y Ye
1d
Abstract
An exploratory semantic study was done to identify
relevant criteria for the use of the concept of ownership.
Twelve criteria were considered: Familiarity, knowledse,
territoriality, purchase, crafting, gift, utility,
aesthetics, history, possession, assertion, and desire.
Subjects were 120 employed adults (60 male, 60 female).
Bach completed a questionnaire requiring two judgement
tasks. The first was to free recall 10 exemplars of things
owned and 1Q of things not owned, with subsequent judgements
of the applicability of each criterion to each of the
exemplars. The second was to judge the merit of each
criterion as a general argument for ownership. By the
recall tasks, the criterion of possession was most
consistently applicable, followed closely by assertion and
familiarity. Cluster analysis indicated that ownership
entails two types of criteria: social-defensive criteria
relating the owner to non-owners and familiarity-utility
criteria relating the owner to the objects he owns. By the
explicit judyements, only means of acquisition (purchase,
crafting, gift) were highly rated as criteria. The finding
of different ratings of criteria by different judgement
casks was consistent with semantic theory.