Grasping the concept of personal property

The concept of property is integral to personal and societal development, yet understanding of the cognitive basis of ownership is limited. Objects are the most basic form of property, so our physical interactions with owned objects may elucidate nuanced aspects of ownership. We gave participants a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognition 2011-06, Vol.119 (3), p.430-437
Main Authors: Constable, Merryn D., Kritikos, Ada, Bayliss, Andrew P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Cognition. Intelligence
Comparative Analysis
Culture
Data Interpretation, Statistical
Development
Experiments
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Individual Development
Kinematics
Male
Mental Processes - physiology
Miscellaneous
Ownership
Photic Stimulation
Possessions
Property
Psychology
Psychology of self
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Responses
Social Action
Social Development
Space Perception - physiology
Spatial Ability
Stimuli
Stimulus-response compatibility
Visual Perception - physiology
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The concept of property is integral to personal and societal development, yet understanding of the cognitive basis of ownership is limited. Objects are the most basic form of property, so our physical interactions with owned objects may elucidate nuanced aspects of ownership. We gave participants a coffee mug to decorate, use and keep. The experimenter also designed a mug of her own. In Experiment 1, participants performed natural lifting actions with each mug. Participants lifted the Experimenter’s mug with greater care, and moved it slightly more towards the Experimenter, while they lifted their own mug more forcefully and drew it closer to their own body. In Experiment 2, participants responded to stimuli presented on the mug handles in a computer-based stimulus–response compatibility task. Overall, participants were faster to respond in trials in which the handles were facing in the same direction as the response location compared to when the handles were facing away. The compatibility effect was abolished, however, for the Experimenter’s mug – as if the action system is blind to the potential for action towards another person’s property. These findings demonstrate that knowledge of the ownership status of objects influences visuomotor processing in subtle and revealing ways.
ISSN:0010-0277
1873-7838
DOI:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.02.007