Ownership and object history

Appropriate behavior in relation to an object often requires judging whether it is owned and, if so, by whom. The authors propose accounts of how people make these judgments. Our central claim is that both judgments often involve making inferences about object history. In judging whether objects are...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:New directions for child and adolescent development 2011, Vol.2011 (132), p.79-89
Main Authors: Friedman, Ori, Neary, Karen R., Defeyter, Margaret A., Malcolm, Sarah L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
Bias
Child
Child Behavior
Child, Preschool
Children
Cognition
Context Effect
Decision Making
Etiology
Evaluative Thinking
Expectation
History
Humans
Inferences
Judgment
Judgments
Mental Recall
Object Attachment
Owners
Ownership
Problem Solving
Psychology, Child
Theories
Time Perspective
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Appropriate behavior in relation to an object often requires judging whether it is owned and, if so, by whom. The authors propose accounts of how people make these judgments. Our central claim is that both judgments often involve making inferences about object history. In judging whether objects are owned, people may assume that artifacts (e.g., chairs) are owned and that natural objects (e.g., pinecones) are not. However, people may override these assumptions by inferring the history of intentional acts made in relation to objects. In judging who owns an object, people may often consider which person likely possessed the object in the past—such reasoning may be responsible for people's bias to assume that the first person known to possess an object is its owner.
ISSN:1520-3247
1534-8687
DOI:10.1002/cd.298