Ownership as interpersonal dominance

Rudmin, Floyd W.

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Book

Document type:: Book

Collection:: POP - Possession, Ownership, Property

Title:: Ownership as interpersonal dominance: a history and three studies of the social psychology of property

Author:: Rudmin, Floyd W.

Year of publication:: 1988

Language:: English

Subject:: Besitz Eigentum Sozialpsychologie

Topic:: C - Psychology

Shelfmark:: C/R916 O9

Access:: Free access

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.48671/pop.AC14489044

V4 high self-definition with those of low self-definition. In these dyads, boys of high self-definition used “mine” more often and claimed toys more often than boys of low self-definition. This decreased as the interaction progressed, leading Levine to argue that possession is not anti-social, aggressive behavior, but a socially positive and necessary act of defining and communicating the domain of the self. Newman (1978) similarly found that preschoolers’ expressions and actions of possession were used to define in-groups of joint owners of toys to whom the out-groups must defer and ask permission. A frequent justification of ownership given and accepted by children was, in spontaneous support of Locke, “we made it”. Corsaro (1979), too, found that preschoolers resisted intruding children by making claims of ownership. Because these studies of child linguistic and social development cite neither James nor Cooley, nor even one another, they represent quite independent substantiations of the claim that the origins of self and self-reference are intimately linked to assertions of possession. Furby’s (1980) review of “The Origins and Early Development of Possessive Behavior” explicitly links the development of the child's sense of self, the use of self referent language, and possessiveness to control of the environment. Possessions become integrated with the child’s developing concept of self because they offer a very high degree of contingent control, almost as great as the control one experiences over one’s body. (Furby, 1980, p. 35) Furby uses White's (1959) concept of effectance to argue that the child is essentially motivated to achieve control over the environment and that it is the security of control that facilitates exploration and further development. More particularly, early object relations mediate social development, since the actions of others impinge on the object one is using. Not only is there a social component to object related behavior, but that social component is, among other things, one of interpersonal control and power. The control of an object becomes closely tied to the control of other people.... (Furby, 1980, p. 38) Furby (1980) reinforces this with a review of the research by McGrew (1972), Gage and Lieberman (1978), Krebs (1970) and Strayer and Strayer (1976), all of whom argue that possessive behavior in children is a component of interpersonal dominance relationships. Belk (1987) has reviewed other research on the role of possessions in the self concept. For example, McClelland (1951) hypothesized a hierarchy of distances of self-referents from the central malt There seem to be stages of control by the self defining a true perceptual dimension of distance from the self which might be summarized as follows:

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