Sense and sensibility of ownership: Type of ownership experience and valuation of goods

• We examined the effects of ownership experience history on product valuation.
• Participants engaged in repeated ownership acquisition games with actual objects.
• Ownership experience eliminates loss aversion and diminishing marginal valuation.
• Final reversals in ownership significantly increase the valuation of the target object.
• Alternating ownership has a higher object valuation than stable or no ownership.

This study examined how the type of ownership experience affects the valuation of a good. We hypothesized that the sense of ownership is a psychological derivative of resource acquisition and allocation. We predicted a valuation order of stable ownership or no-ownership < alternating (interchanging) ownership < sudden reversals in ownership. One hundred and sixty-six participants played an object-acquisition “game”, a computer simulation of gaining or losing the ownership of an object (e.g., a pen, a mug, or a flashlight) with different outcome sequences, preprogramed but unbeknownst to the participants. After each game, the participant valued the target object by indicating their willingness-to-pay price, if the last outcome was a loss, or willingness-to-accept price, if the last outcome was a gain. The valuation of an object was highest after experiencing a final reversal in ownership from losses to a final gain or from gains to a final loss, followed by alternating ownership and stable (patrimonial) ownership or constant non-ownership. Wins or losses are not created equal due to different trajectories in how people come to own (lose) objects. The results also suggest that loss aversion is better understood as a specific result of ownership experience.