» Articles » PMID: 30594416

Ownership Matters: People Possess a Naïve Theory of Ownership

Overview
Journal Trends Cogn Sci
Date 2018 Dec 31
PMID 30594416
Citations 9
Authors
Affiliations
Soon will be listed here.
Abstract

Ownership is at the heart of people's daily activities and has been throughout history. People consider ownership when acting on objects, engaging in financial matters, and assessing the acceptability of actions. We propose that people's understanding of ownership depends on an early-emerging, causally powerful, naïve theory of ownership. We draw on research from multiple disciplines to suggest that, from childhood, a naïve theory of ownership includes ontological commitments, causal-explanatory reasoning, and unobservable constructs. These components are unlikely to stem from other core theories or from noncausal representations. We also address why people might have a naïve theory of ownership, how it develops across the lifespan, and whether aspects of this theory may be universal despite variation across cultures and history.

Citing Articles

How to grow a self: development of self-representation in the Bayesian brain.

Wozniak M Front Hum Neurosci. 2024; 18:1441931.

PMID: 39624185 PMC: 11609191. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1441931.


Cues of trait dominance elicit inferences of psychological ownership.

Hingston S, Tian L, Deska J Br J Soc Psychol. 2024; 64(1):e12819.

PMID: 39588721 PMC: 11590068. DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12819.


Collective psychological ownership as a new angle for understanding group dynamics.

Martinovic B, Verkuyten M Eur Rev Soc Psychol. 2024; 35(1):123-161.

PMID: 38444522 PMC: 10911682. DOI: 10.1080/10463283.2023.2231762.


Why Children Believe They Are Owned.

Starmans C, Friedman O Open Mind (Camb). 2023; 7:534-549.

PMID: 37637295 PMC: 10449399. DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00090.


Preliminary evidence for progressions in ownership reasoning over the preschool period.

Nancekivell S, Davidson N, Noles N, Gelman S Dev Psychol. 2023; 59(6):1116-1125.

PMID: 36972095 PMC: 10198924. DOI: 10.1037/dev0001531.