Possession enhancement in an interpersonal context: An extension of the mere ownership effect

The mere ownership effect (Beggan, 1992) is defined as the tendency of an o wner to evaluate an object more favorably than a nonowner. The present rese arch extends this idea to how people evaluate their property in comparison to others' property. The general hypothesis was that people would display a n interpersonally based mere ownership effect and evaluate their possession s more favorably than others' possessions. Study 1 provided an initial conf irmation of this hypothesis by showing that people associated more good tra its with their possessions than the possessions of others. Studies 2, 3, an d 5 ruled out alternative explanations for the ownership effects. Study 4 f ound that the attributes owners used to describe a possession were more pos itive than the attributes used by nonowners. Implications of the results fo r marketing and marketing research are considered. (C) 1999 John Wiley & So ns, Inc.