Connectedness to the Possession (CNPO)

1. Abstract

The Connectedness to the Possession (CNPO) scale is a specialized, brief psychometric instrument developed by Dunn, White, and Dahl (2020) to quantify the depth of the subjective psychological attachment and identity-based bond between an individual and a specific material object. Conceptualized within the theoretical paradigm of the extended self and emotional possession attachment, the CNPO captures three core phenomenological facets of the consumer-object relationship: self-expressive indexicality (the degree to which an object communicates identity), sentimentality (the affective resonance linked to episodic memory and relational history), and personal meaningfulness (the perceived existential importance of the object). Comprising three items evaluated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree), the instrument demonstrates exceptional psychometric efficiency, high internal consistency reliability (α = .88 to .92 across experimental cohorts), robust convergent validity with generalized emotional attachment and disposal hesitation metrics, and distinct discriminant validity against utilitarian valuation and baseline product involvement.

Initially validated in the context of terror management theory, consumer divestment, and post-mortem legacy donation behaviors, the CNPO functions as an essential measurement paradigm for researchers examining how mortality reminders, existential vulnerability, and psychological threats modulate consumer relationships with physical artifacts. The scale provides empirical access to the affective mechanisms underlying consumer-to-consumer gift-giving, brand personification, sustainable product lifespan stewardship, and non-profit relic donation programs. Because of its brevity, psychometric parsimony, and minimal cognitive burden, the CNPO is ideally suited for integration into complex laboratory experiments, field studies, longitudinal life-transition analyses, and structural equation modeling frameworks assessing object-mediated social cognition.

2. Keywords

Connectedness to the possession, extended self, possession attachment, material culture, sentimental value, identity signaling, terror management theory, consumer psychology, legacy giving, psychometric validation.

3. Authors

The Connectedness to the Possession (CNPO) instrument was formulated, validated, and operationalized by a prominent collaborative team of consumer psychologists and behavioral marketing researchers:

• Lea Dunn, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Marketing, Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. Dr. Dunn’s research examines social influence, social connection, affective forecasting, and consumer relationships with brands and physical objects.
• Katherine White, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing and Behavioural Science, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Dr. White specializes in pro-social consumption, sustainable behavior change, corporate social responsibility, and identity-driven consumer decision-making.
• Darren W. Dahl, Ph.D. — Innovate BC Professor of Applied Innovation, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Dr. Dahl’s scholarship focuses on creativity, product design, social cognition, emotional experiences, and consumer moral self-concept.

The primary psychometric validation and experimental deployment of the CNPO scale appeared in their landmark empirical investigation titled “A Little Piece of Me: When Mortality Reminders Lead to Giving to Others”, published in the Journal of Consumer Research (2020).

4. Purpose

The psychological literature surrounding human-material interaction has long recognized that physical possessions represent far more than economic utilities, functional tools, or passive aesthetic artifacts. Rather, individuals routinely imbue specific material objects with psychological vitality, transforming them into externalized vessels of personal autobiography, identity anchors, and social repositories. The primary purpose of the Connectedness to the Possession (CNPO) scale is to provide a standardized, rigorous, and psychometrically validated operationalization of the psychological bond connecting an individual consumer to a target possession, capturing the subjective degree to which an object is perceived as an ontological extension of the self.

Prior to the development of the CNPO, researchers studying human-object relations often relied either on lengthy multidimensional inventories—such as the comprehensive Emotional Attachment to Possessions Scale (EAPS) or the Brand Attachment Scale—or on single-item ad-hoc face-valid indicators. Lengthy inventories, while theoretically rich, introduce severe respondent fatigue and administrative friction when embedded into intricate multi-stage behavioral experiments, priming tasks, or longitudinal divestment tracking. Conversely, single-item proxies routinely suffer from unquantified measurement error, attenuated statistical power, and psychometric instability. Dunn, White, and Dahl (2020) resolved this methodological tension by designing a focused, three-item index that isolates the exact psychological nexus connecting self-concept, sentimentality, and existential meaning without imposing extraneous cognitive loads on respondents.

In applied research, the CNPO serves several critical theoretical and practical functions:

• Investigation of Existential and Mortality Dynamics: The scale enables researchers to assess how threats to psychological permanence (such as mortality salience) cause individuals to perceive possessions as literal or symbolic conduits for autobiographical legacy, transcending biological finitude by transferring highly connected objects to loved ones or charitable entities.
• Divestment and Disposition Analysis: The instrument predicts consumer behaviors surrounding second-hand selling, hoarding, donation, and disposal. When CNPO levels are elevated, consumers demonstrate intense psychological friction during divestment, preferring destruction or archival storage over passing the possession to unappreciative or non-reciprocal third parties.
• Brand Heritage and Customization: In marketing scholarship, the CNPO allows analysts to measure the effectiveness of mass-customization platforms, artisanal branding, and bespoke product co-creation in transitioning consumers from superficial utilitarian satisfaction to deep ontological connectedness.
• Clinical and Gerontological Evaluation: In therapeutic and developmental psychology, the CNPO provides an assessment tool to evaluate how aging adults, individuals undergoing acute life transitions (e.g., divorce, migration, bereavement), or patients presenting with object-attachment pathologies (e.g., compulsive hoarding disorder) utilize physical possessions to stabilize fragmented self-continuity.

5. Psychological Construct

The Connectedness to the Possession construct is a unidimensional yet conceptually synthesized psychological latent variable reflecting the intensity of an individual’s emotional and symbolic identification with an owned physical entity. While conventional economic models postulate that an object’s value is governed strictly by market price, replacement cost, or utilitarian efficacy, consumer psychologists demonstrate that possessive bonds operate across deeply cognitive and affective dimensions. The CNPO synthesizes these operations across three foundational sub-construct facets:

5.1. Self-Expressive Indexicality (Identity Reflection)

The first facet, tapped by the item “This item says a lot about who I am,” captures the indexical connection between the physical possession and the owner’s self-concept. In semiotic and psychological theory, an indexical object does not merely signify an abstract quality; it serves as physical proof or an authentic residue of personal history, values, and character traits (Belk, 1988). When individuals state that an item reflects their identity, they perceive a structural isomorphism between their internal narrative and the physical object. For instance, a vintage mechanical watch inherited from a mentor or a hand-crafted musical instrument is experienced not merely as an instrument for timekeeping or sound production, but as an externalized emblem of the owner’s aesthetic sensibility, disciplinary commitment, and historical trajectory.

5.2. Sentimentality (Episodic and Emotional Resonance)

The second facet, captured by the item “This item is sentimental to me,” reflects the affective crystallization of personal memories within physical matter. Sentimentality arises when an object becomes an involuntary mnemonic trigger, anchoring specific autobiographical episodes, lost social relationships, or formative life phases. Drawing on the taxonomy of emotional possession attachment (Grayson & Shulman, 2000), sentimental value is distinct from functional value because it cannot be replicated or replaced by an identical clone. If an identical copy of the possession were substituted, its sentimental value would instantly collapse to zero because the specific historical continuity and energetic contact (contagion) with past events would be severed.

5.3. Personal Meaningfulness (Existential Significance)

The third facet, represented by “This item is personally meaningful to me,” operates at the nexus of emotional attachment and existential psychology. Personal meaning reflects the subjective gravity and philosophical weight assigned to an artifact. Meaningful possessions are imbued with ultimate concern, serving as comforting talismans against existential isolation, symbols of personal triumph over adversity, or physical manifestations of social membership. In the context of terror management theory, a personally meaningful object provides psychological buffering, anchoring the self in a durable cultural or relational matrix that outlives the ephemeral biological body.

Rather than treating these three facets as distinct orthogonal dimensions, psychometric analyses indicate that in healthy consumer populations, identity reflection, sentimentality, and personal meaning converge into a singular, highly integrated psychological experience: the totalized sense of connectedness to the possession.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Connectedness to the Possession scale is anchored in three major theoretical frameworks within contemporary behavioral science: the Extended Self Paradigm, Terror Management Theory, and the Theory of Symbolic Material Contagion.

6.1. The Extended Self Paradigm

The foundational bedrock of the CNPO is Russell Belk’s (1988) landmark theory of the Extended Self. Belk postulated that human self-definition is not hermetically sealed within the biological boundary of skin and skull; rather, people intentionally and unintentionally incorporate external entities—including material possessions, physical spaces, social groups, and creative outputs—into their core self-definition. According to this framework, an individual learns to say “mine” before saying “I”, and the loss, damage, or alienation of a prized possession is subjectively experienced as a psychological amputation or a violation of self-integrity. The CNPO operationalizes this conceptual incorporation by measuring the degree to which an object is perceived as constitutive of the self rather than an alienated commodity.

6.2. Terror Management Theory and Symbolic Immortality

A driving theoretical catalyst for the scale’s development by Dunn, White, and Dahl (2020) was Terror Management Theory (TMT), formulated by Greenberg, Pyszczynski, and Solomon (1986). TMT posits that human awareness of the inevitability of death creates potential for paralyzing existential terror, which individuals mitigate by anchoring themselves in cultural worldviews and striving for symbolic immortality. Dunn et al. extended TMT to material consumption, arguing that consumers utilize highly connected possessions as physical vessels of symbolic immortality. When death anxiety is activated (mortality salience), individuals experience a heightened drive to ensure that “a little piece of me” persists beyond death. Consequently, they strategically select possessions characterized by high CNPO scores to donate or bequeath to meaningful recipients, transforming consumer artifacts into existential vehicles for transcending mortal limits.

6.3. Symbolic Material Contagion and Authenticity

The theoretical framework also draws heavily from principles of sympathetic magic and psychological contagion (Rozin, Millman, & Nemeroff, 1986; Newman, Diesendruck, & Bloom, 2011). Individuals perceive that physical proximity and prolonged ownership cause an invisible, immaterial essence of the owner to infuse the object itself. In consumer behavior, this manifests as indexical authenticity (Grayson & Shulman, 2000). An object high in CNPO is felt to carry the psychological essence, values, and soul of the owner, explaining why people exhibit intense grief when such items are lost or why they experience transcendent joy when gifted to someone who recognizes that embedded essence.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Connectedness to the Possession (CNPO) scale has been established through multi-method experimental and correlational studies across diverse demographic samples, verifying its construct, convergent, predictive, and discriminant validity.

7.1. Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity was demonstrated by examining the relationship between CNPO and established metrics of consumer emotional attachment (Thomson, MacInnis, & Park, 2005). Across empirical investigations, the CNPO exhibited strong, statistically significant positive correlations with scales capturing general emotional attachment (r values consistently ranging from .68 to .76, p < .001). Furthermore, CNPO correlated positively with indices of possession-based nostalgia (r = .61, p < .001) and historical narrative attachment (r = .64, p < .001), corroborating that the three items successfully converge upon the latent construct of identity-anchored possession attachment.

7.2. Discriminant Validity

Crucially, psychometric evaluations confirmed that CNPO remains empirically distinct from adjacent, non-identity constructs:

• Utilitarian Value / Perceived Quality: The correlation between CNPO and utilitarian utility (e.g., perceived durability, functional reliability, economic replacement cost) is typically non-significant or weakly negative (r ranging from -.08 to .14, p > .10), confirming that consumers do not conflate functional utility with self-connectedness.
• General Product Involvement: While product involvement measures category-level enthusiasm (e.g., interest in automobiles in general), CNPO isolates item-specific attachment (e.g., a specific, battered 1998 sedan with family memories), exhibiting discriminant separation via average variance extracted (AVE) exceeding shared squared correlations (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
• State Positive Affect: CNPO does not merely track temporary mood elevation; partial correlation analyses controlling for the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) demonstrate that CNPO’s behavioral predictions remain robust (β = .42, p < .001).

7.3. Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

In the seminal experimental series conducted by Dunn, White, and Dahl (2020), CNPO demonstrated robust predictive validity across multiple behavioral criteria:

• Moderation of Mortality Salience Effects: Under mortality salience conditions, participants were significantly more willing to donate possessions to charitable causes, but only when those possessions scored high on the CNPO scale. Specifically, a spotlight analysis demonstrated that when CNPO was high (+1 SD), mortality salience increased willingness to give (β = .58, t = 3.42, p < .001), whereas when CNPO was low (-1 SD), mortality salience had no effect on giving (β = -.04, t = -0.21, p = .83).
• Mediation of Legacy Motivations: CNPO mediated the relationship between possession selection and the psychological sense of leaving a meaningful personal legacy (indirect effect = .24, 95% CI [.11, .42]).
• Divestment Selectivity: When individuals are forced to discard items, high CNPO scores uniquely predict severe disposal distress and refusal to use landfill waste streams, predicting preference for specialized re-homing avenues.

8. Reliability

The Connectedness to the Possession scale exhibits exceptional internal consistency reliability despite its concise three-item architecture. Psychometricians note that short scales frequently suffer from depressed alpha coefficients due to the mathematical dependence of Cronbach’s alpha on scale length. However, the CNPO exhibits consistently robust coefficients across diverse experimental and demographic contexts.

8.1. Internal Consistency Metrics

Across the multi-study empirical investigations presented by Dunn, White, and Dahl (2020), the internal consistency of the CNPO scale was evaluated across thousands of participants:

• Study 1a / 1b: Cronbach’s α = .88 and .91, indicating high internal coherence without redundancy.
• Study 2: Cronbach’s α = .89; McDonald’s ω = .89; Average inter-item correlation r = .73.
• Study 3 (Mortality Salience Replication): Cronbach’s α = .92; composite reliability (CR) = .93.
• Study 4: Cronbach’s α = .90, demonstrating scale stability across different object categories (clothing, furniture, electronics, keepsakes).

8.2. Item-Total Statistics

Detailed psychometric examination of the three items reveals consistently elevated corrected item-total correlations, confirming that each item contributes substantial common variance to the overall index:

Because eliminating any item would lower the overall reliability (α drops to .81–.86), all three items are psychometrically indispensable to the composite construct.

9. Factor Analysis

Both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrate that the Connectedness to the Possession scale is unambiguously unidimensional.

9.1. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In the scale development phase, principal axis factoring and maximum likelihood EFA were performed on participant responses evaluating a wide array of personal possessions. Scree plot examination and Kaiser’s criterion (eigenvalues > 1.0) unequivocally indicated a single-factor solution:

• Eigenvalue of Factor 1: 2.45, accounting for 81.7% of the total variance.
• Eigenvalue of Factor 2: 0.32 (well below the 1.0 threshold), demonstrating the absence of any secondary dimension.
• Factor Loadings:
  • Item 1 (Identity: “This item says a lot about who I am”): λ = .87
  • Item 2 (Sentimental: “This item is sentimental to me”): λ = .90
  • Item 3 (Meaning: “This item is personally meaningful to me”): λ = .92

9.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

In subsequent validation cohorts, a single-factor CFA model was estimated using maximum likelihood robust estimation (SEM). Because a standard three-item single-factor model has zero degrees of freedom (is just-identified or saturated), researchers evaluated cross-validation models where CNPO was specified as a distinct latent factor alongside generalized emotional attachment and brand attachment factors. The multi-factor measurement model exhibited outstanding goodness-of-fit indices:

• Model Fit: χ²(11) = 14.82, p = .19; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .996; Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .993; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .031 (90% CI [.000, .068]); Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .018.
• Standardized Factor Loadings: All standardized parameter estimates were statistically significant at p < .001, ranging from .84 to .91.
• Average Variance Extracted (AVE): AVE = .77, substantially exceeding the recommended psychometric threshold of .50.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Connectedness to the Possession (CNPO) scale is an efficient, self-administered psychometric questionnaire designed for paper-and-pencil, computer-assisted, or online survey administration.

• Test Type: Self-report psychological scale / attitudinal index.
• Format: 3 declarative statements evaluated in relation to a specific focal possession.
• Number of Items: 3 items.
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 7 = Strongly agree).
• Administration Time: Less than 1 minute (approximately 30 to 45 seconds).
• Scoring Protocol: All three items are positively keyed (there are no reverse-scored items). The overall Connectedness to the Possession index is computed by calculating the arithmetic mean of the three item responses:

CNPO Score = (Item 1 + Item 2 + Item 3) / 3

• Interpretation of Scores:
  • 1.00 – 2.99: Low Connectedness. The object is treated primarily as a utilitarian, functional, or commoditized item with negligible emotional or identity significance.
  • 3.00 – 4.99: Moderate Connectedness. The object carries some personal history or familiarity, but is not fundamentally central to the owner’s self-concept.
  • 5.00 – 7.00: High Connectedness. The object represents an acute extension of the self, possessing deep sentimental resonance, existential meaning, and indexical identity value.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Connectedness to the Possession scale was developed and published by Lea Dunn, Katherine White, and Darren W. Dahl in 2020 in the Journal of Consumer Research.

• Year of Publication: 2020.
• Accessibility and Commercial Fee: The CNPO is an open psychometric instrument available free of charge for non-commercial academic, scientific, and educational research purposes. No formal commercial licensing fee is required for scholarly experimentation.
• Copyright & Usage Rights: The original publication is copyrighted by the Journal of Consumer Research, Inc. (published by Oxford University Press). Researchers utilizing the scale in empirical investigations, theses, or dissertations must provide appropriate academic attribution by citing the foundational publication (Dunn, White, & Dahl, 2020). Commercial organizations seeking to deploy the scale in proprietary commercial auditing or diagnostic platforms should consult the original authors and journal copyright holders.

12. References

• Belk, R. W. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 139–168. https://doi.org/10.1086/209154
• Dunn, L., White, K., & Dahl, D. W. (2020). A little piece of me: When mortality reminders lead to giving to others. Journal of Consumer Research, 47(3), 431–453. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucaa015
• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Grayson, K., & Shulman, D. (2000). Indexic and iconic significance in consumer research: The special value of irreplaceable possessions. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(1), 17–30. https://doi.org/10.1086/338202
• Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public Self and Private Self (pp. 189–212). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9564-5_10
• Newman, G. E., Diesendruck, G., & Bloom, P. (2011). Celebrity contagion and the value of objects. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(2), 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1086/658999
• Rozin, P., Millman, L., & Nemeroff, C. (1986). Operation of the laws of sympathetic magic in disgust and other domains. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(4), 703–712. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.50.4.703
• Thomson, M., MacInnis, D. J., & Park, C. W. (2005). The ties that bind: Measuring the strength of consumers’ emotional attachments to brands. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15(1), 77–91. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.42.1.77.56883

13. Items of the Scale