Mine is better than yours: Investigating the ownership effect in children with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children

Abstract

Ownership has a unique and privileged influence on human psychology. Typically developing (TD) children judge their objects to be more desirable and valuable than similar objects belonging to others. This 'ownership effect' is due to processing one's property in relation to 'the self'. Here we explore whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) - a population with impaired self-understanding - prefer and over-value property due to ownership. In Experiment 1, we discovered that children with ASD did not favour a randomly endowed toy and frequently traded for a different object. By contrast, TD children showed a clear preference for their randomly endowed toy and traded infrequently. Both populations also demonstrated highly-accurate tracking of owner-object relationships. Experiment 2 showed that both TD children and children with ASD over-value their toys if they are self-selected and different from other-owned toys. Unlike TD children, children with ASD did not over-value their toys in comparison to non-owned identical copies. This finding was replicated in Experiment 3, which also established that mere ownership elicited over-valuation of randomly endowed property in TD children. However, children with ASD did not consistently regard their randomly endowed toys as the most valuable, and evaluated property irrespective of ownership. Our findings show that mere ownership increases preferences and valuations for self-owned property in TD children, but not children with ASD. We propose that deficits in self-understanding may diminish ownership effects in ASD, eliciting a more economically-rational strategy that prioritises material qualities (e.g. what a toy is) rather than whom it belongs to.

Non-Clinical Autistic Traits Correlate With Social and Ethical but Not With Financial and Recreational Risk-Taking

“…In contrast to the social domain, the positive correlation between autistic traits and the intention to engage in risky ethical behaviours could not be explained by data from the additional DOSPERT scales, since these latter correlations favoured the H0. Alternatively, this positive correlation may be explained by the assertion that individuals with higher autistic traits incorporate less emotional information in their decision-making and hence make more rational decisions, as demonstrated by their reduced sensitivity to framing effects (Shah et al, 2016), composition effects (Farmer et al, 2017), and ownership effects (Hartley and Fisher, 2018). This may especially impact decisions in the ethical domain, since one's emotional response towards a situation is thought to influence judgement of the ethical acceptability of that situation (Brewer et al, 2015).…”

An advantage for ownership over preferences in children’s future thinking.

“…One reason is that for children, ownership and preferences are not so closely related. Although preschools do prefer their own possessions over other objects (Gelman, Manczak, & Noles, 2012;Harbaugh, Krause, & Vesterlund, 2001;Hartley & Fisher, 2018), they do not anticipate that other people prefer their own possessions over other objects (Gelman et al, 2012;Pesowski & Friedman, 2018), and readily acknowledge that people can own things they dislike (Goulding & Friedman, 2018;Noles & Gelman, 2014). We might also expect differences in children's judgments about future ownership and liking because children draw on different cues and principles when inferring and explaining ownership and preferences (e.g., Malcolm, Defeyter, & Friedman, 2014;Verkuyten, Sierksma, & Martinovic, 2015;Verkuyten, Sierksma, & Thijs, 2015).…”

Exploring the influence of ownership history on object valuation in typical development and autism

“…Rather, their unique ownership history separates them from "inauthentic" exemplars (Newman, Diesendruck, & Bloom, 2011). However, recent evidence suggests that ownership may not influence how children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) value objects that belong to them (Hartley & Fisher, 2018). The purpose of the present study is to explore how individuals with typical development and ASD value authentic objects with unique histories associated with famous owners.…”

“…Recent evidence suggests that children with ASD may display this unusual, yet economicallyrational, strategy when evaluating objects. In Experiment 1 of Hartley and Fisher (2018), TD children and children with ASD were randomly assigned one of three toys to keep, before being offered the chance to trade for an alternative. While TD children showed a clear preference for their randomly endowed toy and traded infrequently (replicating the reliable "ownership effect"; Gelman et al, 2012;Harbaugh, Krause, & Vesterlund, 2001;Hood et al, 2016), children with ASD often traded for a different object that they preferred.…”

“…The fact that children with ASD assigned similar valuations to copies of their favoured and randomly-endowed property indicates that ownership history in connection with the self does not enhance the value of authentic exemplars. AUTHENTICITY AND AUTISM 6 Hartley and Fisher (2018) propose that an absence of the mere ownership effect in children with ASD could be attributed to atypical development of the psychological self. Children with ASD experience myriad differences associated with self-concept development, including unusual use of first-person pronouns (e.g.…”