Collective psychological ownership as a new angle for understanding group dynamics

Abstract

Even without legal ownership, groups can experience objects, places, and ideas as belonging to them (‘ours’). This state of mind–collective psychological ownership–is understudied in social psychology, yet it is central to many intergroup conflicts and stewardship behaviour. We discuss our research on the psychological processes and social-psychological implications of collective psychological ownership. We studied territorial ownership, in different parts of the world and at different geographical levels, offering not only a cross-national but also conceptual replication of the processes. Our findings show that collective psychological ownership is inferred based on primo-occupancy, investment, and formation. Further, we demonstrate that collective psychological ownership can have positive intragroup and negative intergroup outcomes, which are guided by perceived group responsibility and exclusive determination right. We then discuss ownership threat (losing what is ‘ours’), and we consider the role of group identification in ownership-related processes. We conclude by providing directions for future research.

The role of place in intergroup conflicts and intragroup solidarity: Recent advances and perspectives.

“…However, (collective) psychological ownership is not only a source of entitlement but also implies perceived (group) responsibility to take care of what is “mine” or “ours.” This is not only because by taking care of what we (collectively) own we are ultimately taking care of ourselves (Martinović & Verkuyten, 2023; Pierce & Jussila, 2010), but also because we feel morally obliged to preserve our property. Such a sense of responsibility can in turn generate processes of intragroup cooperation and solidarity that strengthen cohesion within the group (e.g., prosocial behavior, Jami et al, 2021), but responsibility can also motivate civic involvement and stewardship behavior, such as political participation (Nijs et al, 2024) and proenvironmental behaviors (Preston & Gelman, 2020; Wang et al, 2023).…”