Pascal Boyer's impressively tight and thorough model of ownership intuitions may be missing important cues provided by children in their development. Here, I want to argue that attempts at formulating what would be the basic intuitions underlying human ownership psychology outside of a developmental context, especially with an appeal to innate core knowledge and ultimate evolutionary logic, may throw the baby out with the bathwater.
From a psychological standpoint, the necessary minimal condition for any heuristic intuitions about ownership is the basic experience of having control over things (i.e., to possess). As a case in point, possession comes from the Latin verb possidere, which means to put one's foot or weight over something. The feeling experience of control over things (putting one's weight over something) is shared by all social animals, and this should be the starting point of any psychological account of ownership.
The feeling experience of possession is indeed the necessary psychological pre-requisite of any intuitions about who owns what and why. All creatures striving to possess and assert control over things develop implicit intuitions and heuristics about it, starting with the detection of sheer physical dominance (lion share principle). What is special about human possession and ownership, however, is that as a species we evolved unique symbolic ways to become explicit about possession.
Between birth and approximately 5 years, the development of ownership psychology can be construed along three main matrices (see Rochat, Reference Rochat2014). First, there is the ontogenetic transformation from a preconceptual (birth to 18 months) to a conceptual sense of ownership (18 months and older). Second, from birth, this evolution takes the child toward a progressive objectification of ownership. By the end of the second year, ownership of possession starts to be recognized by children who begin to objectify it as an extension of self via a dual process of identification (“that's mine,” part of the general emergence of possessives in language development, see Tomasello, Reference Tomasello and Newman1998) and projection (“not yours,” see Bates, Reference Bates, Cicchetti and Beeghly1990). Finally, and most importantly, the earlier form of possession which is primarily inalienable (non-shareable ownership via clinging and binding to the thing), driven toward an absolute control over things, starts from the end of the first year to become alienable in its expression. Indeed, from around 9 months, the typical child starts manifesting preconceptual signs of an alienable sense of possession and ownership via first offering gestures (Choi, Wei, & Rowe, Reference Choi, Wei and Rowe2021) or game of losing, giving, then regaining control over an object (Cameron-Faulkner, Theakston, Lieven, & Tomasello, Reference Cameron-Faulkner, Theakston, Lieven and Tomasello2015).
By the middle of the second year, absolute and inalienable claims now dominate with imperative like “That's mine!” that is the trademark of the terrible two's. It appears that the differentiation of alienable possession observed at 9 months at a preconceptual level is recapitulated at a conceptual level between the second and the third year, somehow re-described as children become efficient speakers and begin to care about their own reputation (Rochat, Reference Rochat2014, pp. 200–201; Rochat, Reference Rochat2018). At a symbolic, abstract, and conceptual level now, children discover the social affiliative power of alienable possession in cooperation, bartering, and other alienable gift giving.
This development is universal yet may vary in its expression, depending on children's character and temperament, their social circumstances, as well as the variable characteristics of their developmental niche, a central problematic of ownership psychology that begs answers and for which Boyer's model is rather mute. Such answers may be best generated by adopting a developmental perspective. Again, upstream to what would be core intuitions of agent–thing relations, there is necessarily a universal, primordial feeling experience of control over things. This feeling experience changes in human development to become symbolic in its expression. That is the main developmental conundrum that any true theory of “ownership psychology” should be able to account for. Boyer's minimalist model overlooks this crucial aspect of human ownership psychology that is best captured by considering the developmental transformations briefly described above. An account of human ownership psychology has to be grounded in development rather than guided by evolutionary logic and a presumed innate core-knowledge perspective.
Ownership psychology is nothing but primarily the psychology of control and agency over things. That is the context in which the origins of ownership intuitions and our sense of entitlement find their developmental roots. As a case in point, there is empirical evidence that preschoolers (3–5-year-olds) from all over the world and growing up in highly contrasted developmental niches (seven urban and rural traditional cultures) tend to reason about who should own what and why, primarily on a labor principle. It appears that this principle is used universally by young children to determine explicit ownership for self and others. Such primary principle is specifically linked to agency in terms of labor (creation). The use of other principles in the determination of ownership in the same population of children such as first contact, familiarity (i.e., neighborhood object), or first experience (i.e., saw it first) is found to be less culturally universal or to become more prevalent in later development (see Rochat et al., Reference Rochat, Robbins, Passos-Ferreira, Oliva, Dias and Guo2014).
The ontogeny of children's understanding of who owns what and why is, overall, remarkably predictable across cultures, yet may vary in its expression depending on the child's general temperament and developmental niche, including the group culture in which the child is born and raised, with more prevalence of one ownership principle over another, more or less propensity to share what is owned (Rochat et al., Reference Rochat, Robbins, Passos-Ferreira, Oliva, Dias and Guo2014).
Contrary to the young of any other species, the typical human child develops to become symbolic (referential) and self-conscious (able to objectify oneself through the evaluative eyes of others). Becoming symbolic, engaging in recursive thinking, and caring about reputation are, in a nutshell, major pillars of what makes us human. Each typical child demonstrates these unique adaptive features starting from the middle of the second year. This developmental context is primordial and cannot be overlooked when thinking about human ownership psychology.
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Pascal Boyer's impressively tight and thorough model of ownership intuitions may be missing important cues provided by children in their development. Here, I want to argue that attempts at formulating what would be the basic intuitions underlying human ownership psychology outside of a developmental context, especially with an appeal to innate core knowledge and ultimate evolutionary logic, may throw the baby out with the bathwater.
From a psychological standpoint, the necessary minimal condition for any heuristic intuitions about ownership is the basic experience of having control over things (i.e., to possess). As a case in point, possession comes from the Latin verb possidere, which means to put one's foot or weight over something. The feeling experience of control over things (putting one's weight over something) is shared by all social animals, and this should be the starting point of any psychological account of ownership.
The feeling experience of possession is indeed the necessary psychological pre-requisite of any intuitions about who owns what and why. All creatures striving to possess and assert control over things develop implicit intuitions and heuristics about it, starting with the detection of sheer physical dominance (lion share principle). What is special about human possession and ownership, however, is that as a species we evolved unique symbolic ways to become explicit about possession.
Between birth and approximately 5 years, the development of ownership psychology can be construed along three main matrices (see Rochat, Reference Rochat2014). First, there is the ontogenetic transformation from a preconceptual (birth to 18 months) to a conceptual sense of ownership (18 months and older). Second, from birth, this evolution takes the child toward a progressive objectification of ownership. By the end of the second year, ownership of possession starts to be recognized by children who begin to objectify it as an extension of self via a dual process of identification (“that's mine,” part of the general emergence of possessives in language development, see Tomasello, Reference Tomasello and Newman1998) and projection (“not yours,” see Bates, Reference Bates, Cicchetti and Beeghly1990). Finally, and most importantly, the earlier form of possession which is primarily inalienable (non-shareable ownership via clinging and binding to the thing), driven toward an absolute control over things, starts from the end of the first year to become alienable in its expression. Indeed, from around 9 months, the typical child starts manifesting preconceptual signs of an alienable sense of possession and ownership via first offering gestures (Choi, Wei, & Rowe, Reference Choi, Wei and Rowe2021) or game of losing, giving, then regaining control over an object (Cameron-Faulkner, Theakston, Lieven, & Tomasello, Reference Cameron-Faulkner, Theakston, Lieven and Tomasello2015).
By the middle of the second year, absolute and inalienable claims now dominate with imperative like “That's mine!” that is the trademark of the terrible two's. It appears that the differentiation of alienable possession observed at 9 months at a preconceptual level is recapitulated at a conceptual level between the second and the third year, somehow re-described as children become efficient speakers and begin to care about their own reputation (Rochat, Reference Rochat2014, pp. 200–201; Rochat, Reference Rochat2018). At a symbolic, abstract, and conceptual level now, children discover the social affiliative power of alienable possession in cooperation, bartering, and other alienable gift giving.
This development is universal yet may vary in its expression, depending on children's character and temperament, their social circumstances, as well as the variable characteristics of their developmental niche, a central problematic of ownership psychology that begs answers and for which Boyer's model is rather mute. Such answers may be best generated by adopting a developmental perspective. Again, upstream to what would be core intuitions of agent–thing relations, there is necessarily a universal, primordial feeling experience of control over things. This feeling experience changes in human development to become symbolic in its expression. That is the main developmental conundrum that any true theory of “ownership psychology” should be able to account for. Boyer's minimalist model overlooks this crucial aspect of human ownership psychology that is best captured by considering the developmental transformations briefly described above. An account of human ownership psychology has to be grounded in development rather than guided by evolutionary logic and a presumed innate core-knowledge perspective.
Ownership psychology is nothing but primarily the psychology of control and agency over things. That is the context in which the origins of ownership intuitions and our sense of entitlement find their developmental roots. As a case in point, there is empirical evidence that preschoolers (3–5-year-olds) from all over the world and growing up in highly contrasted developmental niches (seven urban and rural traditional cultures) tend to reason about who should own what and why, primarily on a labor principle. It appears that this principle is used universally by young children to determine explicit ownership for self and others. Such primary principle is specifically linked to agency in terms of labor (creation). The use of other principles in the determination of ownership in the same population of children such as first contact, familiarity (i.e., neighborhood object), or first experience (i.e., saw it first) is found to be less culturally universal or to become more prevalent in later development (see Rochat et al., Reference Rochat, Robbins, Passos-Ferreira, Oliva, Dias and Guo2014).
The ontogeny of children's understanding of who owns what and why is, overall, remarkably predictable across cultures, yet may vary in its expression depending on the child's general temperament and developmental niche, including the group culture in which the child is born and raised, with more prevalence of one ownership principle over another, more or less propensity to share what is owned (Rochat et al., Reference Rochat, Robbins, Passos-Ferreira, Oliva, Dias and Guo2014).
Contrary to the young of any other species, the typical human child develops to become symbolic (referential) and self-conscious (able to objectify oneself through the evaluative eyes of others). Becoming symbolic, engaging in recursive thinking, and caring about reputation are, in a nutshell, major pillars of what makes us human. Each typical child demonstrates these unique adaptive features starting from the middle of the second year. This developmental context is primordial and cannot be overlooked when thinking about human ownership psychology.
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This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests
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