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Consumer Psychological Ownership of Digital Technology
Colleen P. Kirk, New York Institute of Technology
Scott D. Swain, Clemson University
Please cite as:
Kirk, Colleen P. and Scott D. Swain (forthcoming), "Consumer Psychological Ownership of
Digital Technology. In Joann Peck & Suzanne Shu (Eds.), Psychological Ownership and
Consumer Behavior," New York: Springer.
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Chapter 5
Consumer Psychological Ownership of Digital Technology
Colleen P. Kirk, New York Institute of Technology
Scott D. Swain, Clemson University
If you were to visit a baby-boomer friend and saw a well-worn Beatles vinyl LP on her
shelf, it might be easy to imagine how she feels about it. The LP has travelled with her across
time and space; she knows every detail and worn spot on the sleeve, every scratch on the vinyl.
She enjoys the purposefulness of playing it: from carefully removing the vinyl from the sleeve,
to aligning the vinyl with the platter, to precisely lowering the stylus. This LP is “hers.” She gets
nervous when someone else wants to touch it, and she would never consider swapping her copy
for someone else’s. In contrast, many of today’s young consumers might find our friend’s
attitudes and behaviors a bit odd because they themselves have only ever owned digital music
files (or access to a music streaming service).
Digital technologies and content, such as websites, software applications, electronic
books, and the Internet of Things are different from their non-digital counterparts in fundamental
ways. These technologies are, at their core, intangible and impermanent. Unlike a vinyl LP, they
only appear to exist when summoned and rendered in real time for our consumption. We
perceive them through devices but they do not exist inside of, or even as a part of, the devices.
They are perfectly and endlessly replicable. They can be arbitrary and instantaneously morphed.
They can be beamed from one place to another at nearly the speed of light. For these reasons and
more, researchers have begun to ask important questions about whether and how consumers can
feel psychological ownership of digital technologies.
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Some have suggested that, all else equal, consumers experience lower psychological
ownership for digital (versus comparable physical) products due to lower perceptions of control
(Atasoy & Morewedge, forthcoming). However, in this chapter, we present evidence that
consumers often feel significant psychological ownership of digital technologies and that digital
technologies can facilitate the emergence of psychological ownership of other, non-digital
targets. We discuss implications for marketers and provide suggestions for future research.
Psychological Ownership
Psychological ownership refers to feelings of possession that can arise even in the
absence of legal ownership (Pierce, Kostova, & Dirks, 2003). Psychological, or perceived (Peck
& Shu, 2009), ownership has garnered significant recent interest in the marketing literature (Kirk
& Sarstedt, 2016; Pierce & Peck, this volume) due to its ability to predict positive consumer
outcomes for marketers, such as willingness to pay more for products (Fuchs, Prandelli, &
Schreier, 2010; Shu & Peck, 2011) and warranties (Lessard-Bonaventure & Chebat, 2015),
word-of-mouth (Kirk, McSherry, & Swain, 2015), and purchase intention (Spears &
Yazdanparast, 2014). Consumers develop feelings of ownership for target objects when they
invest themselves (Kamleitner & Erki, 2013), control (Peck, Barger, & Webb, 2013), or develop
intimate knowledge of a target (Pierce et al., 2003). Most pertinent to the emergence of
psychological ownership of digital technologies, psychological ownership theory suggests that
certain characteristics of the ownership target are essential for consumers to be able to develop
feelings of ownership (Pierce et al., 2003). Specifically, ownership targets need to satisfy digital
consumers’ motivations for ownership. In other words, they need to satisfy consumers’ desire to
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feel effectance by being manipulable and controllable; they need to be attractive and relevant to
the self to satisfy the self-identity motive; and they need to be open and accessible so that
consumers can develop a sense of place or home in the digital space.
Affordances and Appropriation Facilitate Psychological Ownership of Digital Technology
The idea of affordances refers to “the possible interaction with and use of an object based
on the properties of the object and capabilities of the user” (Baxter, Aurisicchio, & Childs, 2015:
p. 141; Norman, 2013). Digital affordances are the characteristics of a digital technology object
that facilitate users’ abilities to engage in some actions (but not others) and to perform certain
tasks, including actions and tasks never intended or imagined by designers. In doing so, digital
affordances both constrain and expand user’s opportunities for developing feelings of ownership
for a digital target.
In a recent conceptual article with our colleague James Gaskin (Kirk, Swain, & Gaskin,
2015: 166), we argue that as users pick and choose among affordances offered by the technology
designer, the process of appropriation (Orlikowski, 2000), defined as “the customization and
idiosyncratic use of technology,” is experienced as a form of self-design (Moreau, Bonney, &
Herd, 2011). Further, we propose that these appropriation experiences can augment consumers’
feelings of psychological ownership of the technology because the various choices that comprise
appropriation typically require investments and expressions of the self. Baxter, Aurisicchio and
Childs (2015) echo this notion in their integration of psychological ownership theory with
research on user interface design. They explain that user interface design researchers
(Hassenzahl, Diefenbach, & Göritz, 2010; Pucillo & Cascini, 2014) have developed a user
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experience model based on three hierarchical goals: (1) be-goals, such as to be in control, which
motivate the consumer; (2) do-goals, such as to control a car, which are the more concrete
outcomes of be-goals; and (3) motor goals, such as to move the steering wheel, which describe
how the do-goals are achieved. Baxter et al. (2015) extend this user experience model using
psychological ownership theory. The motives for psychological ownership, effectance, self-
identity, and having a place, are mapped to be-goals, while the antecedents of psychological
ownership, control, investment of self, and intimate knowledge are mapped to do-goals. The
motor goals are the actions which complete the affordance.
Baxter et al. (2015) demonstrate their model by classifying the behaviors of multiple
consumers in their use of four different products: a car, a mobile phone, a shoe, and a park
bench. They identify sixteen affordance principles that enhance psychological ownership-based
attachment. Examples of control affordances include spatial control, such as easily manipulating
the physical position of a phone to take a selfie, and configuration control, such as choosing a
background or ringtone. Rate control refers to the ability to use an object’s consumables as
desired. For example, two mobile phone users noted that when they run short on the number of
days remaining in their data plan, they are reminded that the phone company actually retains
control of their phone. It could be said that the possession work of making a mobile phone one’s
own results in a form of consumer ensnarement (Molesworth, Watkins, & Denegri-Knott, 2016).
Intimate knowledge-based affordance principles identified by the researchers include
periodic signaling, or the process of object communication on an event-dependent basis, such as
the rumble of a car engine when stopped for a period of time. Automobile manufacturers even
digitally manipulate cabin acoustics to enhance the driver’s feelings of control and intimacy by
amplifying the engine sounds of a sports coupe when the accelerator is pressed, and suppressing
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them otherwise (Quain, 2016). Enabling refers to the intimate knowledge of an object that makes
a meaningful experience possible, such as the particular apps and features of a phone that lets a
person stay connected with friends.
Finally, self-investment affordance principles identified by the researchers include
creation, such as personalizing a mobile phone, and the notion of repository, referring to the
collection of valuables in an object, such as contacts and photos. Interestingly, the researchers
note the implication of repository is that phone users felt ownership for the things they added to
their phones and not for the hardware itself. “It is the content created within the software that
distinguished them from each other” (Baxter et al., 2015: 151). Space does not permit further
discussion of the other affordance principles identified in their research; however, the theorizing
suggests many opportunities for further research (Baxter & Aurisicchio, this volume).
Peng and Pierce (2015) demonstrate that psychological ownership of proximal targets,
such as an employee’s job, affects psychological ownership of more distal targets, such as the
company. Consistent with this notion, in a series of experiments, Brasel and Gips (2014)
demonstrate that as a design affordance, a touch screen enhances consumers’ psychological
ownership and willingness to pay even for distal products purchased on the device. When
consumers touch a product, for example, in a retail store, they develop feelings of psychological
ownership for the product (Peck & Shu, 2009) due to the effect of touch on feelings of control
(Peck et al., 2013). Through its effect on psychological ownership, touch elicits the endowment
effect (Shu & Peck, 2011), or the tendency for individuals to value products they own more
highly than identical products owned by others (Dickert, Ashby, & Dickert, this volume; Shu,
this volume). Brasel and Gips (2014) demonstrate that in the case of a touchscreen (as compared
with a non-touch laptop), the endowment effect is elicited for a product which consumers would
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normally touch (a sweatshirt) but not for a product which cannot be touched (such as a New
York City walking tour). Further, in a second study, this effect was found to be stronger when
consumers used their own tablets than when they used the laboratory’s tablets.
In two recent exploratory studies, Brasel (2016) examines consumer responses to voice
interactions with digital devices, such as those from Apple, Amazon, or Google. He finds that
whereas touch devices elicit feelings of psychological ownership and encourage users to bring
them into the extended self (Belk, 1988, 2013), voice commands tend to cause consumers to see
a device as a separate social entity. In this case, relationship dynamics impact consumers’
responses, such as the attribution of blame for a malfunction. These findings are consistent with
the work of Reeves and Nass (1996), in which consumers treat computers as social entities, and
evaluate computers they have interacted with as more polite than those they have not.
Digital Affordances Can’t Appropriate Themselves
Content marketing has recently surpassed word of mouth as a frequently-searched term in
Google (Hofacker, 2016), reflecting consumers’ voracious appetite for digital content and
marketers’ interest in responding. Researchers suggest that digital content that includes elements
of functional interactivity (Kim, Spielmann, & McMillan, 2011), such as dialog boxes, search
utilities, hyperlinks, and chat rooms should be perceived as offering consumers more
opportunities to feel a greater sense of control of their content consumption experience (Liu &
Shrum, 2009) than less interactive content. Interactive functionality leverages the content’s non-
linear structure to enable consumers to control and customize their information flow (Jung, Hui,
Min, & Martin, 2014; Liu & Shrum, 2002). A target of psychological ownership must be
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perceived as manipulable (Pierce et al., 2003). Based on psychological ownership theory, the
feelings of control resulting from access to interactive elements in digital content should enhance
consumers’ psychological ownership, and ultimately their valuation, of the content (Kirk &
Swain, 2015).
However, the link between functional interactivity and consumers’ perceptions of control
has not been clearly established (Kim et al., 2011; S.-J. Lee, Lee, Kim, & Stout, 2004; Voorveld,
Neijens, & Smit, 2011). One culprit may be a persistent gap between the affordances and
appropriations that designers intend or imagine for users and the actual affordances and
appropriations revealed to users through their own perceptual systems. Less obvious, but equally
as important for understanding why functional interactivity and perceptions of control are often
uncorrelated, is the role of heterogeneity in users’ motivation to explore and influence digital
content and technologies (Bucy & Tao, 2007; Song & Zinkhan, 2008). Individuals who are
unmotivated to explore and influence digital content and technologies are unlikely to uncover
many of the affordances of a digital technology and, further, unlikely to invest themselves when
choosing from among the impoverished set of affordances that they do perceive.
Drawing on these notions, we reason that a particularly important individual difference in
a digital context is technology innovativeness (Parasuraman, 2000). People high in technology
innovativeness may be likely to perceive they can control most common digital interfaces
equally, regardless of the level of interactivity. However, individuals who are lower in
technology innovativeness may require exposure to a larger number of interactive elements
before they perceive enough affordances to develop a sense of control of digital content. We
tested these ideas in an online experiment with a national consumer panel (Kirk & Swain, 2015).
In this experiment, we created two different versions of a digital book about Australia: one with
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a number of interactive elements, such as hyperlinks, a clickable animated photo gallery, a
clickable navigation menu, mouse-over enlargement, and the ability to post a comment, and the
other with a static (less interactive) form of the same digital content. Participants were randomly
assigned to view one of the two versions of the book and then answer questions about the
experience. Consistent with our conceptualization, interactivity influenced perceptions of
control, but only for consumers who were low in technology innovativeness. Further, the effect
of perceived control on the maximum price consumers would be willing to pay for the digital
book was mediated by psychological ownership. This research offers an initial examination of
the notion that providing consumers with interactive functionality can enhance their
psychological ownership of digital content by enhancing their feelings of control during the
consumption experience, with technology innovativeness serving as a crucial motivational
resource. It is as if interactivity enables consumers to control and “touch” (Peck & Shu, 2009)
the intangible content, thereby bringing digital content into their extended self (Belk, 2013).
When Consumers Create New Affordances: Psychological Ownership of Remixed Digital
Content
A different form of digital content that provides an opportunity for users to invest
themselves, and therefore can become a target of psychological ownership, is remixed content.
Remixing is a co-creation activity in which users combine and modify the creative works of
others to create unique output of their own. Initially observed with music, remixing is now
regarded as an important innovation technique in a variety of domains such as images and
videos, as well as literature and software (Von Hippel, 2009). A key consequence of remixing is
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that it produces new affordances that may or may not overlap or resemble the affordances of the
mixed digital content. Indeed, the popularity of such content may depend on how surprising or
novel its affordances are since such affordances create opportunities for new or novel
appropriations and experiences. Recent work by Kim et al. (2016) forges the link between
remixed digital content and psychological ownership. Specifically, they find that consumers’
psychological ownership is enhanced when they have opportunities to control remixed content,
when they have more intimate knowledge of the remix subject, and when they have more time to
invest themselves in the remixed content. Further, this enhanced psychological ownership leads
to greater intentions to share their remixed content with others.
Drawing on social recognition theory (Honneth, 1996), Kim et al. (2016) also propose
that “intention to share” strengthens when users receive positive recognition from other members
of the community. Across two studies that include user interviews, a community log analysis,
and an experiment, the researchers find that social recognition in the form of comments of
gratitude (love and care), requests for permission to use their work (granting rights), and display
by others of their identification and permission status (sense of contribution) not only directly
enhances users’ intentions to share a remixed smartphone theme, but also strengthens the effect
of psychological ownership of the theme on users’ sharing intentions. These findings are
consistent with research in which word of mouth intentions of consumers empowered by
psychological ownership are affected by the valence of feedback received (Hair, Barth, Neubert,
& Sarstedt, 2016).
Psychological Ownership in Virtual Worlds
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The term, digital virtual goods, refers not only to digital products, such as ebooks and
digital music, which are replacements for material equivalents, but also to new targets of
psychological ownership, or possession objects, that are distinct to the digital realm. These
elements include guns in first-person shooters, cars in driving simulators, and consumer goods in
role-playing games such as The Sims and World of Warcraft (Watkins & Molesworth, 2012).
Although consumers recognize that they do not legally own these targets of ownership, Watkins
and Molesworth (2012) document various possession rituals that consumers use to incorporate
digital virtual goods into their extended selves (Belk, 2013). In assessing data collected in two
qualitative studies, the authors find that in addition to digital virtual representations of material
possessions, such as cars and weapons, participants perceived ownership of other digital targets
including avatars, high scores, and in-game achievements. Further, they exhibited evidence of
“possession” (Molesworth et al., 2016), when they (1) customized digital virtual goods in a
game, (2) associated elements of a game with important others and time spent with others, or (3)
used an element of the game, such as an avatar, for biographic value, such as to identify
themselves as gay. While the authors do not specifically refer to psychological ownership theory,
their findings are nonetheless related to antecedents and motivations identified by the theory. For
example, customization is related to investment of self (Kirk, Swain, et al., 2015; Moreau et al.,
2011), time spent with others can result in intimate knowledge, and biographic value is related to
self-identity. Participants also felt a great sense of loss when their digital virtual possessions
were lost due to technical malfunctions, and they took great pains to protect their possessions
through careful backups. Interestingly, participants noted that because they recognized that they
did not legally own these digital possessions, it felt “weird” to be so attached to them.
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In related research, Molesworth et al. (2016) refer to the idea of possession work that
consumers engage in when creating digital consumption objects such as avatars and other
accoutrements of a virtual world. They explain that this work of consumers can be appropriated
by marketers, as the required digital resources are legally owned by marketers, not by
consumers. Thus, as consumers come to feel that psychologically owned objects in a digital
realm are an important part of their identity, the result can be consumer ensnarement, since
marketers can arbitrarily charge for access to digital virtual objects.
Lee and Chen (2011) integrate architectural and landscape design theory with
psychological ownership theory to model users’ intentions to revisit or use a virtual world.
Surveying experienced users of Second Life, one of the most popular and successful virtual
worlds, the authors find that psychological ownership of the virtual world and future visitation
intentions are associated with the antecedents of psychological ownership: investment of self,
perceived control, and intimate knowledge, which they break into cognitive and affective
components. Further, providing guidance to system designers, the authors find that users’
perceptions of the design aspects specified in architectural quality theory (e.g. Norman, 2013)
and landscape preference theory (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989) predict the antecedents of
psychological ownership of a virtual world. Specifically, consistent with architectural quality
theory, users are sensitive to firmness (the ability to protect residents from environmental threats
such as rain, heat or snow), utility (appropriate allocation of space), and beauty (visual appeal).
On the other hand, the landscape preference theory attempts to identify patterns of environmental
cues that facilitate users’ effective and enjoyable processing of information. Concepts that help
users make sense of and be involved in their environment include coherence, or ease of
characterization of environmental components; legibility, or ease of mapping; variety, referring
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to the number of rich landscape components, and mystery. Kirk, Swain and Gaskin (2015)
explain that mystery enables game consumers to feel they have discovered something new, and
that this sense of first possession (Friedman & Neary, 2008) augments users’ feelings of pride
and ownership.
Finally, using psychological ownership and social identity theory, Moon et al. (2013)
examine how game designers can foster loyalty to Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing
Games (MMORPGs), such as World of Warcraft. They focus on control as an antecedent of
psychological ownership. Most interestingly, based on Rothbaum et al.’s (1982) dual process
model of perceived control, they argue that MMORPG users’ psychological ownership is
enhanced both through primary control, in which users exert an influence over their
environment, as well as secondary control, in which users alter themselves to align with less-
controllable factors in their environment. Moon et al. (2013) operationalize perceived control of
a game character as a two-factor second-order construct in which time spent with the game
serves as a measure of secondary control. However, as the authors note, operationalization of
secondary control as time spent with the game may be better viewed as an investment of self
than as secondary control. Further, also noted by the authors, the cross-sectional design of the
research makes it impossible to determine whether time spent with the game is truly a driver of
psychological ownership, or whether it might instead be an outcome. Secondary control
facilitates an illusion of control (Rothbaum et al., 1982), a notion that has been less-studied than
perceived primary control (Peck et al., 2013; Peck & Shu, 2009) in the emergence of
psychological ownership. In future research, it may be interesting to examine ways that game
players adapt themselves to their character and their gaming environment that might
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inadvertently facilitate an illusion of control, thereby enhancing their feelings of ownership of an
avatar and an environment.
The Social Side of Psychological Ownership
Social Media
Through social media, consumers are able to co-construct the self in conjunction with
others, and friends reaffirm each others’ sense of self by posting, tagging and commenting (Belk,
2013). Accordingly, social media provide consumers a fertile environment for satisfying the
motivations, or roots, of psychological ownership: having a place; feeling a sense of efficacy or
effectance; and coming to know, expressing and maintaining a sense of identity (Pierce et al.,
2003). Research by Karahanna, Xu and Zhang (2015) suggests that social media enable a variety
of behaviors that facilitate the emergence of psychological ownership of a digital environment,
such as composing and publishing self-related content, commenting on others’ work, problem
solving in innovation communities, reviewing and evaluating products, seeking and receiving
guidance, and other helping-oriented behaviors in user communities. Therefore, these researchers
proposed that consumers who are more motivated by a need for psychological ownership might
be more likely to use social media.
To examine this proposition, they developed a multi-faceted measure of psychological
ownership motivation based on the the three roots of psychological ownership. They surveyed
social media users in two waves, measuring psychological ownership motivation in the first
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wave, and usage frequency of various kinds of social media two weeks later. Developing an
aggregate measure of social media use encompassing a variety of forms of social media, they
found that consumers who were more motivated by a need for psychological ownership indeed
used social media more frequently. Other researchers have found that feelings of ownership for a
social media environment are associated with an increased willingness to pay for products and
services in the environment as well as increased usage intentions (Zhao, Chen, & Wang, 2016).
Further, normative influences play a role in the emegernce of psychological ownership in social
media because when friends and family expect consumers to participate, they are more likely to
invest themselves in the medium (Zhao et al., 2016).
However, many consumers are exposed to social media and other opportunities for two-
way communication in digital content, but never actually participate in these communication
opportunities. For example, the 90-9-1 rule, often noted by digital marketers (Nielsen, 2006;
Rubin, 2013), suggests that in any particular online forum or website, only 1% of users actually
post content and 9% may synthesize it or curate it, while 90% are “lurkers,” or people who visit a
site but do not actively post comments or content (Schlosser, 2005). Nonetheless, there is reason
to believe the mere opportunity for two-way communication on a website, such as link to post a
comment, might impact consumers’ feelings of ownership (Kirk & Swain, 2016). For example,
researchers have demonstrated that providing consumers an opportunity to vote on the design of
a new product increases product valuation by enhancing psychological ownership of the product
(Fuchs et al., 2010).
In recent research (Kirk & Swain, 2016), we show that offering consumers opportunities
for two-way communication – that is, to have an impact on the content they consume – is
empowering and enhances consumers’ valuation of the digital content by increasing their
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feelings of ownership. However, the emergence of psychological ownership of a target depends
on the situational motivations of the individual (Pierce et al., 2003). Psychological ownership
emerges more strongly in weak situations, which are more ambiguously structured, than in
strong situations which are less ambiguously structured (Pierce et al., 2003; Spears &
Yazdanparast, 2014). An example of weak versus strong situations is when consumers’
motivations are recreationally versus task-oriented (Kirk, Swain, et al., 2015). We propose that in
a task-oriented situation, such as searching for specific information, consumers will feel more
constrained in their own expectations of their behavior. In this case, a marketer’s invitation to
communicate will feel controlling, reducing consumers’ psychological ownership. On the other
hand, when consumers are recreationally-oriented, such as browsing for pleasure, they feel more
freedom to explore and engage with digital content, and their psychological ownership and
valuation of the content will increase in the presence of an opportunity to communicate.
We conducted three experiments to test this notion. The first experiment was an online
field study involving a college alumni website. We found that alumni exhibited greater
psychological ownership of the website and greater intentions to donate to the school when
provided with a mere opportunity for two-way communication, but only when they were
recreationally- (versus task-) oriented. Such consumers feel freer to explore their environment
and leverage both their own motivations and resources as well as the opportunities presented by
their environment to take ownership (Pierce et al. 2003). In contrast, when consumers are task-
oriented, they are more likely to feel constrained in their own behavior in an effort to accomplish
a task, making them less likely to use their own skills and motivations to leverage environmental
opportunities to take ownership of a target. Similar phenomena have been observed in the
domain of promotions (including online promotions), where some consumers view incentives as
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an empowering invitation while others view them as an external attempt to control or constrain
behavior (Kivetz, 2005; Swain & Cudmore, 2016). In the second experiment, we found that mere
exposure to a two-way communication opportunity in the context of a digital book about travel
enhanced consumers’ psychological ownership and willingness to pay, but that the effect was
more prominent for consumers lower (versus higher) in need for cognition. Consumers high in
need for cognition enjoy effortful processing of information (Cacioppo and Petty 1982), and they
will be likely to feel empowered by a mere opportunity for two-way communication regardless
of whether they are recreationally or task-oriented. In the third experiment, we conceptually
replicated the first experiment, finding that consumers visiting a cooking website experienced
greater psychological ownership of the site and greater willingness to pay for a promoted item (a
mixing bowl). However, the effect was stronger for consumers who were primed with an
interdependent (versus independent) self-construal. Recreationally-oriented consumers primed
with an independent self-construal exhibited diminished psychological ownership and
willingness to pay when exposed to two-way communication opportunities. These findings
support the notion that in consumers with an interdependent self-construal, a mere opportunity to
communicate will activate social goals, such as sharing information for the benefit of others,
whereas among independent consumers, the same communication opportunity will provide a
vehicle for enhancing the self (Kitayama, et al. 1997).
Virtual Communities
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Hulland et al. (2015) suggest that virtual communities can serve as targets of
psychological ownership by facilitating users’ collective sense of self, or an aggregate extended
self (Belk, 2013). Lee and Suh (2015) argue that in a virtual community, members have the
opportunity to invest time and effort in creating and presenting their ideal selves. They suggest
that a larger positive discrepancy between their (better) cyber self and their actual self is
reflective of an increased investment of self and should therefore enhance feelings of ownership
of the community. Their correlational study of users of a variety of virtual communities, in
which they measured both actual (perceived) and cyber (presented) self-concept (Marsh, Smith,
& Barnes, 1983) and computed the difference, supports their conceptualization.
Zhang, Nie, Yan and Wang (2014) use social exchange theory to examine the role of
psychological ownership of a brand community. They explain that social exchange
embeddedness includes both relationship embeddedness and structural embeddedness
(Granovetter, 1985). Relational embeddedness refers to the mode and strength of interpersonal
connections – the quality of the relationships – whereas structural embeddedness refers to the
centrality of the position in the community which the individual perceives themselves to hold.
The authors argue that relationship embeddedness should enhance feelings of home, expressing
and maintaining one’s self-identity as well as confirming one’s feelings of effectance, all of
which are motivations for psychological ownership (Pierce et al., 2003). They additionally
propose that individuals who are more central to the network are more able to obtain resources
and gain access to key figures in the community, and thus have greater feelings of influence or
control of the community. Results of a survey of 410 members of the online brand community
for Meizu, a Chinese consumer electronics company, support their hypotheses. They find that the
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effects of both kinds of network embeddedness on stewardship (protecting the brand) and loyalty
(repelling other brands) are mediated by psychological ownership of the brand community.
A potential limitation of this study is that the measure of psychological ownership
included both individual (“This is my brand community”) and collective (“I feel that the brand
community is ours”) psychological ownership statements. While individual and collective
psychological ownership may be conceptually distinct constructs (Pierce & Jussila, 2010; Pierce,
Jussila, & Li, 2017) and it would be interesting to examine whether or how their roles differ in
the context of a brand community.
Directions for Future Research
In this chapter, we have reviewed and organized the emerging literature on psychological
ownership of digital technology, encompassing digital affordances, digital content, social media,
gaming, and virtual communities. From this literature, it becomes evident that despite the
intangible nature of digital technologies, consumers can come to feel ownership of many
different types of digital targets. These include digital consumption objects such as an avatar
(Molesworth et al., 2016); digital virtual possessions such as a car (Watkins, Denegri-Knott, &
Molesworth, 2016); the content, such as a digital book or website (Kirk & Swain, 2016) or music
(Kim et al., 2016); a community (J. Lee & Suh, 2015), such as a brand community (Zhang et al.,
2014); or a game, such as a virtual world (Y. Lee & Chen, 2011) or a multiplayer online game
(Moon et al., 2013). We conclude that the affordances or design of a digital environment play a
key role in facilitating the emergence of psychological ownership (Baxter et al., 2015; Brasel &
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Gips, 2014; Kirk, Swain, et al., 2015). Further, digital technologies, in particular social media,
can help satisfy consumers’ motivations for psychological ownership: maintaining and
communicating self-identity, having a place, and feeling a sense of efficacy or effectance
(Karahanna et al., 2015). Even consumers’ motivational orientation – whether recreational or
task-oriented – impacts the emergence of feelings of ownership of interactive content (Kirk &
Swain, 2016).
Nonetheless, despite these substantive contributions to the literature, much research has
yet to be done, and we explore some opportunities below.
Emotions
Psychological ownership has both cognitive and affective components (Pierce et al.,
2003). An emotional motivator of psychological ownership that has been theorized (Pierce &
Jussila, 2011) but not empirically tested is arousal, defined as the degree to which an individual
feels stimulated, excited or alert (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974). Consumers often discard old
possessions in favor of new in order to satisfy their need for stimulation, and for this reason,
arousal is considered a root, or motivation for psychological ownership (Pierce & Jussila, 2011).
On the other hand, evidence suggests that arousal can have an inverted U-shaped effect on
attitude (Kaltcheva & Weitz, 2006; Mehrabian & Russell, 1974). Arousal elicits approach
responses at moderate levels, but avoidance responses at very low levels when consumers are
bored, or at high levels when consumers are over-stimulated. The effect of the aesthetics and
interactive features of a website and other digital content on arousal has been documented (Kirk
& Hanna, 2014; Wang, Minor, & Wei, 2011). Given the effect of psychological ownership on
21
important consumer outcomes such as willingness to pay and word-of-mouth, the nature of the
relationship between arousal and psychological ownership should be examined.
In prior research (Kirk, Swain, et al., 2015), we have also proposed that pride is a key
emotion that has a multi-faceted relationship with psychological ownership, especially in digital
contexts. Authentic pride, attributed to effort, and hubristic pride, attributed to the self, are two
facets of this self-conscious emotion and its effect strengthens in the presence of others (Tracy &
Robins, 2007), as should be the case in social media and online user-generated content. We have
suggested that as digital users successfully explore and appropriate a new feature, app, or
capability, authentic pride should be elicited (Kirk, Swain, et al., 2015). This pride from
discovery, or feeling that one is the first in a social group to discover a new feature or app,
should be a key motivator of psychological ownership. Indeed, initial evidence suggests that
when consumers are the first to post an online review of a product, their psychological ownership
will increase (Valsesia, Nunes, & Ordo, 2016). Nonetheless, despite anecdotal evidence of pride
expressions in online user-generated content, empirical evidence of its relationship to
psychological ownership and its outcomes remains scarce (Sinclair & Tinson, 2017).
We also note Watkins and Molesworth’s (2012) finding that users of digital worlds such
as Second Life explain that although they develop strong feelings of attachment to their digital
possessions, these feelings seem “weird” to them. Despite the pleasure consumers derive from
these activities, there is evidently some level of discomfort in knowing that one is strongly
attached to something that does not tangibly exist. This reminds us of research documenting the
“uncanny valley,” in which robots are better accepted when they do not closely resemble humans
(Mori, MacDorman, & Kageki, 2012), as well as other “creepy” feelings (McAndrew &
Koehnke, 2016). Thus, we encourage future research on the “weirdness” consumers may
22
experience when extending their identities, ownership, and interactions into the realm of digital
technologies. Given the role of extreme psychological ownership in hoarding behavior (Chu, this
volume), hoarding of digital virtual goods, such as in videogames, might also manifest.
Finally, another emotion-laden outcome of psychological ownership that has been less-
explored in consumer behavior is territoriality (Brown, Lawrence, & Robinson, 2005; Kirk,
2018; Kirk, Peck, & Swain, forthcoming). In recent research with our colleague, Joann Peck
(Kirk, Peck, & Swain, forthcoming), we have shown that consumers perceive infringement and
respond territorially when their psychological ownership of a product is high and they perceive
that another consumer is signaling ownership of the same product by indicating control, intimate
knowledge, or investment of self in the product. This process might also be evidenced in digital
environments, such as in multiplayer gaming or online product reviews (Weathers, Swain, &
Grover, 2015). For example, when a consumer posts a review based on their intimate knowledge
of a hotel or restaurant, a novice manager who responds online may inadvertently infringe on the
posting consumer’s territory by also signaling intimate knowledge or control of the
establishment. Anecdotal evidence suggests that gamers tend to be very proprietary in their
defense of their own gaming platform, and consumers in a virtual world may even retaliate
against other consumers signaling ownership of their digital virtual possessions. In another
example, Virgin America permits consumers to choose an avatar when booking a flight online,
which then appears in their seating chart. While enabling consumers to control their experience
by choosing an avatar should enhance their feelings of ownership, it would be interesting to
examine whether feelings of infringement could also ensue, especially when another consumer
with the same avatar chooses an adjacent seat.
23
Yours, Mine or Ours? Dimensions of Ownership, Access-Based Services and Collective
Psychological Ownership
Watkins, Denegri-Knott, & Molesworth (2016) observe that the relationship between
psychological and legal ownership (or possession and ownership) has not been adequately
explicated in the marketing literature, and it becomes particularly complex in the realm of digital
virtual goods, such as ebooks, music, and digital content. They argue that the literature has
focused on a dichotomization of (legal) ownership and access-based services, but that a more
fragmented view of ownership which accommodates the nuances of ownership rights, such as
right to use, right to transform, right to income, right to transfer, as well as possession practices
might be more illuminating. In this view, they explain that ownership can be better understood as
a “bundle” of rights, where each stick in the bundle accords a different ownership-related right
(Grey, 1980). Their extensive classification and analysis of prominent ownership configurations
of digital virtual goods, along with their discussion of the implication for possession practices
provides substantial fodder for future research.
Digital technologies and the Internet have enabled access-based consumption, and despite
the opportunity for users to develop a sense of shared ownership (Belk, 2014) or even a shared
experience (Kovacheva & Lamberton, this volume), evidence from car-sharing services suggests
that consumers have a utilitarian view of access-based services (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012). They
do not seem to be motivated to develop feelings of ownership of the products they access, and
evidence of others’ use of the shared product serves simply to remind consumers that the product
is not “theirs.” However, the research we have presented suggests that digital technologies, such
as a touch screen (Brasel & Gips, 2014), a two-way communication link (Kirk & Swain, 2016),
24
or other design affordances (Baxter et al., 2015) can play a role in enhancing feelings of
psychological ownership not only of the technology but also of the accessed product, and these
may provide interesting opportunities for future research in an access-based consumption
context, depending on the product or service being acquired. In addition, as consumers’ personal
digital data becomes increasingly valued by marketers, understanding whether and how
consumers comprehend their psychological and legal ownership of this data becomes
increasingly important (Kamleitner & Mitchell, this volume).
Another area which has not been well-researched in consumer behavior is the concept of
collective psychological ownership (Suessenbach & Kamleitner, this volume; Wiggins, this
volume), in which consumers develop feelings that a target is “ours” (Pierce & Jussila, 2010;
Pierce et al., 2017). Feelings of collective psychological ownership might emerge among
consumers in virtual communities or in crowd-sharing sites. For example, initial evidence
suggests brand psychological ownership is distinct from consumers’ feelings of emotional
attachment to a brand (Kamleitner, Suessenbach, Thuerridl, & Ruzeviciute, 2016). In online
brand communities, as consumers perceive they are exerting control over the direction of a
brand, investing themselves in reviewing and supporting it, or sharing their intimate stories of a
brand, a sense of collective ownership of the brand might emerge. Individual psychological
ownership can enhance stewardship of a shared resource (Shu & Peck, this volume), potentially
having a positive impact on an online brand community. It is also possible that consumers come
to feel ownership for a stream of social media postings, especially if they have been the first to
comment on the thread (Valsesia et al., 2016) and are feeling pride from investing themselves in
a productive stream of commentary. Brand communities, such as that of the Apple Macintosh,
can even take on cult-like characteristics (Belk & Tumbat, 2005), suggesting the possibility for
25
group territorial behaviors (Kirk et al., forthcoming). This is an important area for future
research.
Other Individual Differences
Some individual differences that are relevant to understanding psychological ownership
of digital technologies have been identified, such as technology innovativeness (Kirk & Swain,
2015), enduring involvement (Kirk & Swain, 2013), need for cognition and self-construal (Kirk
& Swain, 2016), and psychological ownership motivation (Karahanna et al., 2015). However,
other individual differences in the emergence of psychological ownership and its related
outcomes have not been well-studied and much work remains. For example, some people have a
general tendency to feel that products they own are more a part of the self than products they do
not (psychologically) own, termed mine-me sensitivity (Weiss & Johar, 2013; Weiss & Johar,
this volume). However, this individual difference was conceptualized and measured using
tangible goods, and whether people may be equally sensitive in digital contexts should be
examined. Our territoriality research with Joann Peck (Kirk et al., forthcoming) suggests another
individual difference which may have significant consequences in understanding online
behavior: narcissism. Due to their exaggerated sense of self, narcississts’ presented self in a
virtual community is likely closer to their ideal self-concept than that of non-narcissists, and this
would reduce their ideal-cyber self-discrepancy. Extending the logic of Lee and Suh (2015), if
this discrepancy is reduced, narcissists may actually feel a reduced sense of ownership of a
virtual community. Further, narcissists not only believe they are superior to others, they also
believe that other people believe they are superior to them. These perceptions of what
26
individuals think others think of them are termed metaperceptions (Carlson, Vazire, & Oltmanns,
2011). In our research, we have revealed that narcissists have a psychological ownership
metaperception bias which is reflected in their conviction that others think they own attractive
products even if they do not (Kirk et al., forthcoming). This bias tends to increase the potential
for narcissists to feel infringed and respond territorially when their psychological ownership of a
target is high. Given these exaggerated psychological ownership metaperceptions, they may be
less interested in building a sense of collective ownership and instead, respond territorially when
they perceive another member to be signaling feelings of ownership of the community.
Additionally, whereas the perceptions and implications of ownership among children
have been extensively studied (Friedman, Pesowski, & Goulding, this volume), psychological
ownership, to our knowledge, in aging consumers has not been examined. Given the importance
of the aging U.S. population to marketers (Yoon, Cole, & Lee, 2009), and notable differences in
how differing age cohorts respond to digital technologies (Kirk, 2010; Kirk, Chiagouris, &
Gopalakrishna, 2012; Kirk, Chiagouris, Lala, & Thomas, 2015), the emergence of psychological
ownership among older consumers in digital contexts should be examined.
Conclusion
In concluding, we note that some research has begun to examine the emergence of
psychological ownership of information systems in a work context. However, given the
consumer focus of this chapter, we choose not to address this research, but instead simply to note
it (Barki, Paré, & Sicotte, 2008; Coombs, Doherty, & Loan-Clarke, 2001; Gaskin & Lyytinen,
2012; Paré, Sicotte, & Jacques, 2006).
27
While we currently live in what seems like a digitally-mediated world, the arc of
technological history suggests that the integration of digital technologies at the micro and macro
levels will continue to accelerate. Examples of explosive emerging technologies which are
becoming increasingly relevant to marketers include augmented and virtual reality
(Kristofferson, Daniels, & Morales, 2017), the Internet-of-Things (Hoffman & Novak,
forthcoming; Ng & Wakenshaw, 2017), artificial intelligence (Castelo, Ward, & Schmitt, 2017),
and robotics (Belk, forthcoming, this volume) and other autonomous machines (Belk, 2017). In
contrast, human capabilities and psycho-social needs tend to evolve at a much slower speed. This
mismatch will no doubt serve as a continuous source of new phenomena for psychological
ownership theorists to explain and accommodate.
Returning to our opening anecdote as an example, the evidence we reviewed suggests
that, yes, younger consumers who have never encountered physical music media can and do
experience psychological ownership of this digital technology. However, the foci, motivations,
and benefits of ownership are likely to differ from music consumers of the past. Instead of
focusing on the material idiosyncrasies of a well-worn sleeve or vinyl disc or the familiar
behavioral routine required to play the music, they may instead focus on the devices that deliver
music or on personalized, customized, or remixed digital content that they choose to link to the
music. Both sets of behaviors can be largely understood using psychological ownership theory,
but the distinctions between the behaviors can point in different directions for identifying
antecedents, boundary conditions, and consequences. For example, digital technologies are
increasingly social in nature, and thus, social constructs and conceptualizations may be more
critical for understanding how younger consumers experience ownership of music. Similarly,
music marketers may wish to consider the consequences of for the designs of their offerings. For
28
example, whereas conformance quality and durability were important design aspects for vinyl
records, they are essentially non-considerations for digital music. Instead, it is more important to
think of designs in terms of allowing users to easily pick and choose and modify how the music
exists and is experienced. Facilitating psychological ownership among one’s customers is, in
essence, a way of involving them in the creation of a sustainable source of competitive
advantage.
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