Exploring Uncharted Waters: Use of Psychological Ownership Theory in Marketing

Jussila et al. (2015) nicely review the core elements of psychological ownership theory, and offer suggestions for future research that focus on exploring differences between physical products and services. The aim of this article is not to focus on this distinction, however, but rather to suggest a number of other ways that psychological ownership theory might be fruitfully applied to the marketing and consumer behavior domains. In particular, we describe four areas of inquiry relating to psychological ownership that we believe deserve further attention from marketers: (a) understanding the nature of psychological ownership in the realm of virtual services and social media applications; (b) identifying the unique marketing consequences (both positive and negative) of ownership; (c) accounting more completely for consumers’ satiation with, and even dispossession of, objects over time (vs. a sole focus on acquisition); and (d) extending the notion of psychological ownership to the group/community level.