IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kei/dpaper/2012-012.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Attachment or Ownership: Reference Point Shifts and an Experimental Test of Attachment

Author

Listed:
  • Makoto Nakada

    (Hitotsubashi University)

Abstract

This paper suggests a hypothesis that feelings of attachment change subjective valuation through reference point shifts. This attachment hypothesis can explain seemingly contradictory results of recent experiments concerning what are called endowment effects, in which there exists disparities of valuation between owners and nonowners. That is, individuals who are attached to a good value it highly. We propose a model of value function that illustrates the attachment hypothesis. In this model, feelings of attachment shift the reference point. In addition, we test the effect of attachment on subjective valuation by experimentally controlling attachment, using a psychological method called priming manipulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Makoto Nakada, 2012. "Attachment or Ownership: Reference Point Shifts and an Experimental Test of Attachment," Keio/Kyoto Joint Global COE Discussion Paper Series 2012-012, Keio/Kyoto Joint Global COE Program.
    • Handle: RePEc:kei:dpaper:2012-012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ies.keio.ac.jp/old_project/old/gcoe-econbus/pdf/dp/DP2012-012.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles R. Plott & Kathryn Zeiler, 2005. "The Willingness to Pay–Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 530-545, June.
    2. John A. List, 2003. "Does Market Experience Eliminate Market Anomalies?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 41-71.
    3. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Knetsch, Jack L. & Wong, Wei-Kang, 2009. "The endowment effect and the reference state: Evidence and manipulations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 407-413, August.
    5. Charles R. Plott & Kathryn Zeiler, 2007. "Exchange Asymmetries Incorrectly Interpreted as Evidence of Endowment Effect Theory and Prospect Theory?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1449-1466, September.
    6. Daniel Kahneman & Jack L. Knetsch & Richard H. Thaler, 1991. "Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 193-206, Winter.
    7. Andrea Isoni & Graham Loomes & Robert Sugden, 2011. "The Willingness to Pay—Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 991-1011, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sousa, Yannick Ferreira De & Munro, Alistair, 2012. "Truck, barter and exchange versus the endowment effect: Virtual field experiments in an online game environment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 482-493.
    2. Isabel Marcin & Andreas Nicklisch, 2014. "Testing the Endowment Effect for Default Rules," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2014_01, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    3. Marcin, Isabel & Nicklisch, Andreas, 2014. "Testing the Endowment Effect for Default Rules," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 10, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    4. Holden, Stein & Bezu, Sosina, 2014. "Tools, Fertilizer or Cash? Exchange Asymmetries in Productive Assets," CLTS Working Papers 13/14, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Centre for Land Tenure Studies, revised 11 Oct 2019.
    5. Andrea Isoni & Graham Loomes & Robert Sugden, 2011. "The Willingness to Pay—Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 991-1011, April.
    6. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    7. Nathaniel J. S. Ashby & Stephan Dickert & Andreas Glockner, 2012. "Focusing on what you own: Biased information uptake due to ownership," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 7(3), pages 254-267, May.
    8. Werner Güth & Matteo Ploner & Ivan Soraperra, 2013. "Buying and Selling Risk - An Experiment Investigating Evaluation Asymmetries," Jena Economics Research Papers 2013-047, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    9. Frenkel, Sivan & Heller, Yuval & Teper, Roee, 2012. "Endowment as a blessing," MPRA Paper 39430, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Apr 2012.
    10. Holden, Stein T. & Bezu, Sosina, 2019. "Exchange asymmetries in productive assets: Tools, fertilizer or cash?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 269-278.
    11. Christina McGranaghan & Steven G. Otto, 2022. "Choice uncertainty and the endowment effect," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 83-104, August.
    12. repec:cup:judgdm:v:7:y:2012:i:3:p:254-267 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Smith, Alec, 2019. "Lagged beliefs and reference-dependent utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 331-340.
    14. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    15. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    16. Domenico Colucci & Chiara Franco & Vincenzo Valori, 2021. "Endowment effects at different time scenarios: the role of ownership and possession," Discussion Papers 2021/279, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    17. Fehr, Dietmar & Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Kübler, Dorothea, 2015. "The willingness to pay–willingness to accept gap: A failed replication of Plott and Zeiler," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 120-128.
    18. Peter D. Lunn, 2013. "Telecommunications Consumers: A Behavioral Economic Analysis," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 167-189, April.
    19. Banzhaf, H. Spencer, 2016. "Constructing markets: environmental economics and the contingent valuation controversy," MPRA Paper 78814, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Alexander Brown & Gregory Cohen, 2015. "Does anonymity affect the willingness to accept and willingness to pay gap? A generalization of Plott and Zeiler," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 173-184, June.
    21. Zhihua Li & Songfa Zhong, 2023. "Reference Dependence in Intertemporal Preference," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 475-490, January.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kei:dpaper:2012-012. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Global COE Program Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iekeijp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.