Psychological ownership: The implicit association between self and already-owned versus newly-owned objects

- A novel Implicit Association Test measures associations between self and owned objects.
- Associations are formed with newly-owned objects within minutes of ownership induction.
- Newly-owned object associations did not differ from previously-owned object associations.
- It is possible that self-object associations do not depend on length of ownership.

Evidence from explicit measures (e.g. favourability ratings, valuations) has led to the prevalent hypothesis that owned objects become cognitively associated with self-concept. Using a novel version of the Implicit Association Test (self-object IAT), wherein participants categorized objects by colour, we evaluated implicit cognitive associations involving self with already-owned and newly-owned objects. We observed faster responses when self-related words required the same response key as the colour that incidentally corresponded to self-owned objects, irrespective of length of ownership. These findings suggest that participants efficiently form cognitive associations between self and self-owned objects within mere minutes of ownership induction and inspire questions about the extent to which length of ownership drives the strength of this association.