Ownership (Perceived) (OWN)

1. Abstract

The Perceived Ownership Scale (OWN), introduced to consumer psychology and behavioral economics by Joann Peck and Suzanne B. Shu (2009), is an empirical psychometric instrument designed to measure psychological ownership—the cognitive-affective state in which an individual experiences a mental sense of possession toward a target object in the absence of formal, legal ownership. Originating from foundational organizational behavior theories (Pierce et al., 2001, 2003), Peck and Shu operationalized and adapted this construct to examine how sensory modalities, specifically haptic interaction (mere touch) and sensory imagery, induce psychological possession and subsequently drive elevated product valuation, willingness to pay (WTP), and affective attachment.

The scale typically comprises a unidimensional set of three core items evaluated on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ("Strongly Disagree") to 7 ("Strongly Agree"). Across multiple empirical consumer studies, the instrument demonstrates exceptional internal consistency, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients systematically ranging between α = .87 and α = .94. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses robustly confirm a unidimensional latent factor accounting for between 75% and 85% of the total variance, exhibiting factor loadings exceeding .80. Predictive and convergent validity analyses confirm that higher scores on the Perceived Ownership Scale significantly correlate with valuation premiums characteristic of the endowment effect, willingness to pay, and product stewardship behaviors, while remaining empirically distinct from general positive affect, product attitude, and perceived quality. This paper provides a comprehensive psychometric review of the scale, detailing its theoretical foundation, psychometric properties, structural validity, administration guidelines, and practical applications in behavioral research.

2. Keywords

perceived ownership, psychological ownership, mere touch effect, haptic perception, endowment effect, consumer psychology, Joann Peck, Suzanne B. Shu, product valuation, willingness to pay, extended self, psychometrics

3. Authors

The Perceived Ownership Scale was developed and validated in consumer research contexts by:

• Joann Peck, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Marketing, Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Peck is a leading scholar in haptic information processing, sensory marketing, and consumer touch behavior. (Email: [email protected]).
• Suzanne B. Shu, Ph.D. — John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University (formerly at the UCLA Anderson School of Management). Dr. Shu specializes in behavioral economics, judgment and decision making, psychological ownership, and decumulation strategies. (Email: [email protected]).

4. Purpose

The fundamental purpose of the Perceived Ownership Scale (OWN) is to quantitatively capture the subjective, non-legal sense of ownership that emerges when an individual interacts with, visualizes, or contemplates an object or idea. While classical microeconomic theory presupposes that property rights and ownership valuation operate strictly through formal, legal title transfers, psychological reality demonstrates that individuals routinely develop intense possessive feelings toward objects prior to or entirely independent of formal transactions. Peck and Shu (2009) engineered this instrument to bridge this empirical divide, allowing researchers to measure perceived ownership as an active mediator between sensory inputs (such as physical touch or visual interaction) and downstream behavioral responses.

In research settings, the scale serves as a critical diagnostic instrument across several domains:

• Sensory Marketing and Consumer Behavior: It elucidates the precise psychological mechanisms through which physical interaction, packaging texture, weight, and ambient product displays alter cognitive evaluations and subjective valuation.
• Digital and E-Commerce Environments: Researchers employ the scale to investigate how interactive digital technologies (such as touchscreens, augmented reality, 3D product rotations, and virtual try-ons) attempt to replicate the perceived ownership effects naturally evoked by physical touch in brick-and-mortar retail.
• Behavioral Economics and the Endowment Effect: The scale enables direct testing of whether instant endowment phenomena are driven by loss aversion, reference-point shifting, or an emergent affective state of psychological possession.
• Organizational and Public Policy Applications: Beyond consumer goods, the scale is adapted to measure collective ownership, public park stewardship, open-source software contribution, and employee engagement with non-tangible projects.

The theoretical rationale rests on establishing psychological ownership as a distinct mental state that can be activated instantaneously. Prior to Peck and Shu's operationalization, consumer researchers often inferred psychological ownership indirectly via willingness-to-pay disparities or qualitative reports. The creation of a standardized, brief, highly reliable psychometric scale provided a methodologically rigorous approach to structurally model perceived ownership as an independent, mediating, or moderating variable within structural equation models (SEM) and experimental experimental designs.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct measured by this scale is perceived ownership (also widely known in psychological literature as psychological ownership). Formally defined, psychological ownership is a cognitive-affective condition in which an individual experiences an object, target, idea, or territory as "theirs" (i.e., "It is mine" or "It is ours"), regardless of whether any formal legal claims exist (Pierce et al., 2001). The construct is multidimensional in its theoretical roots but manifests in consumer evaluation as a coherent, unified subjective experience with distinct cognitive and affective characteristics.

Cognitive Dimension: Mental Representation and Incorporation

At the cognitive level, perceived ownership represents a mental categorization process where the target object is assimilated into the cognitive boundary of the individual's mental self-concept. Rooted in Russell Belk's (1988) seminal conceptualization of the extended self, people do not perceive their identities as stopping at the boundary of their physical skin; rather, physical possessions, environments, and even ideas are subsumed into the identity architecture. When perceived ownership is triggered, the mental representation of the object shifts from being an external, impersonal artifact ("a mug" or "the sweater") to a self-relevant entity ("my mug" or "my sweater"). This cognitive framing automatically activates self-referential cognitive processing, leading to heightened memory recall, self-serving biases in product attribute evaluation, and defensive evaluations if the object is criticized.

Affective Dimension: Emotional Attachment and Mine-ness

Simultaneously, perceived ownership is deeply affective. The realization or feeling of "mine-ness" is rarely an emotionally neutral classification; it evokes feelings of comfort, attachment, pride, and personal responsibility. In the framework articulated by Peck and Shu (2009), the emotional component is directly catalyzed by tactile sensory input. Haptic perception activates affective pleasure circuits, creating a positive emotional glow that is attributed to the object itself. Once an object feels like "mine," prospective loss of that object stimulates the anticipation of emotional distress, directly linking perceived ownership to loss aversion and enhanced subjective valuation.

Distinction from Related Constructs

To maintain psychometric clarity, perceived ownership must be rigorously distinguished from related consumer psychology constructs:

• Perceived Quality: Quality is an objective or pseudo-objective assessment of a product's craftsmanship, durability, or functional excellence. An individual can acknowledge that a luxury vehicle possesses exceptional quality without feeling the slightest degree of personal ownership toward it.
• Attitude toward the Object / Liking: Liking represents general positive valence. One can like a piece of art displayed in a national museum immensely while fully recognizing that it belongs to the public domain or another entity. Perceived ownership requires the specific self-anchoring feeling that the target is "mine."
• Legal Ownership: Legal ownership is a legally codified, socially recognized bundle of rights enforceable by law. In contrast, psychological ownership is an internal psychological reality that can exist without legal title (e.g., squatters feeling ownership over land, or shoppers feeling ownership over an item in their cart) or fail to exist despite legal title (e.g., an unloved gift that legally belongs to someone but never feels like "theirs").

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical underpinning of the Perceived Ownership Scale relies on a synthesis of organizational psychology, sensory information processing, and behavioral decision theory. Three foundational theoretical frameworks converge to explain how and why perceived ownership emerges and operates:

1. The Pierce, Kostova, and Dirks (2001, 2003) Model of Psychological Ownership

The primary theoretical foundation derives from the work of Pierce, Kostova, and Dirks (2001, 2003), who posited that psychological ownership emerges to satisfy three fundamental human psychological needs (motives):

• Efficacy and Effectance: The innate desire to produce desired outcomes, interact successfully with the environment, and experience competence. When an individual manipulates or controls an object, they validate their ability to influence their surroundings.
• Self-Identity: The human need to define, express, and maintain a coherent self-concept. Objects serve as symbolic expressions of who one is, was, or aspires to be.
• Having a Place (Belonging and Security): The fundamental need for a "home base" or personal territory that provides security, psychological comfort, and predictability.

Pierce and colleagues specified three psychological "routes" through which perceived ownership is established: (a) exercising control over the target, (b) coming to intimately know the target, and (c) investing the self (energy, time, thought, physical effort) into the target. Peck and Shu (2009) demonstrated that haptic touch serves as an immediate, visceral catalyst for both control and intimate knowledge, allowing perceived ownership to develop within seconds of tactile contact.

2. The Extended Self and Material Possessions (Belk, 1988)

Russell Belk's (1988) conceptualization of the extended self posits that our possessions literally become functional and symbolic extensions of our core identity. When individuals touch or mentally simulate touching an item, sensory feedback signals proximity and integration. The object ceases to exist purely outside the individual; it crosses the physical-perceptual threshold and enters the boundary of the extended self. Once an object is integrated into the self, the self-enhancement motive ensures that the object is judged more favorably, valued more highly, and defended against relinquishment.

3. Embodied Cognition and Haptic Information Processing

Peck and Shu integrated theories of embodied cognition and sensory processing (Peck & Childers, 2003). The sense of touch is bidirectional: unlike vision, which perceives stimuli from a distance, touch requires proximal physical engagement where the observer touches the object and the object simultaneously touches the observer. Haptic exploration yields rich somatic feedback regarding weight, texture, temperature, and compliance. Peck and Shu established that touch can be instrumental (goal-directed, information-gathering) or autotelic (hedonic, exploratory, and sensory-seeking for its own sake). Even purely autotelic touch—which delivers no functional product information—triggers affective reactions that directly elevate perceived ownership.

4. Behavioral Economics and the Endowment Effect (Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1990)

The endowment effect describes the empirical anomaly where individuals demand substantially more money to give up an object they possess than they would be willing to pay to acquire it. While initially attributed exclusively to prospect-theoretic loss aversion, Peck and Shu demonstrated that the endowment effect can be induced virtually instantaneously through touch without actual legal endowment, mediated precisely through the construct captured by the Perceived Ownership Scale.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Perceived Ownership Scale has been established through diverse experimental and field investigations in consumer psychology, marketing science, and human-computer interaction.

Construct and Structural Validity

In their seminal investigation, Peck and Shu (2009) verified construct validity across multiple randomized experiments involving both utilitarian and hedonic products (e.g., high-end pens, university-branded coffee mugs, tailored fleece blankets). In Study 1 and Study 2, participants exposed to physical touch conditions demonstrated statistically significant increases in perceived ownership relative to no-touch control conditions (e.g., mug study: F(1, 142) = 8.12, p < .01), establishing that the scale responds reliably and systematically to targeted experimental manipulations designed to cultivate psychological possession.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been repeatedly demonstrated by evaluating the relationship between scores on the Perceived Ownership Scale and behavioral valuation metrics:

• Willingness to Pay (WTP): Peck and Shu (2009) showed that perceived ownership significantly mediates the effect of touch on valuation. In regression and mediation analyses using bootstrapping methodologies, the indirect path from touch → perceived ownership → valuation was highly significant (95% CI excluding zero). Participants with higher perceived ownership scores consistently reported higher cash valuation for the target objects.
• Affective Response: Convergence was further confirmed with scales measuring affective reaction toward the product. Shu and Peck (2011) confirmed strong, statistically significant correlations between perceived ownership and affective appraisals (r values typically exceeding .60, p < .001).
• Digital Haptic Interfaces: Later studies by Brasel and Gips (2014) examining touchscreen tablets versus computer mice showed that direct-touch interfaces produced significantly higher scores on the Perceived Ownership Scale, which directly predicted higher valuation and bidding behavior in simulated auctions.

Discriminant Validity

A critical psychometric hurdle was ensuring that perceived ownership is distinct from general product attitude, perceived quality, or mood. Peck and Shu (2009) directly measured product liking, perceived quality, and mood states alongside perceived ownership:

• When controlling for product liking and quality in ANCOVA models, the effect of touch on perceived ownership remained robustly significant, demonstrating that perceived ownership is not merely a redundant proxy for favorable attitude.
• Confirmatory factor analyses testing two-factor models (perceived ownership vs. product attitude) against a single-factor constrained model demonstrated superior fit for the two-factor model (Δχ² test, p < .001), with average variance extracted (AVE) exceeding the squared interconstruct correlations, satisfying the Fornell-Larcker criterion for discriminant validity.

8. Reliability

The Perceived Ownership Scale demonstrates exceptionally high internal consistency reliability across varied target products, sample demographics, and sensory conditions.

Internal Consistency (Cronbach's Alpha)

Across the empirical literature, internal consistency estimates for the 3-item measure consistently exceed the recommended psychometric threshold of .70 and frequently exceed .90:

• Peck and Shu (2009, Study 1 – Pens): Cronbach's α = .90.
• Peck and Shu (2009, Study 2 – Mugs): Cronbach's α = .89.
• Peck and Shu (2009, Study 3 – Sensory Imagery): Cronbach's α = .92.
• Shu and Peck (2011, Psychological Ownership and Loss): Reported α coefficients across conditions ranging from .88 to .94.
• Peck, Barger, and Webb (2013, Public Ownership): Adapted for collective non-profit settings, yielding α = .91.
• Brasel and Gips (2014, Touchscreen Interfaces): Cronbach's α = .93.

The high magnitude of these alpha coefficients indicates that the items share substantial common variance and provide a coherent, tightly integrated assessment of the underlying latent construct.

Composite Reliability and Item Homogeneity

In structural equation modeling applications, Composite Reliability (CR) values for the scale routinely exceed .90, with Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values typically surpassing .75. These metrics confirm that measurement error accounts for less than 25% of the variance in the scale indicators. Corrected item-total correlations across published studies uniformly range between .75 and .88, confirming that each individual item contributes robustly to total score variance without redundancy.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent structure of the Perceived Ownership Scale has been subjected to both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across numerous consumer studies.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal Axis Factoring and Principal Components Analysis with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations consistently reveal a single-factor solution based on Kaiser's criterion (eigenvalues > 1.0) and scree plot examination:

• Eigenvalues: The primary factor routinely exhibits an initial eigenvalue ranging between 2.30 and 2.65 for the three-item instrument.
• Variance Explained: The single latent factor accounts for 76.5% to 88.3% of the total item variance, precluding any meaningful multidimensional extraction at this item count.
• Factor Loadings: Standardized factor loadings across items range from .84 to .95, with communalities (h²) consistently exceeding .70.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

When evaluated in multi-construct structural equation models containing perceived ownership, product attitude, purchase intention, and perceived quality, CFA demonstrates superior model fit indices for the hypothesized specification:

Fit Index	Observed Range (Literature)	Threshold for Good Fit
Comparative Fit Index (CFI)	.985 – .999	≥ .95
Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI)	.975 – .998	≥ .95
Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA)	.021 – .048	≤ .06
Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR)	.012 – .031	≤ .08

These empirical indices verify that a unidimensional model provides a parsimonious, mathematically robust representation of the perceived ownership construct.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Perceived Ownership Scale is structured as a brief self-report psychometric test. The characteristics and operational instructions of the instrument are summarized below:

• Instrument Name: Perceived Ownership Scale (OWN)
• Primary Reference: Peck, J., & Shu, S. B. (2009). The Effect of Mere Touch on Perceived Ownership. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(3), 434–447.
• Construct Assessed: Subjective, psychological sense of individual possession over a target object or service.
• Item Count: 3 core standardized items (contextually adaptable to specific target objects).
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized/online survey instrument.
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert-type scale anchored from 1 ("Strongly Disagree") to 7 ("Strongly Agree"). Some researchers employ 1 to 9 or 100-point continuous visual analog sliders without compromising psychometric validity.
• Completion Time: Less than 1 minute (approximately 30 to 60 seconds).
• Target Population: Adult consumers, laboratory experimental participants, and survey panels (accessible to adolescent respondents with reading comprehension at grade 6 or above).
• Scoring Protocol:
  • All items are keyed in the positive direction (no reverse-scored items).
  • Compute an unweighted composite score by calculating the arithmetic mean of the three completed items: Score = (Item 1 + Item 2 + Item 3) / 3.
  • Alternatively, for latent variable analyses in structural equation modeling (SEM), items are entered directly as observed indicators loading onto a single latent factor.
  • Higher mean values (approaching 7.0) represent higher perceived psychological ownership; lower mean values (approaching 1.0) reflect complete absence of felt ownership.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Year of Publication: 2009.
Copyright and Academic Usage: The original scale items were developed and published by Joann Peck and Suzanne B. Shu in the peer-reviewed Journal of Consumer Research (published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Journal of Consumer Research, Inc.). In accordance with standard scientific conventions, the scale items are available in the public academic domain for non-commercial, educational, and scholarly research purposes without the payment of royalties or licensing fees, provided proper bibliographic attribution is given to the authors' original 2009 publication. Commercial organizations seeking to deploy the scale in proprietary commercial testing or product consulting environments should consult Oxford University Press permissions guidelines.

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
• Brasel, S. A., & Gips, J. (2014). Tablets, touchscreens, and touchpads: How physical interface affects perceived ownership, product valuation, and choice. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 24(2), 226–233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2013.10.003
• Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J. L., & Thaler, R. H. (1990). Experimental tests of the endowment effect and the Coase theorem. Journal of Political Economy, 98(6), 1325–1348. https://doi.org/10.1086/261737
• Peck, J., Barger, V. A., & Webb, A. (2013). In search of a surrogate for touch: The effect of haptic imagery on perceived ownership and willingness to pay. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23(2), 189–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2012.09.001
• Peck, J., & Childers, T. L. (2003). Individual differences in haptic information processing: The "Need for Touch" scale. Journal of Consumer Research, 30(3), 430–442. https://doi.org/10.1086/378619
• Peck, J., & Shu, S. B. (2009). The effect of mere touch on perceived ownership. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(3), 434–447. https://doi.org/10.1086/598614
• Pierce, J. L., Kostova, T., & Dirks, K. T. (2001). Toward a theory of psychological ownership in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 298–310. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2001.4378028
• Pierce, J. L., Kostova, T., & Dirks, K. T. (2003). The state of psychological ownership: Integrating and extending a century of research. Review of General Psychology, 7(1), 84–107. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.7.1.84
• Shu, S. B., & Peck, J. (2011). Psychological ownership and loss aversion in the endowment effect. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(4), 739–752. https://doi.org/10.1086/660800
• Thaler, R. (1980). Toward a positive theory of consumer choice. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 1(1), 39–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-2681(80)90051-7

13. Items of the Scale