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.