Toward a method of psychological ownership mapping

Authors

Michelle Cedeño, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Weston Baxter, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Talya Porat, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Joann Peck, University of Wisconsin Madison

Abstract

The mental state in which an individual claims an object as theirs is called psychological ownership. Psychological ownership is associated with motives, routes, affordances, and outcomes directly linked to attachment. This research introduces a qualitative method for psychological ownership mapping. Ownership mapping seeks to explain the changes in a user’s psychological ownership of a target over time. Previous studies suggested conceptual pathways of ownership. This method extends current research on ownership as it offers a viable application. The method has been tested with over 100 students and is an easy, flexible, and adaptable to many different contexts. We believe that ownership mapping method coupled with the theory of psychological ownership will be an essential tool for designers, organizations, and etc. to better inform design decisions

Keywords

psychological ownership, mapping, qualitative method

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.601

Citation

Cedeño, M., Baxter, W., Porat, T., and Peck, J. (2022) Toward a method of psychological ownership mapping, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.601

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Conference Track

Research Paper