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It Looks Like “Theirs”: When and Why
Human Presence in the Photo Lowers
Viewers’ Liking and Preference for an
Experience Venue
ZOE Y. LU
SUYEON JUNG
JOANN PECK
Consumers and marketers often post photos of experiential consumption online.
While prior research has studied how human presence in social media images
impacts viewers’ responses, the findings are mixed. The present research advances
the current understanding by incorporating viewers’ need for self-identity into their
response model. Six studies, including an analysis of field data (14,725 Instagram
photos by a top travel influencer) and five controlled experiments, find that the pres-
ence (vs. absence) of another human in the photo of an identity-relevant experience
(e.g., a vacation, a wedding) can lower viewers’ liking and preference for the venue
(i.e., the vacation destination, the wedding venue) in the photo. This effect is medi-
ated by viewers’ feelings of others’ ownership of the venue and moderated by the
relevance of the experience to the viewer’s self-identity as well as the distinctiveness
of the human in the photo. This research is the first to investigate the impact of
human presence in shared photos through the lens of psychological ownership and
the identity-signaling function of ownership. The findings offer practical insights into
when marketers should avoid human presence in advertisements and how to miti-
gate the negative impact of human presence in online photos.
Keywords: experiential consumption, field data, image analysis, psychological
ownership, self-identity
Consumers and marketers often post photos of experi-
ential consumption online. Examining photos of
national parks of the US on TripAdvisor reveals that about
10% of the posted photos include humans (by June 22,
2022). Similarly, more than half of the cover photos of
wedding venues at The WeddingWire, a public company
that connects consumers with local wedding professionals,
include a wedding couple (by April 5, 2022). The
Zoe Y. Lu (ylu22@tulane.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing
at the Tulane University, 7 McAlister Drive, New Orleans, LA 70118,
USA. Suyeon Jung (suyeon.jung@wisc.edu) is a doctoral student in mar-
keting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 975 University Ave,
Madison, WI 53706, USA. Joann Peck (joann.peck@wisc.edu) is a profes-
sor of marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 975 University
Ave, Madison, WI 53706, USA. Please address correspondence to Zoe Y.
Lu. The authors deeply appreciate the editor Andrew Stephen’s great sup-
port and guidance, the anonymous review team’s valuable input, and the
managing editor Vlad Dovijarov’s generous help. The authors thank Jason
Zhang for his research assistance in Study 1, thank Charles Smith for his
research assistance in Study 4, and thank their respective schools for the
research support. The first author would also like to thank Daniel Mochon
and Mita Sujan for their helpful suggestions, and thank Simin Li, Matt
Story and her family for their inspiration. Supplementary materials are
included in the web appendix accompanying the online version of this
article.
Editors: Margaret C. Campbell and Andrew T. Stephen
Associate Editor: Andrew T. Stephen
Advance Access publication September 22, 2023
V
CThe Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Journal of Consumer Research, Inc.
All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com Vol. 00 2023
https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad059
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prevalence of human presence in these photos raises an
interesting and managerially important question: how does
human presence in photos of experiential consumption
(e.g., a vacation, a wedding) impact photo viewers’ liking
or preference for the venues in the photos (i.e., the vacation
destination, the wedding venue)?
While recent research has studied how human presence
(vs. absence) in online photos impacts viewers’ perceptions
or responses, the findings are somewhat mixed. For
instance, Poor, Duhachek, and Krishnan (2013) found that
human presence in photos of unhealthy foods increased
viewers’ food taste perception during the subsequent con-
sumption of the food. Bakhshi, Shamma, and Gilbert
(2014) showed that human presence in Instagram photos of
random content increased viewers’ engagement (i.e., likes
and comments) with the photos; yet, Li and Xie (2020)
found that human presence in Instagram photos of airline
companies had no impact on viewers’ engagement with the
photos. More recently, Hartmann et al. (2021) found that
the presence of a familiar human’s face in Twitter or
Instagram photos of branded products (e.g., candy, cereal,
ice cream) increased viewers’ engagement with the photos
but decreased their purchase intention for the products in
the photos.
The present research investigates an important factor
that was overlooked in prior research: photo viewers’ need
to construct and communicate their self-identity (Belk
1988;Berger and Heath 2007;Grewal, Stephen, and
Coleman 2019;Kleine, Kleine, and Allen 1995).
Considering the identity-signaling function of ownership
(see Pierce and Peck 2018 for a review) and human–object
associations as the antecedent of psychological ownership
(Beggan and Brown 1994;Brown, Lawrence, and
Robinson 2005;Ehrsson, Spence, and Passingham 2004;
Kirk, Peck, and Swain 2018), we propose a previously
overlooked path for human presence in online photos to
affect photo viewers’ responses: through photo viewers’
feelings of others’ ownership of the product in the photo.
Six studies, including analyses of 14,725 Instagram pho-
tos by a top travel influencer and five controlled experi-
ments, consistently find that the presence (vs. absence) of a
human in the photo of an experiential consumption venue
can lower the photo viewer’s liking and preference for the
venue in the photo. This effect is mediated by viewers’
feelings of others’ ownership of the venue and moderated
by the relevance of the experience to the viewer’s self-
identity, as well as the distinctiveness of the human in the
photo.
The present research makes several important theoretical
contributions. First, our work adds to the nascent body of
research on the impact of human presence in digital or
social media marketing (see table 1 for an overview).
Specifically, prior research has mostly demonstrated the
positive effects of human presence, such as increasing
viewers’ trust of a website or engagement with the posted
content. Our findings complement the prior research that
shows the potential negative effect of human presence on
viewers’ purchase intention (Hartmann et al. 2021;Naylor,
Lamberton, and West 2012). In particular, we not only
show when and why human presence in online or social
media photos would produce a negative effect but also
demonstrate boundary conditions of this effect.
Second, our work adds to the existing literature on
identity-based consumption (Atasoy and Morewedge 2018;
Belk 2013;Berger and Heath 2007;Carter and Gilovich
2012;Grewal et al. 2019;Reed 2004;Van Boven and
Gilovich 2003;Weiss and Johar 2016). For example, recent
research by Grewal et al. (2019) has empirically demon-
strated that consumers use virtual associations between
themselves and a product (e.g., posting about a product on
social media) as an alternative way of actually owning the
product to signal their self-identity. Our work corroborates
the previous research and further demonstrates that virtual
associations between a consumer and a product (e.g., the
presence of a consumer in the photo of a venue) can lead
other consumers to infer the prior consumer’s ownership of
the product.
Lastly, our work contributes to the existing research on
word-of-mouth by showing when and why the content of
shared photos can impact viewers’ preference for a prod-
uct. Specifically, while existing research provides a good
understanding of how transmitters’ needs or motives
impact the content they share (Chen 2017;Dubois,
Bonezzi, and De Angelis 2016; for a review of earlier
research, see Berger 2014), less research examines how
receivers’ needs impact their responses to the shared con-
tent (Poor et al. 2013;Wang, Zhu, and Shiv 2012). Our
findings that human presence (vs. absence) in shared pho-
tos can hurt viewers’ preference for a product corroborate
the preexisting view that most online WOM is self-serving
(i.e., driven by the transmitters’ need, not the receiver’s
need; Berger 2014) and the finding that early adopters may
share content about a new product in a way that prevents
others from owning it (Moldovan, Steinhart, and Ofen
2015).
Practically, the present findings have important implica-
tions. First, research shows that consumers are increasingly
likely to share photos of their personal experiences on
social media (Carter and Gilovich 2012;Diehl,
Zauberman, and Barasch 2016;Hu, Manikonda, and
Kambhampati 2014;Kumar and Gilovich 2015;Valsesia
and Diehl 2022). Meanwhile, marketers tend to encourage
consumers to share their consumption experiences with
others (Chae et al. 2017;Godes and Mayzlin 2009;
Harmeling et al. 2017). While most of the existing research
emphasizes the positive impact of sharing experiences,
such as increasing the sharer’s happiness and perceived
value of those experiences (Beike, Brandon, and Cole
2016;Lambert et al. 2013;Langston 1994;Reis et al.
2010), little research examines the negative impact of
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sharing experiences with others (Barasch, Zauberman, and
Diehl 2018). Our work is the first to show that, when shar-
ing photos of personal experiences with others, some con-
tent in shared photos (specifically, human presence) can
hurt the viewer’s liking and preference for the venues in
the photos, when the venue is for an identity-relevant expe-
rience. The findings suggest that, if marketers encourage
consumers to share their personal experiences (e.g., a vaca-
tion, a wedding) with others, they should not encourage
consumers to include themselves in the photos (i.e.,
selfies).
Second, our work not only cautions marketers that human
presence in shared photos can have a negative impact on
viewers’ liking and preference for the venue in the photo
but also reveals when the effect would occur and how to
mitigate the effect. Specifically, we show that human pres-
ence in photos of less identity-relevant experiences would
not produce a negative effect on photo viewers’ liking or
preferences. Additionally, the negative effect would be atte-
nuated if the human in the photo has a distinctive identity,
such as the employee or the owner of the venue.
Finally, customer engagement (e.g., number of likes or
comments) has been one of the most important metrics that
marketers use to assess the success of an ad campaign
(Bakhshi et al. 2014;Hartmann et al. 2021;Li and Xie
2020). While all prior research demonstrates that human
presence in social media images can increase viewers’
engagement (Bakhshi et al. 2014;Hartmann et al. 2021;
Herhausen et al. 2020;Li and Xie 2020), the present
research is the first to show that human presence in social
media images can decrease viewers’ engagement.
We next build our theoretical model (figure 1) using the
antecedents and the identity-signaling function of psycho-
logical ownership as the bases of our arguments. We then
describe the field study and five controlled experiments
that directly test our hypotheses (see table 2 for a sum-
mary). Finally, we discuss the theoretical and managerial
implications of our findings.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Person–Object Associations and Feelings of
Others’ Ownership
Psychological ownership, also termed “the feeling of
possessiveness,” “the feeling that something is MINE,” or
TABLE 1
RESEARCH ON THE IMPACT OF HUMAN PRESENCE IN DIGITAL OR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Research Type of photos Type of human Moderator(s) Dependent variable(s) Effect
Category I. Independent variable: the presence (vs. absence) of a human(s) in the photo
Bakhshi et al. (2014) Instagram photos of ran-
dom content
Not specified N/A Viewers’ engagement with
the photos
Positive
Hartmann et al. (2021) Twitter or Instagram photos
of products
Not specified N/A Viewers’ engagement with
the photos
Positive
Viewers’ purchase inten-
tion for the products in
the photos
Mixed
Herhausen et al. (2020) Photos on a service
website
Employee Customer orientation,
accessibility of the
employee
Viewers’ service quality
perception of the website
Positive
Li and Xie (2020) Twitter photos of SUVs Not specified N/A Viewers’ engagement with
the photos
Positive
Instagram photos of
airlines
Null effect
Poor et al. (2013) Photos of unhealthy foods Other consumer Healthiness of the food Viewers’ food taste percep-
tion during the subse-
quent consumption of
the food
Positive
Category II. Independent variable: the presence (vs. absence) of a photo(s) with a human(s)
Cyr et al. (2007) Photos on website Musicians N/A Viewers’ perceived useful-
ness, trust and enjoy-
ment of the website
Positive
Cyr et al. (2009) Photos on website Not specified N/A Viewers’ trust of the
website
Positive
Darke et al. (2016) Photos on website Business owner Distribution channel Viewers’ trust of the
website
Positive
Hassanein and
Head (2007)
Photos on website Other consumer N/A Viewers’ perceived useful-
ness, ease of use, trust,
enjoyment of the website
Positive
Naylor et al. (2012) Photos on a brand’s social
media page
Other consumer Similarity, heterogene-
ity, evaluation mode
Viewer’s liking of the brand Mixed
LU, JUNG, AND PECK 3
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“feelings of ownership” (Pierce, Kostova, and Dirks 2001,
2003), is a growing area in marketing (see Hulland,
Thompson, and Smith 2015;Lamberton and Goldsmith
2020;Morewedge et al. 2021;Peck and Luangrath 2023
for a review). Like legal ownership, psychological owner-
ship enhances people’s evaluation of a product (see
Morewedge and Giblin 2015 for a review). Unlike legal
ownership, psychological ownership can be felt for targets
not legally owned such as public parks, lakes, and hiking
trails (Mullenbach et al. 2019;Peck et al. 2021) and can be
infringed when people feel another individual is signaling
ownership of the same target (Kirk et al. 2018).
Person–object associations are the antecedent of psycho-
logical ownership (Atasoy and Morewedge 2018;Belk
1988;Ehrsson et al. 2004;Pierce et al. 2003). People use
person–object associations to infer a person’s ownership of
the object (Beggan and Brown 1994;Cleroux, Peck, and
Friedman 2022;Friedman 2008;Friedman and Neary
2008;Isaacs 1933;Kim 2017;Kirk et al. 2018;Pierce et al.
2003). For example, when dividing assets during a divorce,
people feel that the person pictured with an object has a
stronger claim of ownership over the object than the other
person who was not pictured with the object (Beggan and
Brown 1994). When feelings of personal ownership of an
object are threatened, consumers post selfies with the
object on social media as a way of communicating their
ownership of the object (Kirk et al. 2018). These findings
suggest that seeing an object associated with another indi-
vidual would result in the viewer’s feeling that the object is
others’ or feelings of others’ ownership of the object.
Therefore, we predict that the presence of another human
in the photo of an experience venue would lead photo
viewers to feel that the venue is “theirs” (not “mine”).
Prior research on territorial responses has demonstrated
that, once people infer others’ ownership of an object or
area, they would anticipate less personal ownership of that
object (Kirk et al. 2018) and be hesitant to venture into that
area (Brown et al. 2005). As anticipated ownership predicts
individuals’ evaluation of and preference for products
(Ariely and Simonson 2003;Ericson and Fuster 2011;
Heyman, Orhun, and Ariely 2004;Peck and Shu 2009;
Sevilla, Zhang, and Kahn 2016;Shu and Peck 2011;Weiss
and Johar 2013), we predict that, when people feel that a
venue is someone else’s, they would like the venue less
and prefer other alternative venues over the venue in
question.
To summarize, based on prior research on the antecedent
of feelings of ownership and people’s response to the feel-
ing of others’ ownership, we predict that the presence of
another human in the photo of an experience venue would
associate the human in the photo with the venue in the
photo and lead photo viewers to infer that someone else
has had personal ownership of the venue in the photo.
Consequently, photo viewers will like the venue in the
photo less and prefer other alternative venues. Hereby, we
propose our primary hypothesis and the underlying
process:
H1: The presence (vs. absence) of another human in the
photo of an experience venue will lower the photo viewer’s
liking and preference for the venue in the photo.
H2: The effect in hypothesis 1 occurs because the presence
of another human in the photo leads to the photo viewer’s
feelings of others’ ownership of the venue in the photo.
Relevance to Viewers’ Self-Identity as a
Moderator
Psychological ownership is rooted in people’s need for
self-identity (i.e., the sense of “who I am”; Pierce et al.
2001,2003). Identity relevance has been demonstrated as
an antecedent of psychological ownership (Atasoy and
FIGURE 1
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
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Morewedge 2018). People are motivated to feel ownership
of something if it can define and communicate their self-
identity (Belk 1988;Berger and Heath 2007;Escalas 2013;
Kleine et al. 1995;Pierce et al. 2001). If a product is not
self-defining or not identity relevant, consumers would not
be sensitive to the product’s capacity to garner psychologi-
cal ownership (Atasoy and Morewedge 2018) or to other
people’s infringement of psychological ownership of the
product (Berger and Heath 2007). Therefore, we predict
that, if photo viewers are looking for a venue for a less
identity-relevant experience, they would be less motivated
to feel personal ownership of the venue and thus would be
less sensitive to the cue of others’ ownership of the venue.
As a result, the presence of another human in the photo
would not lead to photo viewers’ feelings of others’ owner-
ship of the venue or lower their preference for the venue in
the photo. Hereby, we propose the following moderator of
our primary hypothesis:
H3: The negative effect of human presence in hypothesis 1
is attenuated when the photo viewer is considering the venue
for a less identity-relevant experience.
Distinctiveness of the Human in the Photo as a
Moderator
People have a universal need for a distinct self-identity
(Belk 1988;Maslow 1968;Ratner, Kahn, and Kahneman
1999). Because people see personal ownership of an object,
experience, or space as an important way to distinguish
themselves from others, they avoid options that others have
had ownership of when they feel similar to others
(Fromkin 1968,1970). This suggests that while a similar
other in a photo may be viewed as competing for owner-
ship and could displace the viewer, this is not always the
case. Specifically, photo viewers may be less averse to
going to the same venue as the human in the photo if the
human in the photo has a distinctive identity and thus does
not compete with photo viewers for the identity that photo
viewers expect from the ownership of the venue. We fur-
ther hypothesize that, if the human in the photo is not com-
peting with photo viewers for the same identity, the
presence of this human in the photo would not lessen the
identity-signaling potential of the venue for photo viewers.
An example of such scenario is when the human in the
photo is the employee or owner of the venue, whose pres-
ence may be expected as part of the experience. We predict
that although in the photo of an identity-relevant venue, the
presence of the employee or owner of the venue will
induce photo viewers’ feelings of others’ ownership of that
venue, it will not pose a threat to the identity-signaling
potential of the venue for photo viewers, because photo
viewers see the employee or owner as distinctive and not
competing with them for the feeling of ownership of the
venue as a customer. Therefore, the presence of the
employee or owner of the venue in the photo will not lower
the viewer’s preference for the venue. More formally, we
propose the following:
H4: The negative effect of human presence in hypothesis 1
is attenuated when the human in the photo has a distinctive
identity (e.g., owner of the venue).
OVERVIEW OF STUDIES
We present six studies in this article. Study 1 is based on
the field data of 14,725 Instagram photos scraped from a
top influencer’s public account. The results lend initial sup-
port to our primary hypothesis (hypothesis 1) by showing a
negative relationship between the presence of a human in
the photo and the number of likes or comments the photo
received, after controlling for possible confounding varia-
bles. Studies 2–6 are controlled experiments. Study 2 fur-
ther supports the primary hypothesis (hypothesis 1) and
demonstrates the mediating role of the feeling of others’
ownership of the venue (hypothesis 2). Study 3 manipula-
tes the pose of the humans in the photos. The results further
support the main hypothesis and its process (hypotheses 1
and 2). Study 4 replicates the main findings of previous
studies with an incentive-compatible design. Study 5 dem-
onstrates a theory-based moderator of the main hypothesis:
identity relevance of the experience (hypothesis 3). Study
6 demonstrates another theory-based moderator of the
main hypothesis: the distinctiveness of the human in the
photo (hypothesis 4). See table 2 for an overview of the
studies.
In a post-study, we recruited 201 participants from
Prolific (49% female, M
age
¼43; one participant did not
provide demographic information) for a nominal payment
and asked them whether the experiences in studies 2, 3, 4,
and 6 were identity relevant (1 ¼extremely irrelevant,
7¼extremely relevant). The results indicated that the
experiences in studies 2, 3, 4, and 6 were all identity rele-
vant. See web appendix A for details.
In all studies, we predetermined a sample size of at least
100 per cell. We report all details about sample size deter-
mination and exclusions in web appendix B. All data and
the web appendix are available in the Open Science
Framework: https://osf.io/z5yq4/?view_only=
3dae035857194250ac71ab5da3e1af99.
STUDY 1: FIELD DATA OF INSTAGRAM
PHOTOS OF TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
Study 1 tests our main hypothesis (hypothesis 1) that
human presence (vs. absence) in the photo of an experience
venue hurts photo viewers’ liking for the venue. We exam-
ine all the photos that were posted by the top travel influ-
encer on Instagram, which allows us to control for the
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photo transmitter’s reach, impact, and posting frequency.
We use photos of travel destinations because consumers
perceive travel as a highly identity-relevant experience
(Bhattacharjee and Mogilner 2014;Keinan and Kivetz
2011;Zauberman, Ratner, and Kim 2009).
Method
First, we identified the top Instagram influencer that
posts contents on travel (via https://www.heepsy.com)by
the time of this study. At the time we conducted this study,
this influencer had posted 14,725 photos of travel
destinations and had 45 million followers on Instagram.
Then, we used Amazon Rekognition (https://aws.amazon.
com/rekognition/), a cloud-based deep-learning powered
image recognition service, to label whether there was a
“person” in each photo and whether there was a “face” in
each photo. Note that, we labeled whether there was a
“face” in each photo, because this would allow us to test
whether our main hypothesis is a “face” effect or a
“person” effect.
We categorized all photos into three categories: photos
that do not include a “person” (category I), photos that
include a “person” but no detected “face” (category II),
TABLE 2
OVERVIEW OF MAIN STUDIES AND FINDINGS
Study Context Design Dependent variables Alternative explana-
tions (ruled out)
Main findings
1 Travel destinations Field data (14,725
photos on
Instagram)
Numbers of likes and
comments
The presence (vs. absence) of a
human in the photo of a travel
destination lowered photo view-
ers’ liking for the photo.
2 Hiking trails 3-condition (no hiker
vs. a hiker facing
away from the
viewer vs. a hiker
facing the viewer)
Preference for the
focal trail, feelings
of others’
ownership
Crowdedness of the
trail, appearance of
the hiker
Regardless of whether the human
faces the viewers or not, the
presence of a human in the photo
of a hiking trail led to photo view-
ers’ feelings of others’ ownership
of the trail and lowered photo
viewers’ preference for the trail.
3 Wedding venues 3-condition (no cou-
ple vs. a couple
with a neutral pose
vs. a couple with a
happy pose)
Preference for the
focal venue, feel-
ings of others’
ownership
Pose of the couple Regardless of the pose of a wed-
ding couple, the presence of a
couple in the photo of a wedding
venue led to photo viewers’ feel-
ings of others’ ownership of the
venue and lowered their prefer-
ence for the venue as their wed-
ding venue.
4 Performance centers 2-condition (no visitor
vs. a visitor), incen-
tive compatible
Preference for the
focal center, feel-
ings of others’
ownership
Crowdedness of the
center, realism of
the photo
The presence of a human in the
photo of a performance center
led to photo viewers’ feelings of
others’ ownership of the perform-
ance center and lowered photo
viewers’ preference for the per-
formance center.
5 Wedding venues 2 (identity-relevant
vs. less identity rel-
evant) 2 (no cou-
ple vs. a couple)
Preference for the
focal venue, feel-
ings of others’
ownership
Ease of self-imagery,
relative attractive-
ness of person/
venue
The presence of a wedding couple
in the photo of a wedding venue
increased photo viewers’ feelings
of others’ ownership of the venue
and lowered their preference for
the venue for an identity-relevant
wedding, but not for a less iden-
tity-relevant wedding.
6 Dining restaurants 3-condition (no per-
son vs. a prior cus-
tomer vs. the
restaurant owner)
Preference for the
focal restaurant,
feelings of others’
ownership
Ease of self-imagery,
perceived scarcity,
perceived
uniqueness
The presence of a human in the
photo of a dining restaurant
increased photo viewers’ feelings
of others’ ownership of the res-
taurant and lowered their prefer-
ence for the restaurant if the
human in the photo had an indis-
tinctive identity (a prior cus-
tomer), but not if the human in the
photo had a distinctive identity
(the restaurant owner).
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and photos that include a “person” with a detected “face”
(category III). By the nature of the categorization scheme,
there were no photos that include both “a person with a
detected face” and “a person without a detected face,”
because as long as one face was detected in a photo, that
photo was put into category III. To facilitate interpretations
of the results, we treated category I (i.e., photos that do not
include any person) as the baseline condition and created
two dummy variables for the regression analysis: X1 was
coded as 1 if a photo falls into category II and coded as 0
otherwise; X2 was coded as 1 if a photo falls into category
III and coded as 0 otherwise.
To control for potentially confounding variables, we
labeled the top ten contents that were detected most fre-
quently in the posted photos (see table 3 for the frequencies
of each) with Amazon Rekognition. In addition, as the
presence of a celebrity in an ad may impact the evaluation
of an ad (Atkin and Block 1983;Kahle and Homer 1985),
we labeled and controlled for the presence of a celebrity in
each photo. We also coded the length of caption of each
photo, the number of hashtags for each photo, and how
many days each photo had been posted at the time we con-
ducted this study. Finally, we coded how many likes and
how many comments each photo had received by the time
of this study. All the information we collected for this
study was publicly available.
Results and Discussion
According to Amazon Rekognition, among the 14,725
photos, the ten most frequently detected contents were
“outdoor,” “nature,” “person,” “human,” “water,”
“mountain,” “animal,” “plant,” “building,” and “mammal.”
See table 3 for summary statistics. Because the presence of
“outdoor” and “nature,” “person” and “human,” and
“animal” and “mammal” were highly correlated (all rs>
0.75, all ps<.001), and “person” has been embedded in
the dummy coding, to avoid redundancy, we controlled in
the regression for the presence of “outdoor,” “water,”
“mountain,” “animal,” “plant,” “building,” and “celebrity”
in each photo, as well as the interaction term of “celebrity”
and “a person with a detected face,” the length of caption
of each photo, the number of hashtags for each photo, and
the number of days each photo had been posted.
Number of Likes and Comments of the Photo. In sup-
port of our primary hypothesis (hypothesis 1), after con-
trolling for the above variables, a regression of the number
of likes each photo received on the type of the photo (i.e.,
X1 and X2; see dummy variables described in the method
section) showed that having a person with a detected face
in the photo predicted fewer likes than having no person in
the photo (b¼42,392.31, SE ¼1,837.79; p<.001; g2
p
¼0.04). Similarly, having a person without a detected face
in the photo also predicted significantly fewer likes than
having no person in the photo (b¼17,735.59,
SE ¼2,074.26; p<.001; g2
p¼0.00). These results suggest
that our primary hypothesis is not a “face” effect, because
the mere presence of a “person” in the photo predicted sig-
nificantly fewer likes for the photo. The same pattern was
found with the number of comments, suggesting that the
presence of a person in the photo decreased photo viewers’
engagement with the photo (table 4).
Number of Faces in the Photo. As an exploratory anal-
ysis, we also coded how many faces were detected in each
photo and investigated whether the number of faces would
moderate the effect. Controlling for the same variables, we
found that “the presence of multiple faces” in the photo
resulted in fewer likes than “the presence of one face” in
the photo, which resulted in fewer likes than “the presence
of a person without a face” in the photo (see web appendix
Cfor full results). These results suggest that, as a travel
destination is associated with more people, photo viewers’
feelings of others’ ownership of this travel destination
might increase, which would further decrease photo view-
ers’ liking for this travel destination.
Study 1 provides preliminary support for the main
hypothesis (hypothesis 1) that human presence in the photo
of an experience venue (travel destinations in this study)
would negatively affect photo viewers’ liking for the
venue. As a robustness check, we also analyzed the photos
posted by another travel influencer on Instagram (a fol-
lower of the influencer in the main study) and found a sim-
ilar pattern. See web appendix D for more details.
We acknowledge that one limitation of study 1 is that
we used the number of likes for a photo as a proxy of the
photo viewer’s liking for the venue (travel destination) in
the photo. One might argue that likes on social media are
TABLE 3
SUMMARY STATISTICS OF FIELD DATA (STUDY 1)
Mean SD Frequency
Likes 133,952.68 90,400.91
Comments 524.50 547.77
Photo age (days) 1,433.73 874.73
Number of hashtags 2.93 2.73
Length of caption (words) 69.97 43.39
1. Outdoor 51%
2. Nature 51%
3. Person 27%
4. Human 26%
5. Water 16%
6. Mountain 15%
7. Animal 14%
8. Plant 9%
9. Building 9%
10. Mammal 9%
11. Celebrity 1%
NOTE.— Numbers are based on photos posted from March 2012 to
September 2021.
LU, JUNG, AND PECK 7
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not always positively correlated with purchase intentions
(Grewal et al. 2019;Hartmann et al. 2021;John et al.
2017). To help address this concern, we ran a post study to
examine the relationship between the liking of the photo
and the liking of the travel destination in the photo among
Instagram users who follow the influencer in study 1.
Results of the post study showed that Instagram users’ lik-
ing of a photo, liking of the travel destination in the photo,
perceived attractiveness of the destination in the photo, and
interest in visiting the destination in the photo were signifi-
cantly positively correlated, whether the photo had a per-
son in it or not. These results further support the use of
likes on Instagram as a proxy of liking of the travel desti-
nations in the photos in study 1. See web appendix E for
more details.
STUDY 2: PRESENCE (VS. ABSENCE) OF
A HIKER IN THE PHOTO OF A HIKING
TRAIL
Study 2 serves multiple purposes. While study 1 showed
support for our hypothesis that the presence of a human in
a photo decreases viewer’s liking for a venue, we use a
well-controlled experiment in study 2 to replicate the pre-
vious finding. We include a measure of the feeling of
others’ ownership to test our proposed process.
We also measure perceived crowdedness of the venue as
it might activate people’s desire to be distinct from others
(Levav and Zhu 2009;Xu, Shen, and Wyer 2012) and may
be a potential alternative explanation. For explorative
analyses, we also measure photo viewers’ perceptions of
the level of engagement, the professionalism, and the real-
ism of the human in the photo (when a human was present
in the photo), because they might affect photo viewers’
preference for the venue in the photo (Jang et al. 2021;
Kim, Choi, and Wakslak 2019;Ohanian 1991).
Method
Four hundred and fifty participants who were located in
the US or UK, spoke English as their first language, and
had an approval rate above 95% on Prolific completed this
study for a nominal payment. We obtained 416 valid
responses (50% female, M
age
¼44) after excluding
responses that had duplicate IP addresses or failed attention
check questions.
This study adopted a 3-condition (in the photo of the
focal hiking trail: no hiker vs. a hiker facing away from the
viewer vs. a hiker facing the viewer) between-subject
design. First, all participants were asked to imagine that
they were considering hiking somewhere in the next month
as a good way to start their new year 2023 (it was
December 2022 at the time of this study) and that now they
were looking for a hiking trail. Then they read the
following:
You have an account on a social media site where people
share photos, videos and stories with friends and followers.
After some browsing there, two hiking trails attract you the
most. These two trails are about the same distance from
where you live, and have similar difficulty levels. Below are
TABLE 4
EFFECTS OF PERSONS AND FACES IN PHOTOS (STUDY 1)
Model 1 Model 2
Likes Comments Likes Comments
No person (baseline)
Person w/o face (d)20,951.61***,
‡
(2,078.16) 76.40***,
‡
(14.64) 17,735.59***,
‡
(2,074.26) 60.14***,
‡
(14.69)
Person w/face (d)53,423.68***,
‡
(1,713.96) 163.12***,
‡
(12.08) 42,392.31***,
‡
(1,837.79) 143.90***,
‡
(13.02)
Photo age 44.07*** (.73) 0.01 (0.01) 42.88*** (0.73) 0.01*(0.01)
Number of hashtags 3,467.09*** (237.38) 13.33*** (1.67) 3,416.91*** (235.66) 11.59*** (1.67)
Length of caption 255.87*** (15.25) 1.69*** (0.11) 250.87*** (15.14) 1.58*** (0.11)
Outdoor (d) 21,326.81*** (1,564.83) 5.41 (11.08)
Water (d)1,522.94 (1,855.64) 26.79*(13.14)
Mountain (d) 5,090.09** (1,970.10) 25.03 (13.95)
Animal (d) 16,806.18*** (1,913.69) 160.07*** (13.55)
Plant (d) 11,124.52*** (2,154.09) 0.31 (15.26)
Building (d)4,182.44 (2,161.68) 11.69 (15.31)
Celebrity (d)26,747.58 (17,308.50) 64.39 (122.59)
Celebrity person w/face 11,275.22 (18,238.08) 28.51 (129.18)
R
2
0.29 0.04 0.31 0.05
Adjusted R
2
0.29 0.04 0.31 0.05
NOTE.— Standard errors are in parentheses. Intercept is omitted from the table. (d)¼dichotomous.
*p<.05.
**p<.01.
***p<.001.
‡
Significant differences between “person w/o face” and “person w/face” at p<.01.
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the photos of the two hiking trails. They are posted by the
same influencer you follow. Both photos have received hun-
dreds of likes.
With the scenario, participants were presented with two
photos (figure 2): one photo of hiking trail A (the focal
trail) and the other of hiking trail B (the alternative trail).
We manipulated the content of the photo of the focal trail,
while holding the photo of the alternative trail constant
(there was never a human in the photo of trail B).
Participants saw a hiker facing the viewer, a hiker facing
away from the viewer, or no hiker in the photo of trail A,
depending on the condition they were randomly
assigned to.
After looking at the photos, participants indicated their
preference between the two trails (“Which one of the trails
do you prefer for your new year hiking trip?”; 1 ¼strongly
prefer trail A, 4 ¼indifferent, 7 ¼strongly prefer trail B).
The responses were reverse coded for the ease of interpre-
tation so that a higher value indicated a stronger preference
for the focal trail (trail A).
To examine the underlying process of participants’ pref-
erence construction, we measured participants’ feelings of
others’ ownership of each trail (“I feel like someone else
already has a high degree of personal ownership of this
hiking trail,” “I feel like this is already someone else’s hik-
ing trail”; 1 ¼strongly disagree, 7 ¼strongly agree)
(Pearson rfor trail A ¼0.73; rfor trail B ¼0.68; ps<
.001). We also measured how crowded each trail looks
(“The trail in this photo looks crowded”; 1 ¼strongly dis-
agree, 7 ¼strongly agree) as a potential alternative account
for the impact of human presence on participants’
preferences.
Then, participants who were assigned to the two condi-
tions where a hiker was present in the photo rated the level
of engagement (“Does the person in the photo look like he
was heavily engaged in the hiking activity?”; 1 ¼not at all,
5¼a great deal), professionalism (“Does the person in the
photo look like a professional hiker?”; 1 ¼not at all, 5 ¼a
great deal), and realism (“Does the person in the photo
look like he was really at this place?”; 1 ¼definitely not,
5¼definitely yes) of the hiker.
To get a better understanding of what led to feelings of
others’ ownership, we also asked participants who were
assigned to the two conditions where a hiker was present in
the photo “Which of the following might give you the
strongest feeling that someone else has a high degree of
personal ownership of this hiking trail or that this is already
someone else’s hiking trail? – The facial expression of
the person/The facial features of the person/The pose
of the person/The mere presence of the person in the
photo/The mere presence of the person’s face in the photo/
Other (please specify).” Finally, all participants reported
their gender and age.
Results and Discussion
Preference for the Focal Trail. A one-way ANOVA on
participants’ preference for the focal trail showed a signifi-
cant main effect of human presence in the photo (F(2, 413)
¼3.90, p¼.021; g2
p¼0.02; figure 3A). Planned contrast
analyses revealed that, in support of our primary hypothe-
sis (hypothesis 1), participants’ preference for the focal
trail was significantly lower if there was a hiker in the
photo (M¼4.29, SD ¼1.96) than if there was no hiker in
the photo (M¼4.83, SD ¼2.02; t(413) ¼2.63, p¼.009,
d¼0.27), with no significant difference between the condi-
tion where the hiker in the photo was facing the viewer
(M¼4.18, SD ¼1.89) and the condition where the hiker
was facing away from the viewer (M¼4.40, SD ¼2.02;
t(413) ¼0.96, p¼.34). These results suggest that the
effect in hypothesis 1 was a “human” effect, not a “face”
effect.
FIGURE 2
PHOTOS OF HIKING TRAILS (STUDY 2)
LU, JUNG, AND PECK 9
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Feelings of Others’ Ownership of the Focal Trail. To
understand how participants constructed their preferences
between the two trails, we took a difference-in-difference
approach and calculated participants’ feelings of others’
ownership of the focal trail relative to the alternative trail
by subtracting the score for the alternative trail from the
score for the focal trail (Kim 2017;Lechner 2010). A one-
way ANOVA on participants’ relative feelings of others’
ownership of the focal trail revealed a significant main
effect of human presence in the photo (F(2, 413) ¼6.13,
p¼.002; g2
p¼0.03; figure 3B). Planned contrast analyses
revealed that participants’ relative feelings of others’ own-
ership of the focal trail were significantly higher if there
was a hiker in the photo (M¼0.64, SD ¼1.61) than if
there was no hiker in the photo (M¼0.11, SD ¼1.07;
t(413) ¼3.49, p<.001, d¼0.39), with no significant
difference between the condition where the hiker in the
photo was facing the viewer (M¼0.66, SD ¼1.57) and
the condition where the hiker was facing away from the
viewer (M¼0.61, SD ¼1.65; t(413) ¼0.28, p¼.78).
For the mediation analysis with a three-level independ-
ent variable, following Hayes and Preacher (2014), we con-
structed two contrasts, X1 (2, 1, 1) corresponding to
the no-hiker condition relative to the combination of the
hiker-facing-the-viewer and hiker-facing-away-from-the-
viewer conditions and X2 (0, 1, 1) comparing the hiker-
facing-the-viewer and hiker-facing-away-from-the-viewer
conditions. We ran a simple mediation analysis
(PROCESS model 4, 5,000 bootstraps) with X1 as the
independent variable, preference for the focal trail as the
dependent variable, relative feelings of others’ ownership
of the focal trail as the mediator, and X2 as a covariate. In
support of hypothesis 2, the presence of a hiker (regardless
of the visibility of his face) in the photo of a hiking trail
(i.e., trail A, the focal trail) lowered photo viewers’ prefer-
ence for that trail through photo viewers’ feelings of
others’ ownership of that trail (b¼0.03, SE ¼0.01, 95%
CI [0.003, 0.060]).
What Led to Feelings of Others’ Ownership of the Focal
Trail. According to participants who saw a hiker in the
photo of the focal trail, the top cause of their feelings of
others’ ownership of the focal trail was “the mere presence
of the person in the photo” (53.3%), followed by “the pose
of the person” (36.6%; v
2
(1) ¼8.53, p¼.003).
Alternative Explanations. To examine whether per-
ceived crowdedness accounted for the main findings, we
analyzed the relative crowdedness score in the same way
as above. Results showed that the focal trail was perceived
as more crowded if a hiker was in the photo (M¼0.36,
SD ¼1.02) than if not (M¼0.09, SD ¼1.09; t(413) ¼
2.46, p¼.014, d¼0.26). However, the mediation analy-
sis revealed that perceived crowdedness did not mediate
the effect of the hiker’s presence in the photo on photo
viewers’ preferences (b¼0.02, SE ¼0.01, 95% CI
[0.002, 0.043]). We also examined the relationship
between participants’ perceptions of the hiker in the photo
(when a hiker was present in the photo) and their prefer-
ence for the trail in the photo. Results revealed that partici-
pants perceived the hiker in the photo to be engaged in the
activity (M¼3.52, SD ¼1.00; significantly above the mid-
point of the scale 3, t(275) ¼8.64, p<.001), moderately
professional (M¼3.11, SD ¼0.97; insignificant from the
midpoint of the scale 3, t(275) ¼1.86, p¼.065), and
FIGURE 3
STUDY RESULTS (STUDY 2)
NOTE.— *p<.01 and **p<.001. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
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really at the trail in the photo (M¼3.33, SD ¼1.11; signif-
icantly above the midpoint of the scale 3, t(275) ¼4.90,
p<.001). Moreover, none of these factors were correlated
with participants’ preference for the focal trail (ps>.56).
Study 2 provides further evidence for our main hypothe-
sis (hypothesis 1) that human presence in the photo of an
identity-relevant experience decreases photo viewers’ pref-
erence for the venue in the photo. This study also provides
initial evidence for the proposed mediator of the main
hypothesis, namely, photo viewers’ feelings of others’
ownership of the venue (hypothesis 2). Results of this
study rule out perceived crowdedness of the venue and per-
ceived engagement, professionalism, and realism of the
human in the photo as potential alternative explanations.
We wish to note that, as a robustness check, we applied
the same experiment design and the same photo stimuli in
this study to a different subject pool (N¼397 undergradu-
ate students from an introductory business class at a large
Midwestern university in the US) and found exactly the
same pattern as in the present study. See web appendix F
for full results.
STUDY 3: PRESENCE (VS. ABSENCE) OF
A WEDDING COUPLE IN THE PHOTO OF
A WEDDING VENUE
Study 3 serves two main purposes. First, it extends the
findings of the previous studies to another type of identity-
relevant experience—weddings. Second, this study exam-
ines a potential moderator of the main effect in hypothesis
1—the pose of the human(s) in the photo. Note that partici-
pants in study 2 reported this factor as the second potential
cause of their feelings of others’ ownership. Therefore, this
study manipulated the pose of the wedding couple in the
photo and examined whether their pose and related factors
(e.g., attractiveness, happiness, level of engagement in the
scene) would impact photo viewers’ feelings of others’
ownership of the venue or their preference for the venue.
Method
Two hundred and ninety-eight participants who were
located in the US, spoke English as their first language,
and had an approval rate above 95% on Prolific completed
this study for a nominal payment. We obtained 274
responses (50% female, M
age
¼40) after excluding
responses that had duplicate IP addresses, failed attention
check questions, or did not follow instructions.
This study adopted a 3-condition (in the photo of the
focal venue: no couple vs. a couple with a neutral pose vs.
a couple with a happy pose) between-subject design. As in
study 2, participants were presented with two photos: one
photo of wedding venue A (the focal venue) and the other
of wedding venue B (the alternative venue). We
manipulated the content of the photo of the focal venue,
while holding the photo of the alternative venue constant.
Participants imagined that “You just got engaged. You
are looking for a wedding venue now. You hope to have an
unforgettable wedding experience at this venue.” They also
imagined that there were two wedding venues that a good
friend strongly recommended. These two venues were
about the same distance from the city center and had the
same capacity (i.e., could accommodate the same number
of guests). Along with the scenario, all participants saw
photos of the two wedding venues (figure 4).
All participants indicated their preference between the
two wedding venues on a binary scale (“Which one of
these wedding venues are you more interested in?”) and
reported their feelings of others’ ownership of each venue
(rfor venue A ¼0.73; rfor venue B ¼0.71; ps<.001).
Participants who were assigned to conditions where a wed-
ding couple was present in the photo also rated how attrac-
tive, how happy, and how engaged the couple in the photo
looked, all on a scale from 1 to 7 (1 ¼not at all, 7 ¼very
much). Finally, all participants reported their gender and
age.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation Check. In support of our manipulation,
compared to the couple with a neutral pose, the same cou-
ple with a happy pose was rated as happier (Ms¼5.63 vs.
6.20, SDs ¼1.01 vs. 0.88; t(181) ¼4.07, p<.001,
d¼0.60), more attractive (Ms¼4.73 vs. 5.34, SDs ¼1.17
vs. 1.35; t(181) ¼3.28, p¼.001, d¼0.48), and more
engaged in the scene (Ms¼4.38 vs. 5.21, SDs ¼1.69 vs.
1.44; t(181) ¼3.54, p<.001, d¼0.52).
Preference for the Focal Wedding Venue. In support of
hypothesis 1, participants’ preference for the focal wedding
venue (venue A) was lower if a wedding couple was
present in the photo of the focal venue than if not (26.8%
vs. 52.7%; v
2
(1) ¼17.93, p<.001). The pose of the wed-
ding couple in the photo (neutral vs. happy) did not make a
difference on participants’ preference for the venue in the
photo (24.2% vs. 29.3%; v
2
(1) ¼0.62, p¼.43).
Feelings of Others’ Ownership of the Focal Wedding
Venue. As in study 2, we calculated participants’ feelings
of others’ ownership of the focal venue relative to the alter-
native venue and then conducted a one-way ANOVA (F(2,
271) ¼8.09, p<.001, g2
p¼0.06). In support of hypothe-
sis 2, participants’ feelings of others’ ownership of the
focal wedding venue was greater if a wedding couple was
present in the photo than if not (Ms¼2.36 vs. 1.38,
SDs ¼1.95 vs. 1.83; t(271) ¼4.00, p<.001, d¼0.51),
with no difference due to the pose of the couple (M
neutral
¼
2.30, SD ¼1.86 vs. M
happy
¼2.42, SD ¼2.04; t(271) ¼
0.41, p¼.68). Following Hayes and Preacher (2014),we
constructed two contrasts, X1 ¼(2, 1, 1) corresponding
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to the difference between the condition where no wedding
couple was present and the condition where a wedding
couple was present in the photo and X2 ¼(0, 1, 1) corre-
sponding to the difference between the condition where the
couple in the photo had a neutral pose and the condition
where the couple in the photo had a happier pose. A media-
tion analysis, treating X1 as the independent variable and
X2 as a covariate, indicated that feelings of others’ owner-
ship of the focal venue mediated the effect of the presence
of a couple in the photo of the focal venue on participants’
preference for the focal venue (b¼0.15, SE ¼0.05, 95%
CI [0.08, 0.25]).
Study 3 provides further support for hypotheses 1 and 2.
Results of this study corroborate findings of study 2 and
rule out attractiveness, happiness, level of engagement, or
the pose of the human in the photo as potential alternative
explanations for the main effect.
STUDY 4: PRESENCE (VS. ABSENCE) OF
A VISITOR IN THE PHOTO OF A
PERFORMANCE CENTER
The key purpose of study 4 is to replicate the main find-
ings with an incentive-compatible design with real conse-
quences and therefore lend further evidence for hypotheses
1 and 2. While previous studies used a professional photo
editor to help ensure professionalism of the photo stimuli
(see web appendix G for more details), for this study, we
took real photos and examined a potential alternative
explanation that photos with a human seem less real than
those without a human and therefore lead to a lower prefer-
ence for the venue in the photo.
Method
All undergraduate students from an introductory busi-
ness class at a large Midwestern university in the US were
invited to participate in this study for extra credit. We
obtained 586 valid responses (52% female, M
age
¼20)
after excluding responses who failed an attention check
question.
This study adopted a 2-condition (in the photo of the
focal performance center: no visitor vs. a visitor) between-
subject design. Because prior research suggests that con-
sumers see extraordinary, special, or unusual experiences
more identity-relevant than ordinary, nonspecial, or usual
experiences (Bhattacharjee and Mogilner 2014;Keinan
and Kivetz 2011;Zauberman et al. 2009), to make sure
participants’ responses in this study pertained to an
identity-relevant experience, in the beginning of the study,
all participants read that “The beginning of a new year
often carries special meanings. People often want to have
some extraordinary experience at the beginning of a new
year.” Then, they were asked to write down a few things
they might do to make the beginning of their new year spe-
cial and unusual.
Afterwards, all participants were told that the research
team was collaborating with two performance centers that
were both highly rated and were at a similar distance from
campus. Participants were also told that they would see
photos of the two performance centers, indicate which one
they would like to visit at the beginning of the new year,
and enter a lottery for a ticket that was only redeemable at
the performance center they chose.
Then, all participants were presented with two photos
(figure 5): one photo of performance center A (the alternative
FIGURE 4
PHOTOS OF WEDDING VENUES (STUDY 3)
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performance center) and the other of performance center B
(the focal performance center). We manipulated the content
of the photo of the focal performance center, while holding
the photo of the alternative performance center constant.
After looking at the photos, all participants indicated
their preference between the two performance centers on a
binary scale (“Which one of these performance centers do
you prefer to visit at the beginning of your new year
2023?”). They also reported their feelings of others’ own-
ership of each performance center as in the previous stud-
ies (rfor performance center A ¼0.80; rfor performance
center B ¼0.78; ps<.001), perceived crowdedness of
each performance center as in study 2, and perceived real-
ism of each photo (“This photo looks real”; 1 ¼strongly
disagree, 7 ¼strongly agree). Lastly, all participants
reported their gender and age.
Results and Discussion
Preference for the Focal Performance Center. In sup-
port of hypothesis 1, participants’ preference for the focal per-
formance center (performance center B) was lower if a visitor
was present in the photo of the focal performance center than
if not (36.2% vs. 63.1%; v
2
(1) ¼42.60, p<.001).
Feelings of Others’ Ownership of the Focal
Performance Center. As in the previous studies, we cal-
culated participants’ feelings of others’ ownership of the
focal performance center relative to the alternative per-
formance center. In support of hypothesis 2, the presence
(vs. absence) of a visitor in the photo of the focal center
increased participants’ feelings of others’ ownership of the
focal center (Ms¼0.74 vs. 0.04, SDs ¼1.39 vs. 1.15;
t(584) ¼6.64, p<.001, d¼0.55), which mediated the
effect of human presence on participants’ preference for
the focal performance center (b¼0.11, SE ¼0.06, 95% CI
[0.02, 0.23]).
Alternative Explanations. Similar to study 2, the focal
performance center was perceived as more crowded if a
visitor was present in the photo (M¼0.62, SD ¼1.32)
than if not (M¼0.04, SD ¼1.39; t(584) ¼5.89, p<
.001, d¼0.49). However, the mediation analysis revealed
that this did not mediate the effect of human presence in
the photo on participant’s preference for the performance
center in the photo (b¼0.02, SE ¼0.04, 95% CI [0.11,
0.07]). Moreover, the photo of the focal performance cen-
ter was rated as more real if a human was present in the
photo (M¼0.48, SD ¼1.70) than if not (M¼0.23,
SD ¼1.36; t(584) ¼5.63, p<.001, d¼0.47). This ruled
out the difference in realism of the photo as a potential
alternative explanation for the negative effect of human
presence on participants’ preference for the focal perform-
ance center.
Study 4 used an incentive-compatible design and an
experience venue of a performance center to replicate pre-
vious findings. The human presence in a photo decreased
viewers’ preference for the venue in the photo (hypothesis
1) as viewers feel others’ ownership of the venue (hypothe-
sis 2).
FIGURE 5
PHOTOS OF PERFORMANCE CENTERS (STUDY 4)
LU, JUNG, AND PECK 13
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STUDY 5: CHOOSING A WEDDING
VENUE FOR AN IDENTITY-RELEVANT
(VS. LESS IDENTITY-RELEVANT)
EXPERIENCE
Study 5 serves two purposes. First, we manipulate the
identity relevance of the experience and test whether iden-
tity relevance moderates the main effect (hypothesis 3).
Second, this study addresses two potential alternative
explanations.
Specifically, prior research shows that the attractiveness
of the model predicts the effectiveness of an advertisement
(Kahle and Homer 1985). Therefore, one alternative
account for hypothesis 1 could be that the human in the
photo is less attractive than the venue in the photo and thus
lowers the viewer’s preference for the venue. To address
this, we conducted a pretest on Prolific to choose a wed-
ding couple that would be equally attractive as both the
focal wedding venue and the alternative wedding venue for
this study (see web appendix H for details).
We also examined ease of self-imagery as a potential
alternative explanation for the main effect. Specifically,
prior research shows that the presence (vs. absence) of a
familiar human’s face in the photo of a product makes it
difficult for photo viewers to imagine themselves consum-
ing the same product (Hartmann et al. 2021). Therefore,
another potential alternative account for hypothesis 1 could
be that human presence in the photo of an experience
venue makes it difficult for photo viewers to imagine them-
selves at the same venue. This study measured the ease of
self-imagery to address this alternative account.
Method
Three hundred and ninety-eight participants who were
located in the US or UK and spoke English as their first
language on Prolific completed this study for a nominal
payment. We obtained 327 valid responses (73% female,
M
age
¼40; one participant did not provide demographic
information) after excluding responses that failed attention
check questions.
This study adopted a 2 (type of experience: identity rele-
vant vs. less identity relevant) 2 (in the photo of the focal
wedding venue: no couple vs. a couple) between-subject
design. As in the previous studies, participants were pre-
sented with photos of the two wedding venues (same ven-
ues and the couple with a happy pose as in study 3). We
manipulated the content of the photo of the focal venue,
while holding the photo of the alternative venue constant.
Participants who were randomly assigned to the identity-
relevant condition imagined that “You just got engaged.
You are looking for a wedding venue now. You hope to
have an unforgettable wedding experience at this venue.”
Participants who were randomly assigned to the less
identity-relevant condition imagined that “You are a
wedding planner. A client just got engaged and is asking
you to recommend a wedding venue now. They hope to
have an unforgettable wedding experience at this venue.”
All participants imagined that there were two wedding
venues for their consideration. These two venues were
about the same distance from the city center and had the
same capacity (i.e., could accommodate the same number
of guests). Along with the scenario, all participants saw
photos of the two wedding venues (venue A and venue B).
After looking at the photos, all participants indicated
their preference between the two wedding venues, feelings
of others’ ownership of each venue (rfor venue A ¼0.72,
rfor venue B ¼0.63; ps<.001), and ease of self-imagery
(“I could easily picture myself at this wedding venue,” “I
had a vivid image of celebrating a wedding at this venue,”
“I was thinking about what it would be like to celebrate a
wedding at this place,” “I can personally relate to the place
in this picture”; Cronbach’s alpha for venue A ¼0.93,
venue B ¼0.90; adapted from Hartmann et al. 2021).
For the manipulation check, participants also rated how
much the wedding ceremony was relevant to their self-
identity (“Do you think the wedding venue would commu-
nicate your self-identity?”) on a scale from 1 to 7 (1 ¼not
at all, 7 ¼very much). Finally, all participants reported
their gender and age.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation Check. Participants in the identity-
relevant condition (i.e., choosing for their own wedding)
rated the wedding to be more relevant to their self-identity
(M¼5.36, SD ¼1.36) than participants in the less identity-
relevant condition (i.e., choosing for a client’s wedding)
(M¼5.04, SD ¼1.55; F(1, 323) ¼3.90, p¼.049, g
p
2
¼
0.01) supporting the manipulation.
Preference for the Focal Wedding Venue. In support of
hypotheses 1 and 3, in the identity-relevant condition,
fewer participants preferred the focal wedding venue if
there was a wedding couple in the photo than if not (30.9%
vs. 46.3%; v
2
(1) ¼4.80, p¼.028). But, in the less
identity-relevant condition, the preference for the focal
venue was the same whether there was a wedding couple
in the photo or not (33.8% vs. 37.7%; v
2
(1) ¼0.22, p¼
.64).
Feelings of Others’ Ownership of the Focal Wedding
Venue. As in previous studies, we calculated participants’
feelings of others’ ownership of the focal venue relative to
the alternative venue and then conducted a two-way
ANOVA. Results revealed no main effect of the identity
relevance of the experience (M
relevant
¼1.60, SD ¼1.81;
M
less-relevant
¼1.73, SD ¼1.81; F(1, 323) ¼0.58, p¼.45),
no main effect of human presence in the photo (M
no-couple
¼
1.54, SD ¼1.83; M
a-couple
¼1.76, SD ¼1.79; F(1, 323) ¼
0.47, p¼.50), but a significant two-way interaction between
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the two (F(1, 323) ¼5.52, p¼.019, g
p
2
¼0.02).
Specifically, in the identity-relevant condition, participants’
feelings of others’ ownership of the focal venue were stronger
if there was a wedding couple in the photo than if not
(M
no-couple
¼1.29, SD ¼1.86; M
a-couple
¼1.90, SD ¼1.72;
t(190) ¼2.38, p¼.019, d¼0.34), supporting hypothesis
2. In the less identity-relevant condition, participants’ feelings
of others’ ownership of the focal venue were the same across
conditions (M
no-couple
¼1.92, SD ¼1.73; M
a-couple
¼1.58,
SD ¼1.87; t(133) ¼1.08, p¼.28).
We conducted a moderated mediation analysis
(PROCESS model 7, 5,000 bootstraps), treating the pres-
ence of a wedding couple in the photo of the focal venue
(no couple ¼0.5, a couple ¼0.5) as the independent vari-
able, feelings of others’ ownership of the focal venue rela-
tive to the alternative venue as the mediator, the identity
relevance of the experience (less identity relevant ¼0.5,
identity relevant ¼0.5) as the moderator, and preference
for the focal venue as the dependent variable. The index of
moderated mediation was significant (b¼0.50, SE ¼0.23,
95% CI [1.01, 0.09]; there was a conditional indirect
effect in the identity-relevant condition (b¼0.33,
SE ¼0.15, 95% CI [0.64, 0.05]) but not in the less
identity-relevant condition (b¼0.18, SE ¼0.17, 95% CI
[0.15, 0.53]), supporting hypothesis 3.
Alternative Explanation. To examine whether ease of
self-imagery accounted for the main findings, we calcu-
lated participants’ ease of self-imagery of the focal venue
relative to the alternative venue and then conducted a two-
way ANOVA on the relative ease of self-imagery. Results
revealed no main effect of the identity relevance of the
experience (M
relevant
¼0.66, SD ¼2.32; M
less-relevant
¼
0.70, SD ¼2.32; F(1, 323) ¼0.04, p¼.85), no main
effect of human presence in the photo (M
no-couple
¼0.47,
SD ¼2.31; M
a-couple
¼0.86, SD ¼2.32; F(1, 323) ¼
1.43, p¼.23), and no significant two-way interaction
(F(1, 323) ¼2.67, p¼.10). Also, a moderated mediation
analysis (PROCESS model 7, 5,000 bootstraps), treating
ease of self-imagery of the focal venue relative to the alter-
native venue as a mediator, revealed that the index of mod-
erated mediation was not significant (b¼2.01,
SE ¼1.36, 95% CI [4.94, 0.46])
Study 5 provides further evidence for the main hypothe-
sis (hypothesis 1) and its underlying process (hypothesis
2). The results rule out the relative attractiveness of the
human to the venue in the photo as well as ease of self-
imagery as potential alternative explanations of hypothesis
1. This study also reveals an important boundary condition
of the main hypothesis, namely, whether photo viewers are
considering the venue for an identity-relevant experience
or not (hypothesis 3).
As a robustness check, we also conducted a study that
manipulated the identity relevance of the experience
through extraordinariness (vs. ordinariness) of the
experience. According to Bhattacharjee and Mogilner
(2014), consumers view extraordinary experiences as more
identity-relevant than ordinary experiences. Therefore, the
study manipulated the identity relevance of a dining expe-
rience by telling participants they were choosing a restau-
rant for a romantic dining experience with their partner on
their anniversary (vs. they were looking for a restaurant for
a normal dinner out with their friend). The results are con-
sistent with findings in the present main study and provide
extra evidence for the moderating role of identity relevance
in the main hypothesis. See web appendix I for details.
STUDY 6: PRESENCE OF A PRIOR
CUSTOMER (VS. THE RESTAURANT
OWNER) IN THE PHOTO OF A DINING
RESTAURANT
Study 6 serves two purposes. First, it manipulates the
identity of the human in the photo and tests whether the
distinctiveness of the human in the photo moderates the
main effect (hypothesis 4). Second, this study examines
whether perceived scarcity or uniqueness of the focal
venue is an alternative explanation for the main effect.
Prior research suggests that consumers avoid consuming
the same product as others because they perceive the prod-
uct that others have no longer unique (Ariely and Levav
2000;Levav and Zhu 2009;Xu et al. 2012). Therefore, a
potential alternative account for hypothesis 1 could be that
human presence in the photo of an experience venue makes
the venue in the photo less unique or less scarce.
Method
Four hundred and fifty participants who were located in
the US, spoke English as their first language, and had an
approval rate above 95% on Prolific completed this study
for a nominal payment. We obtained 420 participants (51%
female, M
age
¼45; three participants did not provide dem-
ographic information) after excluding responses that failed
attention check questions.
This study adopted a 3-condition (in the photo of the
focal restaurant: no person vs. a prior customer vs. the res-
taurant owner) between-subject design. All participants
imagined that they were looking for a restaurant for a
romantic dining experience with their partner on their anni-
versary and there were two restaurants for them to
consider.
As in the previous studies, participants were presented
with photos of the two restaurants (photos for this study
are available from the authors upon request; see web
appendix J for the pretest for stimuli selection): one photo
of restaurant A (the focal restaurant) and the other of res-
taurant B (the alternative restaurant). We manipulated the
content of the photo of the focal restaurant, while holding
the photo of the alternative restaurant constant. Participants
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who were assigned to the “prior customer” condition were
told that the person in the photo of restaurant A was a pre-
vious customer of the restaurant, while those who were
assigned to the “restaurant owner” condition were told that
the person in the photo of restaurant A was the owner of
restaurant. To avoid the confound of the different appear-
ance of a customer (vs. the owner), we held the human the
same in the “prior customer” condition and the “restaurant
owner” condition.
After looking at the photos, all participants indicated
their preference between the two restaurants, feelings of
others’ ownership of each restaurant (rfor restaurant A ¼
0.86; rfor restaurant B ¼0.88; ps<.001), ease of self-
imagery for each restaurant as in study 5 (afor restaurant
A¼0.92; afor restaurant B ¼0.92), perceived uniqueness
(“Does this restaurant look unique to you?), and perceived
scarcity of each restaurant (“Does this restaurant look
scarce to you?”) on a scale from 1 to 7 (1 ¼strongly dis-
agree, 7 ¼strongly agree). Finally, participants reported
their gender and age.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation Check. In a post study, we recruited 150
participants from Prolific and received 147 valid responses
after excluding participants who failed an attention check
question (48% female, M
age
¼44; one participant did not
provide gender information) for a nominal payment. All
participants saw the same cover story as in the main study
and saw the person in the photo of the focal restaurant.
They were randomly assigned to two groups: one group
were told that the person in the photo was a prior customer
of the restaurant and the other group were told that the per-
son in the photo was the owner of the restaurant. All partic-
ipants answered whether they perceived the human in the
photo to be distinct from them (1 ¼strongly disagree,
7¼strongly agree). In support of the manipulation, “the
owner of the restaurant” was perceived as a more distinc-
tive identity than “a prior customer of the restaurant”
(Ms¼5.38 vs. 4.70, SDs ¼1.59 vs. 1.90; t(145) ¼2.36,
p¼.020, d¼0.39).
Preference for the Focal Restaurant. A one-way
ANOVA on the preference for the focal restaurant revealed
a significant main effect (F(2, 417) ¼6.03, p¼.003, g
p
2
¼0.03). In support of hypotheses 1 and 4, the preference
for the focal restaurant was lower if a prior customer was
present in the photo of the restaurant (M¼3.99,
SD ¼1.73) than if the restaurant owner was present in the
photo (M¼4.43, SD ¼1.25; t(417) ¼2.38, p¼.018,
d¼0.29) or if no human was present in the photo
(M¼4.61, SD ¼1.53; t(417) ¼3.41, p¼.001,
d¼0.38). There was no significant difference between the
two latter conditions (t(417) ¼1.05, p¼.30).
Feelings of Others’ Ownership of the Focal
Restaurant. A one-way ANOVA on participants’ feelings
of others’ ownership of the focal restaurant (relative to the
alternative restaurant) revealed a significant effect of
human presence (F(2, 417) ¼40.90, p<.001, g
p
2
¼
0.16). As expected, compared to when no person was
present in the photo (M¼0.09, SD ¼1.28), participants
reported stronger feelings of others’ ownership of the focal
restaurant when a prior customer (M¼1.79, SD ¼2.04;
t(417) ¼7.20, p<.001, d¼1.00) or the restaurant owner
(M¼1.98, SD ¼2.39; t(417) ¼8.26, p<.001, d¼0.99)
was present in the photo. There was no significant
difference between the two latter conditions (t(417) ¼
0.80, p¼.42).
For the mediation analysis, following Hayes (2013),we
first constructed two dummy variables, X1 representing the
“prior customer” condition (coded as 1 if yes, as 0 other-
wise) and X2 representing the “restaurant owner” condition
(coded as 1 if yes, as 0 otherwise). We then ran a mediation
analysis (PROCESS model 4, 5,000 bootstraps), treating
X1 (no person vs. a previous customer) as the independent
variable, feelings of others’ ownership of the focal restau-
rant relative to the alternative restaurant as the mediator,
preference for the focal restaurant as the dependent varia-
ble, and X2 (no person vs. the restaurant owner) as the
covariate. In support of hypothesis 2, we found a signifi-
cant indirect effect through feelings of others’ ownership
of the focal restaurant (b¼0.18, SE ¼0.08, 95% CI
[0.33, 0.03]).
Alternative Explanations. As in the previous studies,
we calculated the relative score of ease of self-imagery,
perceived scarcity, and perceived uniqueness of the focal
restaurant (relative to the alternative restaurant). A one-
way ANOVA revealed that there was no significant differ-
ence across conditions in terms of the relative ease of self-
imagery (M
no-person
¼0.30, SD ¼1.58 vs. M
customer
¼
0.004, SD ¼1.84 vs. M
owner
¼0.16, SD ¼1.63; F(2, 417)
¼1.04, p¼.35) or relative scarcity of the focal restaurant
(M
no-person
¼0.12, SD ¼1.38 vs. M
customer
¼0.20,
SD ¼1.69 vs. M
owner
¼0.06, SD ¼1.25; F(2, 417) ¼1.84,
p¼.16). These results ruled out ease of self-imagery
and scarcity as potential alternative explanations of
hypothesis 1.
There was a marginally significant main effect of human
presence on the relative uniqueness of the focal restaurant
(M
no-person
¼0.44, SD ¼1.59 vs. M
customer
¼0.13,
SD ¼1.49 vs. M
owner
¼0.54, SD ¼1.42; F(2, 417) ¼2.70,
p¼.068, g
p
2
¼0.01). However, the mediation analysis,
treating X1 as the independent variable, perceived unique-
ness of the focal restaurant relative to the alternative res-
taurant as the mediator, preference for the focal restaurant
as the dependent variable, and X2 as the covariate,
revealed no mediation by perceived uniqueness of the res-
taurant (b¼0.13, SE ¼0.08, 95% CI [0.29, 0.03]).
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These results further demonstrated feelings of others’ own-
ership as the focal driver of hypothesis 1.
Study 6 provides additional support for the main hypoth-
esis (hypothesis 1) and the proposed mechanism (hypothe-
sis 2). The results also suggest a managerially relevant
moderator for marketers to turn off the negative effect of
human presence in online photos, namely, including a
human with a distinctive identity (e.g., the owner or
employee of the venue) that does not compete with photo
viewers for the identity that photo viewers expect from the
ownership of the venue (hypothesis 4).
In additional analyses, we found that, in studies 2, 4, and
6, when the gender of the human in the photo (if any) was
held constant as male, the gender of the photo viewer did
not moderate the negative effect of human presence in any
of these studies. See web appendix K for detailed results.
At first sight, this finding seems to be inconsistent with
hypothesis 4 and the main findings of study 6, because hav-
ing a different gender from the human in the photo might
be able to serve as a distinction of self-identity for photo
viewers and thus mitigate the negative human presence
effect. However, the post-study of study 6 (as described in
the “manipulation check” paragraph) revealed that non-
male photo viewers did not perceive the male human in the
photo as more distinct from themselves than male photo
viewers did (M
match
¼4.94, SD ¼1.68 vs. M
mismatch
¼
5.12, SD ¼1.87; t(144) ¼0.60, p¼.55). This lent indirect
support to hypothesis 4 as it highlights the importance for
the photo viewer to perceive the human in the photo as dis-
tinct from themselves to turn off the negative human pres-
ence effect. Future research may further investigate when
the difference of gender would serve as a stronger distinc-
tion of self-identity.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
As self-identity is a fundamental human need (Berger
and Heath 2007;Escalas 2013;Grewal et al. 2019;Kleine
et al. 1995) and consumers often use their ownership of
something to construct and communicate their self-identity
(Belk 1988;Grubb and Grathwohl 1967;Pierce and Peck
2018), the present research furthers our understanding of
how human presence in shared photos impact photo view-
ers’ responses by incorporating photo viewers’ need for
self-identity and their feelings of others’ ownership into
their response process. Across a field study of 14,725 travel
photos on Instagram and 5 controlled experiments, we find
that the presence (vs. absence) of another human in the
photo of an experience venue can decrease the photo view-
ers’ liking and preference for the venue. We show that the
negative effect of human presence in the photo is mediated
by photo viewers’ feelings of others’ ownership of the
venue in the photo (studies 2–6). We also identify two
important theoretical moderators in the present article:
first, the negative effect of human presence in the photo
holds only when the photo viewers are seeking an identity-
relevant experience from the venue (study 5) and the effect
is mitigated when the human in the photo has a distinctive
identity and thus does not compete with photo viewers for
the same identity (study 6).
Theoretical Contribution and Practical
Implications
The present research makes several theoretical contribu-
tions. First, the findings extend the current understanding
of psychological ownership from “the feeling that some-
thing is MINE” (see Peck and Luangrath 2023 for a
review) to “the feeling that something is THEIRS.”
Although prior research has identified various factors that
influence “the feeling that something is MINE,” our work
is the first to empirically show that the presence of another
human in the photo of a venue can lead to photo viewers’
feelings of others’ ownership of the venue (i.e., the feeling
that the venue is THEIRS), which can lower photo view-
ers’ liking and preference for the venue.
Second, the findings advance the current understanding
of imagery marketing (Escalas 2004;Jiang et al. 2014;
Krishnamurthy and Sujan 1999;Petrova and Cialdini 2005;
To and Patrick 2021). In particular, Krishnamurthy and
Sujan (1999) found that providing more contextual infor-
mation (e.g., objects that typically surround a tropical vaca-
tion spot) in an ad helps consumers form consumption
visions and increases ad effectiveness. Our work distin-
guishes human presence from other contextual information
and shows when and why human presence in a contextu-
ally detailed ad could decrease ad effectiveness. Moreover,
recently, To and Patrick (2021) reveal that the presence of
a human with an averted (vs. direct) gaze in the ad facili-
tates narrative transportation and increases ad effective-
ness. Our work complements these findings by showing
when and why the mere presence (vs. absence) of a human
in the ad, regardless of their direction of gaze, decreases
ad effectiveness.
Lastly, our work adds to the growing body of literature
on how human presence in social media images impacts
viewers’ responses. Specifically, while existing literature
examines this question from perspectives of attention
(Bakhshi et al. 2014;Li and Xie 2020), ease of self-
imagery (Hartmann et al. 2021), and social proof (Poor
et al. 2013), we investigate this question through the lens
of psychological ownership and the identity-signaling
function of ownership (Escalas 2013;Grewal et al. 2019;
Kleine et al. 1995). We propose multiple overlooked fac-
tors (identity relevance, interpersonal distinction) that iden-
tify the boundary conditions or moderators of the negative
effect of human presence.
The present research also provides important practical
implications. First, as consumers are increasingly likely to
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share photos of their personal experiences on social media
(Carter and Gilovich 2012;Diehl et al. 2016;Hu et al.
2014;Kumar and Gilovich 2015;Valsesia and Diehl 2022)
and prior research suggests marketers should encourage
consumers to show themselves in the photos (Bakhshi
et al. 2014;Poor et al. 2013), our findings caution market-
ers that the presence of prior customers in online photos of
identity-relevant experiences can lower other consumers’
likelihood of choosing the places or venues in the photos.
Meanwhile, our work shows marketers how to mitigate the
negative effect. Specifically, study 6 suggests that market-
ers can include a human in the photo who does not com-
pete with photo viewers for the same identity, such as an
employee or owner of the venue. We found that this would
not hurt new customers’ interest in the venue in the photo.
This finding also complements recent research that shows
including a photo of the employee on a service company’s
website can increase prior customers’ perception of the
company’s service quality (Herhausen et al. 2020). Finally,
as recent research demonstrates that the content of photos
should match the content of words in online reviews
(Ceylan, Diehl, and Proserpio 2023), our work shows that,
even when the content of a photo matches the word
description, the content of the photo should also match the
photo viewer’s need in identity-relevant consumption.
Specifically, marketers should still be cautious about the
presence of prior customers in online photos of identity-
relevant experiences.
Future Research
We wish to suggest some directions for future research.
First, in the current studies, the distance between the
human in the photo and the photo viewer was ambiguous.
According to prior research, people tend to perceive a dis-
tant (vs. close) other more abstractly (Trope and Liberman
2011) and less identity-threatening (Ordabayeva,
Cavanaugh, and Dahl 2022). Therefore, it is possible that
the negative effect of human presence on photo viewers’
preference is attenuated when photo viewers perceive the
human in the photo as distant from (vs. close to) them-
selves. In one study, we manipulated the photo viewer’s
perceived distance from the human in the photo and found
evidence supporting this conjecture (preference for the
focal venue: Ms¼3.20 vs. 3.88 vs. 3.98 in the close other
vs. distant other vs. no other conditions; web appendix L).
Since people often conflate spatial distance with social or
temporal distance (Liberman, Trope, and Stephan 2007), it
could generate interesting results to study how different
types of psychological distance moderate the human pres-
ence effect. The results would have broad implications for
consumer well-being, as consumers may choose how to
share photos of their experiences (with or without them-
selves in the photos) depending on whether they want to
encourage their networks to go to the same venue and how
close they are with these networks.
Second, in the current studies, we assumed that photo
viewers’ need for self-identity was strong enough so that
the presence of another human in the photo of an identity-
relevant experience would lower their interest in the venue
in the photo. What if photo viewers do not have a strong
need for self-identity? In one study, we manipulated the
relative strength of the need for self-identity (vs. need for
social belonging) by inducing photo viewers’ loneliness
and found that the negative effect of human presence in the
photo was attenuated when photo viewers’ need for self-
identity was less prominent (web appendix M). As research
on loneliness is growing (see Shrum, Fumagalli, and
Lowrey 2023 for a review), we think that it would be
meaningful to examine the interaction between loneliness
and the human presence effect.
A third research question that may be worth further
examination is whether our effect applies to material con-
sumption. In the current studies, we focused on photos of
experience venues because experiential consumption is
more self-signaling than material consumption (Belk 1989;
Carter and Gilovich 2012;Zauberman et al. 2009) and con-
sumers are more likely to post photos of their experiences
than photos of their material possessions on social media
(Hu et al. 2014;Kumar and Gilovich 2015). However, con-
sumers and marketers do post numerous photos of physical
products on social media. Will the presence of a human in
the photo of a physical product impact the photo viewers’
attitudes toward the product? Prior research suggests that it
might depend on whether the product is seen as symbolic
of one’s self-identity (Berger and Heath 2007). If a product
is not seen as symbolic of one’s self-identity (e.g., burger,
candy, cereal, as in Hartmann et al. 2021), seeing photos of
a person consuming the product might increase their evalu-
ation of the product (Poor et al. 2013). However, if a prod-
uct is self-signaling (e.g., limited-edition cars or sneakers,
as illustrated in Berger 2014), seeing photos of a person
signaling or implying their ownership of the product might
hurt the photo viewers’ interest in owning the product.
Purchasing a home as a primary residence seems to be a
context where this effect manifests. Realtor authorities
such as Zillow assert to home sellers that removing family
photos and personal items and generally depersonalizing a
home in listing photos and in person is important to sell the
house. Our work reveals that in some cases, viewers per-
ceive others’ traces as a threat to their ownership and self-
identity.
DATA COLLECTION STATEMENT
The first author collected the data for study 1 from
Instagram and analyzed the data in the autumn of 2021.
The second author collected the data for study 4 in the
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winter of 2022 and the data for the supplementary study in
web appendix F in the spring of 2023 at the University of
Wisconsin, Madison. The second author collected the data
for the pretest of study 6 from Prolific in the spring of
2022 and collected the data for the post-test of study 6 and
the data for the post-test in web appendix A from Prolific
in the summer of 2023. The first author collected the data
for the post-test of study 1 from Mechanical Turk in the
summer of 2022 and the data for all other studies from
Prolific from the spring of 2022 to the spring of 2023. The
second author analyzed these data. The data are currently
stored in a project directory on the Open Science
Framework: https://osf.io/z5yq4/?view_only=
3dae035857194250ac71ab5da3e1af99.
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