particular individuals and sets of individuals for
particular objects is a major political and economic
concern. Much of the discussion of ownership in philosophy
and political economy centers on justification of current
property arrangements. However, such issues are beyond the
scope of the present study. Also, the matters of joint
ownership (Hobart, 1975) and of collective ownership (Furby,
1980), while they can be encompassed by the general
framework presented earlier, will not be pursued here.
Psychological Studies
Ownership has many qualities that should make it a
topical focus in social psychology. It clearly entails
rule-governed social behavior, the selective recognition of
ownable objects and events, and some cognitive processes for
differentiating owners and non-owners. Further, there
should be developmental acquisition processes for all of
these. Nevertheless, while ownership has long been a topic
of interest in the fields of law, political economy, and
SNE it has had irregular development as a topic
within the field of psychology. Perhaps the first major
effort to establish ownership as a topic of research in
social psychology was Beaglehole's 1932 book, Property, in
which he reviewed biological reports of animal
territoriality, as well as anthropological ethnographies and
osychological studies of collecting behaviors. Since then,