It is difficult to imagine a world without possessions. The notion of ownership is ubiquitous in our lives, and understanding how it emerges is key to understanding conflict and inequality, as noted in the laudable target article. However, we believe that the proposed model of ownership intuitions misses a fundamental aspect of the psychology of ownership – and of social organization more generally; namely, the idea that ownership intuitions are self-referential, and as a consequence, are self-perpetuating.
This point is most apparent when it comes to the designation of property rights in humans. According to the social constructivist perspective (e.g., Berger & Luckmann, Reference Berger and Luckmann1966), human knowledge, including common sense knowledge about everyday life, is fundamentally socially constructed. These social constructions often have the property of being self-referential (see Searle, Reference Searle2010). For example, “cryptocurrency has value” because other people believe that “cryptocurrency has value.” Similarly, the statement “person A owns property t” is true if and only if people believe that “person A owns property t.” In other words, in human society, the designation of property rights is fundamentally dependent on intersubjective agreement, rather than on physical aspects of the person, the property, or their relation.
This idea is best explicated by relying on one of Boyer's examples:
… if I want to defend Melanie's entitlement to a garden and persuade others that we should act against Karl's attempt to pick the flowers, I may mention that “Melanie worked hard on it”, “she built a fence around it”, etc.
But what if Karl was the landowner and Melanie his gardener? According to the rules and norms in a capitalist society, the labor that Malenie put forth in the garden does not give her ownership of the produced goods. Karl, being the owner of the means of production (the land), would be perceived as the legitimate owner of the goods (flowers), rather than Melanie the laborer who may live on this land, protect it, and nourish it. Thus, ownership intuitions primarily rely on social constructions rather than on physical properties.
Importantly, as highlighted by social thinkers (e.g., Foucault, Reference Foucault1976), such social constructions (e.g., A is entitled to t) are established within and are consequence of social power dynamics. Because social power is often a function of existing resources, this gives rise to a self-reinforcing dynamic wherein the question of property ownership is largely determined by existing ownership (e.g., Gramsci, Reference Gramsci, Hoare and Nowell-Smith1971; Marx, Reference Marx1875). For example, in numerous societies, the wealthy often occupy prominent positions that allow them to shape the norms and regulations governing the fair distribution of resources. For instance, they may determine the relative significance of property rights compared to human rights such as healthcare and the taxation rate on capital versus labor. As a result, their wealth gives them a greater capacity to accumulate even more wealth.
Thus, we suggest that one of the most important factors in determining who owns what is what people already own. Using the present model and its notation, we suggest that the legitimate ownership of object t1 greatly affects the likelihood that object t2 will be perceived as legitimately owned: [P(A, t2, s)] & Brep[L(A, t1, s)] → Brep[L(A, t2, s)].
Empirical evidence for the process wherein ownership status serves as a cue for entitlement of further resources can be found in research that examined whether conspicuous consumption (i.e., owning product for social favors) actually works. In their research Nelissen and Meijers (Reference Nelissen and Meijers2011) had shown that people who own luxury items experience more social benefits than people who do not own luxury items. For example, in one experiment they found that participants who were (allegedly) paired with a partner who wore a polo shirt with the “Lacoste” brand mark received significantly higher endowments in a dictator game than a participant who wore the same shirt but unbranded.
In fact, this self-perpetuating structure of ownership intuitions is not limited to human psychology, as demonstrated by the psychology of territorial ownership. Much research has shown that animals who reside on their own territory have a “prior-residence advantage” (e.g., Braddock, Reference Braddock1949; Smith & Parker, Reference Smith and Parker1976); namely, the tendency of resident animals to win fights over resources in their own territory (see Kokko, López-Sepulcre, & Morrell, Reference Kokko, López-Sepulcre and Morrell2006), and the tendency of interloper animals behave in a more submissive manner or refrain from contesting the resident animal at all. Importantly, findings on prior resident effects show that resident advantages in the animal kingdom are not restricted to situations wherein the resident has a realistic strategic advantage and interloper is inherently disadvantaged (i.e., a so-called “correlated asymmetry”; Smith & Parker, Reference Smith and Parker1976). Instead, it was found that territory ownership provides a coordination cue (i.e., focal point; Schelling, Reference Schelling1958) based on which additional resource allocation problems can be settled.
To conclude, according to Boyer's model, ownership intuitions develop independently of one another, one object at a time. In this commentary, we shed light on the power dynamic that fosters ownership intuitions and how they are embedded in a self-referential system that is responsible for many of societal inequalities.
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It is difficult to imagine a world without possessions. The notion of ownership is ubiquitous in our lives, and understanding how it emerges is key to understanding conflict and inequality, as noted in the laudable target article. However, we believe that the proposed model of ownership intuitions misses a fundamental aspect of the psychology of ownership – and of social organization more generally; namely, the idea that ownership intuitions are self-referential, and as a consequence, are self-perpetuating.
This point is most apparent when it comes to the designation of property rights in humans. According to the social constructivist perspective (e.g., Berger & Luckmann, Reference Berger and Luckmann1966), human knowledge, including common sense knowledge about everyday life, is fundamentally socially constructed. These social constructions often have the property of being self-referential (see Searle, Reference Searle2010). For example, “cryptocurrency has value” because other people believe that “cryptocurrency has value.” Similarly, the statement “person A owns property t” is true if and only if people believe that “person A owns property t.” In other words, in human society, the designation of property rights is fundamentally dependent on intersubjective agreement, rather than on physical aspects of the person, the property, or their relation.
This idea is best explicated by relying on one of Boyer's examples:
… if I want to defend Melanie's entitlement to a garden and persuade others that we should act against Karl's attempt to pick the flowers, I may mention that “Melanie worked hard on it”, “she built a fence around it”, etc.
But what if Karl was the landowner and Melanie his gardener? According to the rules and norms in a capitalist society, the labor that Malenie put forth in the garden does not give her ownership of the produced goods. Karl, being the owner of the means of production (the land), would be perceived as the legitimate owner of the goods (flowers), rather than Melanie the laborer who may live on this land, protect it, and nourish it. Thus, ownership intuitions primarily rely on social constructions rather than on physical properties.
Importantly, as highlighted by social thinkers (e.g., Foucault, Reference Foucault1976), such social constructions (e.g., A is entitled to t) are established within and are consequence of social power dynamics. Because social power is often a function of existing resources, this gives rise to a self-reinforcing dynamic wherein the question of property ownership is largely determined by existing ownership (e.g., Gramsci, Reference Gramsci, Hoare and Nowell-Smith1971; Marx, Reference Marx1875). For example, in numerous societies, the wealthy often occupy prominent positions that allow them to shape the norms and regulations governing the fair distribution of resources. For instance, they may determine the relative significance of property rights compared to human rights such as healthcare and the taxation rate on capital versus labor. As a result, their wealth gives them a greater capacity to accumulate even more wealth.
Thus, we suggest that one of the most important factors in determining who owns what is what people already own. Using the present model and its notation, we suggest that the legitimate ownership of object t1 greatly affects the likelihood that object t2 will be perceived as legitimately owned: [P(A, t2, s)] & Brep[L(A, t1, s)] → Brep[L(A, t2, s)].
Empirical evidence for the process wherein ownership status serves as a cue for entitlement of further resources can be found in research that examined whether conspicuous consumption (i.e., owning product for social favors) actually works. In their research Nelissen and Meijers (Reference Nelissen and Meijers2011) had shown that people who own luxury items experience more social benefits than people who do not own luxury items. For example, in one experiment they found that participants who were (allegedly) paired with a partner who wore a polo shirt with the “Lacoste” brand mark received significantly higher endowments in a dictator game than a participant who wore the same shirt but unbranded.
In fact, this self-perpetuating structure of ownership intuitions is not limited to human psychology, as demonstrated by the psychology of territorial ownership. Much research has shown that animals who reside on their own territory have a “prior-residence advantage” (e.g., Braddock, Reference Braddock1949; Smith & Parker, Reference Smith and Parker1976); namely, the tendency of resident animals to win fights over resources in their own territory (see Kokko, López-Sepulcre, & Morrell, Reference Kokko, López-Sepulcre and Morrell2006), and the tendency of interloper animals behave in a more submissive manner or refrain from contesting the resident animal at all. Importantly, findings on prior resident effects show that resident advantages in the animal kingdom are not restricted to situations wherein the resident has a realistic strategic advantage and interloper is inherently disadvantaged (i.e., a so-called “correlated asymmetry”; Smith & Parker, Reference Smith and Parker1976). Instead, it was found that territory ownership provides a coordination cue (i.e., focal point; Schelling, Reference Schelling1958) based on which additional resource allocation problems can be settled.
To conclude, according to Boyer's model, ownership intuitions develop independently of one another, one object at a time. In this commentary, we shed light on the power dynamic that fosters ownership intuitions and how they are embedded in a self-referential system that is responsible for many of societal inequalities.
Financial support
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interest
None.