2000). Our findings
confirm that consumers are willing to pay more for the
extended warranty of a hedonic product if consumers
do not touch the product. If the consumers touch the
products they are willing to pay more only for warran-
ties related to nonhedonic products. We understand
the findings as follows: When consumers do not
touch the product, they assess the amount of money
they are willing to pay to protect it on the basis of
information provided by other senses (mostly visual
cues in our study). When they touch the products,
they use more concrete product cues. This suggestion
is coherent with recent advances in the realm of level
of construal and psychological distance (Trope and
Liberman, 2010).
We propose the three following explanations to
reconcile our findings related to the effects of touch-
ing products before buying a warranty and previous
findings related to touching products before buying
them:
●In our study, the dependent variable is the WTP for
an extended warranty, not for the product itself, as
it was the case in previous studies related to the
effects of touching the product (e.g., Peck and
Childers, 2003; Reb and Connolly, 2007).
Warranties are less likely to bring about as much
emotion as the products do.
●Previous studies that focus on the relation between
product nature and extended warranties did not
include touch, a major source of information for
consumers, whereas it is the case in our present
study.
●The objects in this study are more expensive
(above $100)than the ones involved in some
prior studies related to touch (i.e., the chocolate
bars in Dhar and Wertenbroch, 2000; coffee mug
in Reb and Connolly, 2007; glue sticks in Shu and
Peck, 2011; Peck and Shu, 2009), products that are
less cognitively involving than the ones studied in
the present research. In our study, touch is more
likely to serve as an additional source of informa-
tion in the cognitive process related to buying the
products studied in the present research.
The fourth contribution of the present study is that
we show that psychological ownership influences the
WTP for an extended warranty only if the perceived
financial risk is low. If the perceived financial risk is
high, consumers do not use their feeling of ownership
to influence their judgment about the value of the
extended warranty. Previous work suggests that
extended warranty reduces perceived financial risk
about a product (Maronick, 2007) and that psychologi-
cal ownership enhances the product evaluation (Peck
and Shu, 2009). Since high perceived risk reduces posi-
tive affective state (Dowling and Staelin, 1994) and
increases the search for credible information (Mitra,
Reiss, and Capella, 1999), we suggest that perceived
risk may somewhat inhibit the effect of psychological
ownership on the valuation of the extended warranty.
IMPLICATIONS FOR RETAILERS
Our findings have relevant implications for retailers.
The extant trade and academic literatures do not seem
to propose any specific retailing strategy to sell warran-
ties. Our findings show that touching the product
could enhance both the psychological ownership of
the product and the willingness to pay for a warranty.
This is more specifically the case for nonhedonic pro-
ducts. Allowing shoppers to touch both hedonic and
nonhedonic products would likely increase the
demand for warranties related to nonhedonic products,
without impacting negatively on hedonic products.
Retailers should emphasize different product benefits
if consumers can touch (vs. cannot touch) products
while shopping. Retailers often emphasize hedonic
and experiential features of product benefits during
sales pitch at the point of purchase. Our findings sug-
gest that this technique would be most appropriate if
consumers cannot touch products. However, if consu-
mers can touch the products, retailers should prompt
less affectively laden aspects products to increase the
sales of extended warranties.
In addition, since psychological ownership signifi-
cantly mediates the effect of touch on the WTP, retai-
lers should enhance the feeling of ownership of the
product during the sale process. Previous work on
Spring 2015 231
mental imagery suggests that asking consumers to ima-
gine they own and use a product also increases psycho-
logical ownership (Carmon and Ariely, 2000;
Kamleitner and Feuchtl, 2015; Peck and Shu, 2009).
Retailers could do so by asking questions about their
potential usage of the product and ask them to verba-
lize how they would feel owning the product.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
AVENUES
Our study focuses on short time relations between cus-
tomers and the objects they may protect with an
extended warranty, that is, between the time they
pick up the item from the shelf and the time they
reach the cash. Can psychological ownership develop
in this time interval? Psychological ownership as such
takes enough time for the consumer to relate with the
object in one of three ways considered by Pierce and
colleagues (2001, 2003), that is: “(1) exercised control
over the object, (2) coming to intimately know the
object, and/or (3) investment of the self into the
object”(Jussila et al., 2015, p. 35). The authors of the
lead article of this special issue (Jussila et al., 2015)
point out a relevant distinction between psychological
ownership and sense of ownership. Psychological own-
ership reflects “a more cumulative and time-resistant
phenomenon,”whereas the sense of ownership would
be “a more immediate response to a particular stimu-
lus.”This distinction is relevant in our case. Consumers
considering the purchase of an item like a television set
have not yet developed a possessive relation with the
object. The term “sense of ownership”could have been
more appropriate in our study.
However transitory and ephemeral this psychologi-
cal ownership may be in the case of our study, our
findings show its effects on consumers’behavior.
Even if none of the three ways through which psycho-
logical ownership develops (i.e., control, knowledge, or
investment of self) exists in the prepurchase situation
studied in the present article, a phenomenon similar to
psychological ownership develops through the mere
information stemming from touching the object. It is
as though touching the object makes it penetrate the
psychological boundaries of the consumer.
The process is mostly sensory, not intellectualized. It
seems that touching brings about more psychological
ownership than other senses. Touching is a short-range
information system. Three other senses (olfactory,
visual, auditory) are longer range senses that are less
likely to generate psychological ownership. Touching
and tasting imply a close relation with the objects.
Merchants frequently invite customers to touch and
taste the products they display. It is a very old and
traditional marketing tool used on all markets in the
world. It enhances the likelihood of buying the pro-
duct. We propose that these two sources of sensory
information generate more intense psychological own-
ership than the other two, which could be an interest-
ing avenue for future marketing studies.
As shown by Kamleitner and Feuchtl (2015), in the
same special issue, forming images of one’s relation
with a given product enhances psychological owner-
ship. The images are the result of a given scenario,
that is: “if this object were mine, I could achieve such
and such goals, do such and such activities,”which is a
complex cognitive process. While Kamleitner and
Feuchtl (2015) deal with a cognitive process, we exam-
ine a process based on sensory information. The two
studies have in common that consumers have not yet
developed a long-term relation with the object.
Consequently, they do not feel a genuine psychological
ownership. In both studies, the psychological owner-
ship is ephemeral. However, the processes shown in the
two studies are likely to be complementary. The devel-
opment of images of ownership can be enhanced by
advertising, while touching the product within the
shopping environment is part of a promotional
approach. Future studies may investigate the degree to
which imagining versus touching strengthens the rela-
tion between psychological ownership and self-iden-
tity. This relation is of major importance as shown in
the conceptual article by Hillenbrand and
Money (2015) also present in this special issue. In
other words, even if consumers do not own a product,
the combination of imagery and haptic information
may not only increase their psychological ownership
but also affect their identity. Our findings suggest that
psychological ownership and WTP are unaffected by
touch in the case of affect-rich products. As noted ear-
lier, however, psychological ownership develops over
time (Jussila et al., 2015). Adaptation to ownership
could take more time for affect-rich than for affect-
poor products. For instance, previous empirical work
shows that the longer the touch time, the greater loss
aversion (Wolf, Arkes, and Muhanna, 2008). However,
little is known about the time duration consumers need
to adapt to the ownership of hedonic and utilitarian
232 Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice
products. This stresses the importance of answering the
question raised in the lead article: “How long does it
take to develop psychological ownership?”(Jussila
et al. 2015, p. 21)
Also, future research could examine the effect of
touch on the WTP for extended warranties with a set
of more expensive and more involving hedonic and
utilitarian products (e.g., dishwasher and plasma
television).
More generally, the present study shows that the
literature related to the willingness to pay for products
can hardly be extended to the willingness to pay for a
warranty related to the products. We then call for a
greater specific attention to be paid to warranties,
which represent both a significant source of income
for retailers and a valuable field for theoretical develop-
ment of economic psychology.
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