Ownership as interpersonal dominance

Rudmin, Floyd W.

Bibliographic data

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

39 The present study does have its limitations, particularly in its restrictions to university males from a non-random selection of national societies which are not culturally independent of one another. However, this study's findings do have bearing on some of the major theories of property that have arisen over the long history of the topic. For example, it did not find a positive relationship between Benevolence and private property, although the function of property, according to Aristotle (Barker, 1952) and the Reformation Christian tradition (Tawney, 1926), was to allow acts of charity. Rather, values of Benevolence tend to be incompatible with an appreciation of the institution of private property. Also, this study did not find a relationship between wanting Recognition and thinking private property is a desirable institution, though the theory that property has an expressive function to communicate social status (e.g. Veblen, 1899/1912) might lead one to expect this. The theory that private property was to provide a private realm for individual agency (Locke, 1690/1952; Bosanquet, 1895) did receive some support in the positive relationship of Independence to a favorable attitude to private property and in the modulating effects of Independence on the within-society correlations of Leadership and Nonconformity values and attitudes towards private property. However, the strongest findings of this study were the relationships of favoring dominance and nonconformity with favoring private property. These are consistent with the earlier cross-cultural research on property by Sumner and Keller (1927), Simmons (1937), and before them, Hobhouse (1922). Thus, it appears that within the cultural ecology of human values. private property might be functionally related to a striving for dominance and to an avoidance of conformity. Private property appears to be a part of the social control mechanisms by which interpersonal behavior is regulated.

Book

Cite and reuse

Book

Image

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation