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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
| thank John W. Berry, my research supervisor, for welcoming me and my topic to 
psychology, for setting the example of independent scholarship, and for allowing me the 
freedom to try to emulate it. A similar appreciation goes to Rod Lindsay and Cynthia Fekken for 
serving on the thesis committee and for being generous with encouragement and positive 
criticisms. David Murray inspired and encouraged the historical research. 
| am especially grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of 
Canada for backing me on this four-year venture. | was further reinforced by three Northern 
Studies Training Grants from the Ministry of indian and Northern Affairs, by a research award 
from Petro Canada, Inc., by the C. S. Ford Cross-Cultural Research Award from the Human 
Relations Areas Files, Inc. (HRAF), and by travel funds from the Psychology Department and the 
Office of Research Services of Queen’s University for participation in conferences. 
The cross-cultural field research for this thesis could not have been done without the help 
of Elizabeth Gull and Jackie Hookimaw of Attawapiskat, Ontario. | thank them for their skillful 
interpreting, for their patience with me, and for managing the awkward social situations that 
cross-cultural research sometimes creates. More generally, | would like to thank the Cree and 
English-Canadian participants for allowing me into the privacy of their lives and thoughts. It is 
my hope that this research might contribute to a better understanding of their two societies and 
the issues of property that sometimes divide them. 
Finally, wish to express appreciation for the responsiveness and encouragement shown 
by Russell Belk of the University of Utah, Lita Furby from the Eugene Research Institute in 
Oregon, and by the late Raoul Naroll of the University of Buffalo. | also acknowledge David Finlay 
for granting permission to use the data base of the Multinational Student Survey, and | thank 
Judith Wyatt for copy-editing suggestions. 
My greatest appreciation and debt of gratitude, however, go to my wife, Toyoko, and to our 
children, Katrina, Christopher, and Daniel, for their support, sacrifice and endurance during 
these past four years of mid-life graduate schooling. ‘This is our dissertation on the psychology 
of property.