See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/240209746The Role and Measurement of Attachment inConsumer BehaviorARTICLEinJOURNAL OF CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY APRIL 1992Impact Factor: 1.71 DOI: 10.1207/s15327663jcp0102_04CITATIONS125DOWNLOADS965VIEWS1992 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:Dwayne BallUniversity of Nebraska at Lincoln30 PUBLICATIONS 570 CITATIONS SEE PROFILEAvailable from: Dwayne BallRetrieved on: 11 August 2015Society for Consumer PsychologyThe Role and Measurement of Attachment in Consumer BehaviorAuthor(s): A. Dwayne Ball and Lori H. TasakiSource: Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1992), pp. 155-172Published by: Society for Consumer PsychologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1480363Accessed: 30/04/2010 10:05Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. 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For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.Society for Consumer Psychology is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toJournal of Consumer Psychology.http://www.jstor.orgJOURNALOFCONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY,1(2), 155-172 Copyright ?1992, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. TheRoleand Measurement of Attachment inConsumer Behavior A. Dwayne Ball and Lori H.Tasaki Department of Marketing Universityof Nebraska-Lincoln Of recentinterestin consumerbehaviorresearchis the consumer'suse of owned possessions to develop and maintain self-concept. This studypresents a measure of a central concept in this area-attachment.A conceptual definitionof the constructis proposed and is relatedto social-cognitive theoriesof the self. The role of attachmentin the relationship between people and possessions is dis- cussed.Evidenceis presented forthe reliability and predictivevalidity of a simple measureof attachmentand for the discriminant validity of the construct.Rela- tionships betweenattachmentand other important consumerbehaviorcon- structsare explored. Over the past 10 years, consumer behavior theory has begun to concern itself with postpurchase psychological processes other than primarily satisfaction and complaining behaviors. Some examples are the experiential dimensions of product ownership (Hirschman & Holbrook,1981; Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982; Marks, Higgins, & Kamins, 1988), emotional responses to products after purchase(Westbrook,1987), ritualizedbehaviorstoward possessions (McCracken, 1986, 1988; Rook,1985; Tetrault & Kleine,1990), and changes ininvolvement over time (Richins & Bloch,1986). In particular, consumer researchers have suggested that possessions play a role in maintaining and supporting the consumer's self-concept and sense of identity (Belk, 1987, 1988, 1990; Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton, 1981; Myers,1985; Schultz,Kleine, & Kerman,1989). Simultaneously, there has beenarevival ofinterest amongpsychologists inthe concepts ofselfand identity, which usuallyexpand ontheissueof identitydevelopment most closely associated in the past withErickson's (1959) theories. Some psychological theorists adhere toa social-cognitive tradition (e.g., Requests for reprints should be sent toA. DwayneBall, Department of Marketing, College ofBusiness Administration, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,Lincoln, NE68588-0492. 156BALLAND TASAKI Gergen, 1971; Greenwald, 1988; Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984; Kihlstrom & Cantor, 1984; Markus, 1977), and some perceive the self as an agent which intergrates the individual's experience (e.g., Blasi,1988; Deci& Ryan,1991; Loevinger, 1976). A central issue from a consumer behavior perspective is the extent to which anowned object serves thefunctions of defining and maintaining theself- concept or identity ofaconsumer. Onewould expect different affects and behaviors toward an object that serve these functions than toward an object that does not. One protects and cultivates one's self. For example, if a home, piece of furniture, article of clothing, and so on constitute part of a consumer's identity, we might expect more protective behaviors, greater effort spent on maintaining the object, and greater emotional difficulty in accepting deteriora- tion or loss of the object than if the object is not so much a part of identity. In this subfield of postpurchase consumer behavior, most interesting phenom- ena are related to, or extensively modified by, the extent to which the object is part ofthe consumer's self. The study presented here attempts to provide a measurement of the con- structofattachment-theextenttowhichanindividual usesan object to develop and maintain a cognitive structure ofself. This construct must first bediscussed in light oftheories oftheself before itsmeasurement may be considered. Social-cognitive theories, although not prominent in the posses- sion-and-self literature inconsumer behavior, offer ausefulbasisforthis discussion. THE SELF ASCOGNITIVESTRUCTURE Greenwald (1988) presented a theory of self-development in which the self is an organization of knowledge. For example, some statements pertaining to this organization may be: "Iamakind person," or"Iwillrefuse to engage in unethical business practices no matter how much my company will reward it." The kinds of elements present in the knowledge structure can be characterized by five stages of mental representations of the self: features, objects, categories, propositions, and schemata. The more advanced stages of complexity in repre- senting theselfasa knowledge structure (propositions and schemata) are available by late adolescence, although their content certainly continues to change through adulthood. Propositions relevant to the self are generally of the form: "I am (quality or category membership)," "I have (object, belief, etc.)," or"I (will behave, am behaving, orshall behave insome fashion)." The emergent property of schemata is consistency, such that a field of propositions begins to be processed and integrated into a self-consistent whole. The propositions to be integrated ROLE ANDMEASUREMENTOFATTACHMENT157 intoaschema are evaluated onthebasis of"narrative coherence, analogy, logical proof, cognitive consonance ... cognitive balance ... self-consistency ... legality ... morality ...and empirical validity ..." (Greenwald, 1988, p. 32). Individuals develop schemata that explain their personal histories and current behaviors in light of causes attributed tothemselves or other agents (narrative, causal, andinferential schemata) andformaframework within whichtoevaluate theirownbehaviors andfixself-worth (evaluative self- schemata). Propositions and schemata relevant to the self may include objects of con- sumption. If an object is included in an evaluative self-schema, that object is tiedtotheindividual's self-worth. A verysimple schema along suchlines would be a set ofthree propositions: (a) toowna large, impressive house is evidence of some good personal quality; (b) I own a large, impressive house; and (c) therefore I have this good quality. Although an individual may never say this explicitly, eventohimselfor herself, the ownership ofthe object nonetheless supports self-worth. Greenwald (1988) discussed four facets of the self: the diffuse self, the public self, the private self, andthecollectiveself.Thesefacets are all present to varying extents in normal adults. Each facet reflectsa different ego task (Breck- ler & Greenwald, 1986) and basis for self-evaluation with some relevant audi- ence of the self or others. The ego task in the diffuse self (which is the unformed proto-self present in a young child) is merely hedonic satisfaction, and the basis for self-worth is finding it. In other conceptions of self, there have also been facets or divisions. The private selfofthe social-cognitiveapproach has rough correspondences to Erikson's (1959)ego-identity,Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton's (1981) "idiotic self," Lee's (1990)psychological dimension ofthe self, and Schultzetal.'s (1989) individuation dimension.The public andcollective selvesofthe social-cognitiveapproach havesimilarities toErikson's self- identity, Lee'ssocialdimension ofthe self, andSchultzetal.'s integration dimension. InGreenwald's (1988)social-cognitiveapproach, the ego taskforthe public self is social recognition and status, and the basis for self worth is the approval of others. The private self seeks individual achievement up to some personal standard, and the collective self seeks toattain the goals of a refer- ence group, which have been internalized by the individual as his or her own goals. The public and private facets are ofinterest in understanding therole of possessions in the definition and maintenance of the adult self. The collective self is also of interest, but, as explained later, is beyond the scope of this article. The self plays to several audiences in the support of self-worth: a private, inner audience (private self) and audiences ofothers (public self) and internalized 158BALLANDTASAKI others (collective self). Aself-directed individual is playing primarily tothe private audience, an other-directed individual tothe public audience, and a sociallyresponsible individual primarily totheinternalized collectiveaudi- ence. The focus of this article is the extent to which a possession comes to support the self, rather than the particular audience from which a sense of self-worth is obtained. However, note that few individuals are likely to be playing entirely tooneaudience. Therefore, measurement ofattachment must take both the inner and external audiences intoaccount. ATTACHMENT The number and kinds of self-propositions that could include an owned object are certainly very large. When schemata (i.e., combinations of propositions) are considered, itis apparent that there are an infinite number of ways that an individual can cognitively "use" a possession, a desired possession, or even previously discarded possession as support forself-worth. Touseallsuch propositions or schemata inameasure ofattachment isnotfeasible. In any case, the attachment construct (defined next) concerns the extent to which the object is used for self-concept support, rather than the particular propositions andschemata used. Therefore, those measuring attachment should concen- trate on detecting the existence and importance to self-worth of all schemata that utilize a particular possession. The formal definition of attachment proposed here is: the extent to which an object which is owned, expected to be owned, or previously owned by an individual, is used by that individual to maintain his or her self-concept. The domain ofthisconstruct includes evidence thattheinternal consistency of self-schemata is dependent on ownership (planned, current, or past) ofthe object. When the private facet ofthe self is considered, there should be: (a) internal rehearsal oftheschematathatconnectthe possession totheself (accompanied bypositive feelings of self-worth) and (b)feelings ofself-loss whenan object islost.When the public facet oftheself isin use, external rehearsal of possession-linked self-schemata and positive and negative feelings arising because ofthe reaction ofothers tothe possession are observed. Although the collective self is undoubtedly an important facet, itismost evident in behaviors and activities directed toward a reference group. Attach- ment in this case tends to involve collectively owned property, such as a church building, orthe product orservice produced by one's company. There are definite feelings of ownership in these matters, as wellas legal ownership in some cases, and there may be very strong feelings associated with the objects in any case, but such objects and relationships fall outside the scope ofthis article. Questions of the definitions of possession and ownership become con- ROLE ANDMEASUREMENTOFATTACHMENT159 fused withtheissueof physical controlofthefate ofthe object whenitis collectively owned.Wefocusonattachment manifested inthe public and private facets oftheself. INVOLVEMENTAND ATTACHMENT Atthis point, itisworth mentioning aconstruct intheconsumer behavior literaturethat appears very similar to attachment, but conceptually is not. This is involvement (e.g., Costley, 1988). Although involvementhas been defined in various ways as importance, itis generally conceivedasa property ofthe relationship between a person and a product category, rather than a specific possession. The category of products does not acquire the meaning and sig- nificance of the particular possession. The behaviors and feelings appropriate toan owned object are ofa different class of phenomena than those for the product category as a whole. OTHER CONSTRUCTS AND ATTACHMENT Emotional Significance A number of constructs should have simple and direct relationships to attach- ment. Asattachment and the time of ownership increase, so should the emo- tional significance of the object. The emotional significance of a possession is thetotal strength ofassociationswith significant eventsor people inthe person's life, both good andbad.A possession withlowattachmentwill probably (but not always) have little emotional significance, whereas a posses- sionwith high attachment mayrequire some time to acquire emotional sig- nificance. Kind of Object Attachmentshould vary across the population with respect tothekindof object: One tends to use a house or car more for the purposes of self-concept maintenancethana pair ofshoesora television, for example.Although Americansare clearly attached (on the average) totheir automobiles, for example, itisdifficult to say what theattachment level should be for many kinds of objects. There should be wide individual variation in attachment to any given object, because there is wide individual variation in how Americans define themselves. Objects that are socially visible; expensive; reflective of the individual's roles, relationships, accomplishments, and experiences; and usu- ally"personalized" by theefforts oftheir owners are clearly more likely to reflect self. 160BALLANDTASAKI The "Stage" of Ownership The extent towhich an object isused tomaintain identity should vary with the passage of milestones in the relationship between the person and the object. One such milestone is purchase or acquisition itself. One would expect attach- ment torise after acquisition, up tothe point at which the person's identity changes or the possession (through deterioration, perhaps) is no longer able to support the self. After the individual begins toconsider getting rid of the object, a decline in attachment is expected, and a further decline is expected after disposal. For the purposes of this study, the stages of ownership are defined as: (a) preacquisition,(b) early ownership (owned less than the median time for such objects), (c) mature ownership (owned more than the median time for such objects), (d) predisposal (thinking about getting rid of the object but have not yet), and (e)postdisposal. Social Desirability But other constructs, such as social desirability (Crowne & Marlowe, 1964), should not be strongly related to attachment. Social desirability should reflect theextenttowhichanindividual seeksto present himselforherself ina socially acceptable manner. Although the original interest in researching this tendency was substantive, measures of social desirability have come to be used more often as a indication of threat to the validity of a self-report measure of attitude or behavior. Thus, if social desirability correlates highly with a mea- sure of attachment, it is reasonable to suspect the measure of contamination by subjects seeking to present themselves as more or less connected totheir possessions than they really are. Trait Materialism Materialismisthe "importance a person attachesto wordlypossessions" (Belk,1985, p.266) andseems toberelated toattachment atfirst glance. However, materialism is defined as a psychological trait, unconnected to any possession in particular. In addition, neither the definition of materialism nor its subscales (Possessiveness, Envy, and Nongenerosity) imply that materialis- tic people should use possessions for the purpose of maintaining a concept of self and nonmaterialistic people should not. Over a broad range of possessions, little relationship should be expected between materialism and attachment. To recapitulate, the purpose of this work was to develop an instrument to measure attachment and to find evidence of its validity. Reliability and unidi- mensionality ofthemeasure ofattachment was assessed, andevidence of content, predictive, and discriminant validity was found through relationships with other constructs justpresented. ROLE ANDMEASUREMENTOFATTACHMENT161 METHOD Sample andAdministration Our sample consisted of188 students from a large midwestern university and 143adultsfromthe surrounding community.Participation was requested from students enrolled ina large lecture section ofan introductory market- ing class. Administration of the questionnaire was conducted in groups of 30 to 40 students. Adults were members of various organizations listed with the localChamber of Commerce, andadministration was performed during a regular meeting of the group. In compensation for their participation, a do- nation of$3.00 per person was offered tothe organization or to the individ- ual. Administration of the questionnaire involved a multistage process. In the initial stage, each subject was given fourlistsofthesame10 objects. The objects listedwerea car,familyhome, living roomdecoration otherthan furniture, pair of everyday shoes, watch, television, wallet, nice piece of jewelry other than a watch, souvenir ofa trip, and something collected as a hobby. Instructions for the first list asked the subjects to circle all items they were planning to acquire. They were to identify the object to be purchased, but had not yet purchased it (for mass produced items, the brand and type needed to be identified). Subjects were instructed to circle all items currently owned, all items that they were currently thinking seriously of getting rid of, and all items they haddiscarded inthe pastyear inthe second,third, andfourth lists, respectively. Based on responses to the object list, each subject was assigned two objects from among those circled. Assignment was carried outtoobtain as equal a distribution as possible across the10 objects and the five stages of ownership. Atthis point in the administration, itwas not possible to separate the early and mature ownership stages, because this separation was to be based on the median timethateach type of object wasowned. Therefore, the balancing pattern given tothe questionnaire administrators merely requested twice as many subjects be assigned to objects circled onthe second list. For each object assigned, subjects were asked to respond to a questionnaire concerning self-object identity and emotional significance. For example, be- cause a particular subject might have been planning to buy a pair of everyday shoes, have currently owned one, been thinking of discarding one, and have recently discarded one, the instructions on his or her questionnaire made clear which ofthese pair of shoes was under consideration. If he or she currently owned the object and was not planning to discard it, the number of years and months owned was requested. Asa final task, subjects were asked tofill out a questionnaire containing social desirability and materialism scalesand to supply demographic information. 162BALLANDTASAKI MeasurementofAttachment Attachmentwas measured using a9-item Likert scale (Table1). Ten items were originally generated to reflect the two facets of the self in the attachment domain-the public and private selves.Oneofthe10itemswas dropped because it correlated poorly with the other items. Abalance was maintained among theitemssothat they somewhat equally reflected thetwo public self-aspects and two private self-aspects of the domain of attachment already mentioned. Items 2 and 6 reflect the private self in internal rehearsal of the schemata that connect the self to the possession. Items 5 and 9 are concerned with the loss of self upon loss of the object, also a concern of the private self. Items 3 and8 reflect theexternal rehearsal ofschemata that connect the possession with the public self, and Items 1, 4, and 7 concern the public selfsattention tothe reaction of others tothe possession. Thus, the areas of the domain of attachment previously mentioned were covered by the measure. The verb tenses of the items varied slightly depending onwhether or not TABLE 1 AttachmentScalefor the Early Ownership, Mature Ownership, and PredispositionStages Respondents were instructed tofill in the blanks mentally with the object being rated (e.g., a car). A 6-point Likert scale ranging from agree (6) to disagree (1) was used. 1. Imagine for amoment someone making fun of your car. Howmuch would youagree with the statement, "If someone ridiculed mycar, Iwould feel irritated." 2.Howmuch do youagree with the statement, "My car reminds me ofwhoIam." 3.Picture yourself encountering someone whowould like to get toknow you. Howmuch do you think you would agree with the statement, "If Iwere describing myself, my car would likely be something Iwould mention." 4. Suppose someone managed to destroy your car. Think about how you would feel. How much do youagree with the statement, "If someone destroyed my car, Iwould feel a little bit personally attacked." 5. Imagine for a moment that you lost your car. Think of your feelings after such an event. Howmuch do you agree withthe statement, "If Ilost my car, Iwould feel like I had lostalittle bit of myself." 6.Howmuch do youagree with the statement, "I don't really have too many feelings about my car."a 7. Imagine for amoment someone admiring your car. Howmuch would you agree with the statement, "If someone praised my car, Iwould feel somewhat praised myself." 8.Think for amoment about whether or not people whoknow youmight think of your car when they think of you. Howmuch do you agree with this statement, "Probably, people whoknow me might sometimes think of my car when they think ofme." 9. Imagine for amoment that you have lost your car. Think about going through your daily activities knowing that itis gone. Howmuch do you agree with the statement, "If Ididn't have mycar, Iwould feel a little bit less like myself." aReverse scored. ROLEANDMEASUREMENTOFATTACHMENT163 the object was currently owned, was a probable future acquisition, or was a former possession. Items were usually prefaced by asentence or two.State- ments like "imagine for a moment...." were used to place participants in an appropriate mind setand to encourage greater consideration ofitems. ACronbach's coefficient alpha of.93 over all objects and stages was cal- culatedforattachment. Factor analysis confirmed theexistence ofa single factor accounting for87% ofthe commonvariance. Previous measurementsof attachment have used either a statement that the object was a favorite possession, implying high attachment (e.g., Belk,1985; Myers,1985; Wallendorf & Arnould,1988), orastatement thatthe object wouldbe very hard or easy to part with (Schultz et al., 1989). Instead, we measured attachment using a more traditional method derived from a domain- sampling model (Nunnally,1978). This Likert-type approach isbothmore precise and provides a means of assessing attachment across the vast number of objects whichare neither favorites nor irrelevant tothe self-concept, but somewhere inbetween. MeasurementofEmotional Significance Table2showsthethree-item scaleofEmotional Significance. Thesewere selected from a list of five items designed to tap the associations of the object with significant people and events ina person's life. The three items chosen hadthe greatest internal consistency. LiketheAttachment scale, theverb tenses of the Emotional Significance items varied slightly depending on stage of ownership. Otherwise, the items were the same from stage to stage. Cron- bach's coefficient alpha for the three-item scale was .76 when the sample was aggregated across all objects and stages. MeasurementofSocial Desirability Nineteen of the items from Crowne and Marlowe's (1964) 33-item scale were used. The items in this scale are rated true or false, with1 point allocated if an item is answered in the "socially acceptable" direction, and 0 points if not. TABLE 2 Emotional Significance Scalefor the Early Ownership, Mature Ownership, and PredispositionStages Respondents were instructed tofill in theblanks mentally withthe object being rated (e.g., a car). A 6-point Likert scale ranging from agree (6) to disagree (1) was used. 1. My car reminds me of important people in my life. 2. My car reminds me of important things I've done or places I've been. 3.IfIlost mycar, another onelike itwouldn't be as meaningful tome. 164BALLANDTASAKI The 19 items chosen from the scale were those used by Carlson and Grossbart (1988), who found a Cronbach's alpha of .75. In our study, the19-item scale had aCronbach's alpha of.69. MeasurementofMaterialism The measure of materialism used in this study is heavily derived from Belk (1985). Belk used 24 items and three subscale scores-Envy,Nongenerosity, andPossessiveness-toobtain anoverall measure ofmaterialism. Many of Belk's items were used in this study, but several were replaced by items that seemed to be more generalizable. Sixteen Likert-type items were borrowed from Belk's scale, and we devel- oped 4more items. Anitem analysis was performed, and16 items had suf- ficient item-totalcorrelations toberetained inthefinal materialism scale (Table 3). Thefactor structure ofthescale was thesame asBelk's original scale, with the same interpretation for the three oblique factors: Envy, Non- generosity, andPossessiveness.Cronbach's alpha fortheoverall15-item scale was .76, roughly similar tothe values of .66,.73, and .68 obtained for Belk's original scale. TABLE 3 Materialism ItemsandSubscales Envy (.78) When friends have things Icannot afford, it bothers me. (.77) I don't like watching others enjoy things Icannot have.a (.66) I am bothered when Isee people who buy anything they want. (.57) There are certain people Iwould like totrade places with. (.54) Idon't seem to get what is coming tome. (.50) When friends dobetter than me in competition, it usually makes me happy for them.b Nongenerosity (.60) I enjoy sharing what Ihave.b (.52) Idon't like tolend things, even to good friends. (.48) I don't like watching others enjoy things Icannot have.a (.46) I enjoy having guests stay in my home.b (.43) I worry about people taking mypossessions.a (.39) I enjoy donating things tocharities.b Possessiveness (.62) I get very upset if something is stolen from me, even if ithas little monetary value. (.53) Idon't get particularly upset when Ilose things. (.39) Idon't like tohave anyone in my home when I'm not there. (.29) Itend to hang onto things Ishould probably throw out. Note.Factor loadings are in parentheses. aAdded toBelk's (1985) scale. bltem reversed. ROLE ANDMEASUREMENTOFATTACHMENT165 RESULTS Overview Though eachindividual rated 2ofthe10 objects, each object wastreated separately as though it had been rated by a unique individual. This doubled the sample size available for the analyses, but raised an issue regarding the lack of independence ofthe observations. However, this form of independence is not likely to reduce the validity of the analyses. Even though the assignment of stages and objects to subjects was not completely random, itwas nonsys- tematic with a strong random component, because the questionnaire adminis- trators chosefrom among several objects ateach stage formost subjects. Dependenceamong theobservations could only taketheformof response biases arising from using thesame person ateach oftwo stages orfor two particular objects, linking the two objects or two stages. Because the choice of the two objects and two stages for the subjects followed no pattern, and because response biases are not likely to be large, the dependence of the observations isnot likely tohave affected theresults. To separate the early ownership stage from the mature ownership stage, the median time owned was calculated for each of the10 objects owned, but not at the predisposal stage. If a subject had owned an object less than the median time, his or her object was assigned to the early ownership stage; if an object was owned for more than the median time, the object was assigned tomore the mature ownership stage. Because thenumber of objects ofeach type ateach stage wasnot quite equal, each observation was weighted to give equal influence to each of the10 objects at each stage. The weighted mean of attachment for the mature owner- ship stage, for example, representsequal influence for homes, cars, wallets, and soon.Unlessotherwise specified, all analyses that aggregate across objects used these weights. To observe the variation of attachment over the range of the 10 objects and over the five ownership stages, means of the 50 resulting cells were computed anda two-wayanalysis ofvariance (ANOVA)performed. To quantify the relationship between attachment and emotional significance, materialism, and social desirability, product-momentcorrelations, combining data across all object types and ownership stages, were computed. Attachment,Objects, and OwnershipStages AsshowninTable 4the objects thatone mightexpect tobemost closely associated with identity typically have higher mean attachment levels. Homes, hobby items, cars, and personaljewelry might be expected to be items reflective 166BALLANDTASAKI TABLE 4 AttachmentMeans by Object and OwnershipStage OwnershipStage All Early Mature ObjectStagesPreacquisitionOwnershipOwnershipPredisposalPostdisposal Family home4.184.464.634.634.432.74 Hobby item3.423.533.173.673.383.33 Car3.353.853.473.542.753.14 Nice jewelry 3.333.563.713.732.223.43 Living room3.113.643.323.542.152.88 decoration Shoes2.973.112.843.262.972.66 Souvenir2.953.343.163.392.402.44 Watch2.933.623.073.252.721.98 Television2.693.122.672.552.712.42 Wallet2.693.112.672.942.492.22 Totals3.163.533.283.452.822.72 Note.Observations weighted to give equal influence toeach object and stage. of the self, and shoes, watches, wallets, televisions are less reflective of the self. The main effects for type of object and for stage of ownership were significant at p