← all facts
decision making
You value the things you own more than identical objects.
The mere ownership effect demonstrates that merely possessing an item increases its perceived value significantly.
In studies involving coffee mugs, sellers consistently demand a higher price to part with an object than buyers are willing to pay to acquire the exact same object. This difference appears even when ownership has been established for only a few minutes.
Your attachment to an object is often a function of your possession rather than the object's utility.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1990)
- What the check found
- The attribution to the 1990 study is correct, and the description of the coffee mug experiment accurately reflects the research. The naming is a minor terminological deviation.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.