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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Cognitive Development

Children’s ascriptions of property rights with changes of

ownership

Sunae Kim ∗, Charles W. Kalish

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Educational Psychology, Rm 1067 EdSciences, 1025 W. Johnson Street, Madison, WI 53706, United

States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Keywords:

Ownership

Cognitive development

Social norms

a b s t r a c t

Ownership is not a “natural” property of objects, but is deter-

mined by human intentions. Facts about who owns what may be

altered by appropriate decisions. However, young children often

deny the efficacy of transfer decisions, asserting that original own-

ers retain rights to their property. In Experiment 1, 4–5-year-old

and 7–8-year-old children and adults were asked to resolve disputes

between initial owners and various types of receivers (finders, bor-

rowers, buyers). Experiment 2 involved disputes both before and

after transfers of ownership. At all ages participants privileged own-

ers over non-owners and accepted the effectiveness of property

transfers. Overall, children’s intuitions about property rights were

similar to those of adults. Observed differences may reflect older

participants’ willingness to segregate property rights from other

considerations in assessing the acceptability of actions.

© 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Researchers have long noted the significance of ownership in children’s lives (Furby, 1976, 1978,

1980). Disputes over ownership are said to be among the most frequent and most intense conflicts

in early childhood (Hay & Ross, 1982). Ownership is also of interest as an example of a special class

of “institutional” facts (Searle, 1995). Institutional facts are ubiquitous. Language is perhaps the most

prominent example, with others including social categories (e.g., classmates), structures (e.g., mar-

riage), activities (e.g., game rules), and objects (e.g., artifact functions). Ownership is distinctive among

institutional facts in that children participate in, and have important control over, assignments and

changes of ownership status. In this respect, the institutional nature of ownership may be particularly

apparent early in development.

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 608 262 0840; fax: +1 608 262 0843.

E-mail addresses: kim2@wisc.edu (S. Kim), cwkalish@wisc.edu (C.W. Kalish).

URL: http://www.corundum.education.wisc.edu/ (S. Kim).

0885-2014/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2009.03.004

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As an institutional fact, ownership is not a purely objective feature of the environment. Rather,

ownership is a matter of social convention or agreement. It is our social practices and intentions that

confer ownership (Hallowell, 1943; Snare, 1972). The weight or density of an object is a matter of

“brute” fact (Searle, 1995). People may not know how much something weighs, but our knowledge

state is irrelevant to the actual weight. In contrast, ownership is a function of people’s intentions. An

object belongs to someone only because people believe it does. Indeed, one clear indication of the

conventional nature of ownership is that it may be changed via intentional acts. Giving someone an

object to hold, to borrow, or “for keeps” may all involve the same physical motions. It is the intentions

of the parties involved that determine whether ownership has been transferred.

Thus a central question in the development of ownership conceptions is how children evaluate

decisions about property. Do they accept that people can decide who owns something?

The current study presents two experiments assessing the implications of property transfer. What

do children see as transferred during events such as giving or selling? One way to ask this question is

to focus on labels. How do children identify the “owner” or the person to whom an object belongs?

Labels are important pieces of information, but they do not provide a complete account of the concepts

involved. Children may agree with adults in identifying the owner but disagree about the implications

or meaning of ownership. The experiments reported here focus instead on assignments of property

rights. Who is allowed to control property? What can different people do with objects? These studies

explore how closely children’s assignments of property rights track the conventional perquisites of

ownership.

Researchers have traditionally argued that young children identify ownership with use or posses-

sion. Shantz (1981, as cited in Ramsey, 2001) states that possession is “nine-tenths of a law” for young

children. Furby (1978) found that “owners having or keeping the object” was central to definitions of

ownership throughout elementary school years, and younger children were more likely to mention

current use and physical contact than older ones. Cram and Ng (1989) found that 4–5-year-old chil-

dren’s (the youngest age group in their study) conception of ownership was related to physical contact.

By 8–9 years, children conceptualize ownership in terms of agreement and contract (Berti, Bombi, &

Lis,1982) Preschool children recognize that ownership is more than immediate physical contact; first

possession is critical (Allen, 1995; Eisenberg-Berg, Bartlett, & Haake, 1983; Newman, 1978; Ross, 1996).

Toddlers and preschoolers accept, “I had it first” as a basis for settling property disputes, and initial

possessors typically prevail (Bakeman & Brownlee, 1982; Hay, Zahn-Waxler, Cummings, & Jannotti,

1992; Weigel, 1984). Recent research indicates that children and adults assume that the first person

seen to posses an object is its owner, at least in the absence of other cues to ownership (Friedman

& Neary, 2008). Whether young children take original possession to be definitive of ownership or a

heuristic typically indicative of ownership is as yet unclear (Friedman & Neary, 2008).

A critical feature of an “original possessor” concept is that ownership is non-obvious. It is not always

apparent who had an object first. Thus social information, such as applying the label “owner” or “mine”

may be significant as a cue to original possession. For example, Eisenberg-Berg, Haake, and Bartlett

(1981) found that young children share a toy less, defend it more, and maintain possession of a toy for a

longer period of time if they are told that it belongs to them rather than to the peer group. Ross (1996)

showed that 2-year-olds are beginning to realize the value of stating their original possession to win

disputes (“I had it first!”). Two-year-olds also identify the absent owners of objects (Tomasello, 1998).

Understanding ownership as original possession provides a basis for distinguishing mere use (current

possession) from true ownership and opens a significant role for social information (e.g., labeling of

ownership). What a first-owner view does not do is provide any basis for change or effective transfer

of ownership. Who possessed something first is a brute fact, a fact that cannot be changed by decision

or intention.

For adults, ownership is established and transferred through special kinds of social acts, such as

giving, selling, or trading. These acts are distinguished from non-ownership-establishing acts (such

as losing, lending, or “letting see”) not by any physical or brute properties, but by the intentions

and beliefs of the parties involved. However, existing research suggests that preschool children have

difficulty understanding the role of intentions in establishing social facts, such as making a promise

or commitment (Kalish & Cornelius, 2007; Mant & Perner, 1988). With respect to ownership, Hook

(1993) found that young children do not understand that differently intended acts entail different

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rights to control an object. For example, 5-year-olds judged that someone who receives an object as a

gift, someone who borrows an object, and someone who steals an object all have the same obligation

to accede to the original owner’s request to return the object. Hook (1993) found that an understanding

that different intended actions entail different ownership rights appears around age 8. Five-year-olds

also deny that someone receiving an object as a gift or a prize is permitted to take the object home (Cram

& Ng, 1989). For preschoolers, it appears that acts, even though correctly intentioned, are ineffective at

transferring ownership. This conclusion may be too strong. Recent evidence suggests that 4-year-olds

are beginning to accept transfer of rights at least in one highly ritualized context: receiving a birthday

present (Blake & Harris, 2008; Friedman & Neary, 2008). In Blake and Harris’ (2008) study, 4-year-olds

reported that the recipient of a birthday present may take the present home and keep it. Three-year-

olds denied the efficacy of transfers, asserting the giver may take the gift home but must ultimately

return it.

One difficulty in drawing conclusions about preschool-aged children’s understanding of ownership

transfers is that studies have not carefully articulated the criteria for establishing that ownership was

actually transferred. In particular, conclusions that children do understand transfer are based on their

assigning some rights to receivers; both buyers and gift recipients can take the goods home (Blake

& Harris, 2008; Cram & Ng, 1989). In contrast, Hook’s (1993) more pessimistic conclusion involved

continuation of seller’s/donor’s control; children believed the original owner retained the right to

demand the property back. A conservative interpretation is that children accept that recipients can gain

property rights but deny that givers can relinquish rights. Indeed, this is Hook’s (1993) interpretation of

the results. Children understand ownership transfers as a kind of lending. The recipient is allowed to use

the property, but the original owner retains ultimate control. Similarly, preschool children accept that

recipients may be treated as owners within some limited context but deny that the recipients “really”

own the property (Kalish, Weissman, & Berstein, 2000). A true understanding of ownership transfer

requires that original owners be seen as losing their original property rights as well as recipients being

seen to gain them.

We report here on two experiments exploring young children’s understanding of ownership trans-

fers. The key indicator of transfer of ownership is the judgment that the recipient has a stronger claim

on the property than does the original owner. Such intuitions are apparent in cases of conflict. When

the original and new owners disagree, who should decide? If property transfers are understood as a

kind of lending, or “acting as if”, the original owner has not actually relinquished rights and retains

ultimate control over the property. The questions addressed by the two experiments concern whether,

or under which conditions, young children judge that recipients have greater rights to property than

do the original owners.

1. Experiment 1

Previous research suggests that buying something in a store may be a relatively apparent means

of ownership transfer (Cram & Ng, 1989). Purchasing is a common activity in contemporary Western

society, one that adults accept as clearly establishing the buyer as the owner. Experiment 1 explored

whether young children believe that buyers acquire property rights, and, critically, that sellers relin-

quish their rights. Beliefs were assessed by having participants adjudicate disagreements about control

of property. If a buyer and a seller disagree about how to use an object, who gets to decide? Conclusions

about the efficacy of transfers in cases of buying are most compelling in comparison to some other

sorts of property interactions. Experiment 1 also assessed intuitions about property rights in cases of

finding and borrowing. Finding and borrowing scenarios presented clear cases in which the original

owner retained control, at least according to adult intuitions. The central question was whether chil-

dren distinguish finding and borrowing from buying, accepting that initial owners give up property

rights in the latter but not the former cases (Hook, 1993).

The dependent measure in Experiment 1 is assignment of property rights. Legal scholars have

described several elements of property (Snare, 1972) and the current study draws on such analyses.

Ownership entails the right to take various actions with one’s property—notably, use, alteration, dis-

posal, and controlling others’ use. We selected these four actions to provide a set including one act

with a positive valence (letting someone else use an object), one act with a negative valence (throw-

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ing away an object), and one with a neutral valence (altering an object). The fourth action, using,

admits many variations; there are many different ways to use an object. Scenarios in Experiment 1

involved non-conventional uses. Existing research indicates that even quite young children appreciate

that objects have conventional functions (Bloom, 1996; German & Johnson, 2002; Kelemen, 1999),

and non-conventional uses are somehow wrong. Based at least on adult intuitions, however, owners

are empowered to use their possessions non-conventionally. An owner can use his or her spoon as a

backscratcher. It is less clear whether non-owners have similar rights. If someone lends you a spoon,

you may be allowed to eat with it, but perhaps not scratch with it. We selected non-conventional uses

to provide the best chance of distinguishing powers of owners from those of non-owners. Although the

various acts included in Experiment 1 have different valences, owners are empowered to undertake

these acts and non-owners are not.

To control for possible demand characteristics we also included an act or power that is not trans-

ferred, that is not a property right. The literature on the design stance provides an interesting set of

“rights” or actions that are restricted to creators and are not transferred with ownership. By age four

children generally accept that the person who creates an artifact may determine its kind identity (e.g.,

that it is a ‘chair’ rather than a ‘table’) and its proper function (e.g., it is for sitting on; Bloom, 1996). Crit-

ically, subsequent users, even owners, lack the power to alter these features (German & Johnson, 2002;

Kelemen, 1999). Thus we predict that owners will not be granted the power or right to re-categorize

their property.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Participants were 29 adults (19 female), 30 (17 female) 4–5-year-old children (M = 5–0 years, range

4–3 to 5–11) and 30 (16 female) 7–8- year-old children (M = 7–9, range 7–0 to 8–10). Participants

were predominantly Caucasian and from middle-class or upper-middle class backgrounds. Adults

were recruited from undergraduate courses at a large public university; children came from several

preschools and after-school programs.

2.2. Design and procedure

Each participant heard three stories about conflict between an owner and a non-owner over taking

actions with an object. The conflicts varied on two factors, transfer type (conflict context) and property

rights (feature type). These conflicts were: Owner versus Finder, Owner versus Borrower, and Owner

versus Seller. Stories involved two people interacting with a small object. In the Owner versus Finder

context, for instance, Samantha invited people over to her house including Alice who picked up a hat

that Samantha knitted. In Owner versus Borrower context, Kelvin was at Brian’s home and borrowed

a flowerpot that Brian made. In Owner versus Seller context, Billy sold Jenny a spoon he made. There

were five specific feature decisions within each story. Feature types included: Novel Use, Re-categorize,

Alter, Lend, and Discard. In Novel-Use conflicts one character proposed using an object for a purpose

other than its proper function, for example, using a hat as a purse. For example, one of the characters

says, “I need something to keep my wallet and keys in. I’m going to use this hat to keep stuff in. I’m

not going to put this on my head. I’m going to use it to carry stuff.” The other character objects to

this, “No, you cannot do that. That’s for wearing on your head. You can’t use that to keep stuff in.”

Re-categorization conflicts involved a proposal to change the category label associated with an object,

for example, stating that a hat was now “a purse”. Thus, one character says, “I’m going to decide it is

really a purse. This thing isn’t a hat. It’s a purse. It’s not for putting on a head. It’s for keeping stuff in.”

Alterations were proposals to modify the object, for example, adding earflaps to the hat. One character

says, “The hat will be much better with earflaps. I will sew them on. I know how to do it. I want the hat

to have earflaps.” Lending conflicts involved a proposal to allow a third party to use the object. The story

introduces a third person who comes to see both characters and asks if s/he can use the object. One

character proposes, “I will let Tom use the hat.” Finally, in Discarding conflicts one character expressed

distaste for the object and proposed to throw it away. For instance s/he says, “I think the hat is too old

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Fig. 1. Endorsements of owners’ control by age and proposal context, Experiment 1. Error bars indicate one standard error.

and I don’t like it anymore. I am going to throw it away.” After each conflict was presented participants

indicated which character should get to decide. For example, for a discarding feature the question was

asked: “Who should get to decide to whether throw away the hat or not?” Stories were illustrated with

colored line drawings of actors and objects. All story characters were depicted as adults.

Conflict context and feature type were within-subject manipulations. Each participant saw three

conflict contexts involving five features each, for a total of 15 judgments. Another manipulation

involved Proposer as a between-subjects factor. Half the participants at each age heard stories in

which it was always the owner who proposed the action while the non-owner objected. The other half

of the participants heard stories in which the non-owner proposed the action and the owner objected.

For the purposes of this manipulation, and the analyses that follow, “owner” is defined according to

adult intuitions; the original owner in the find and borrow scenarios, and the “new owner” (buyer) in

the selling scenario. Only in the selling scenario is ownership transferred; in finding and borrowing

scenarios, the owner status stays the same. After each story (and before conflict questions), children

were asked who owned the object (“Whose X is this?”). The experimenter corrected children if they

misidentified the owner.

Adults read the stories, saw the pictures, and answered the story questions working at individual

computers in a room with 12 workstations. Children were interviewed individually at a quiet location

within their school. The experimenter introduced the story saying, “We are going to play a story game.

In the story game, there are two people disagreeing over what to do with an object. You have to decide

who gets to decide.” Throughout the experiment it was emphasized there was no correct answer for

the question, and the child should just say what he or she thought. Stories were presented on cards

containing text and illustrations. The experimenter read aloud the text of each story. Stories were

presented in random order. The order in which the feature type was presented within each story was

fixed as: novel use, re-categorize, alter, lend, and discard. The location of the conflict (original owner’s

house, receiver’s house) was counterbalanced across stories.

3. Results

For each question a participant could indicate that the owner gets to decide or that the non-owner

(finder, borrower, seller) gets to decide. Fig. 1 presents the mean proportions of owner responses by

age and story context. The control conflict (over re-categorization) is excluded from these means,

as re-categorization was not expected to be transferred with ownership. The critical question was

whether participants would treat recipients of ownership as original owners. As is evident from

Fig. 1, adults and older children judged that original owners had control in the finding and bor-

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rowing stories, and that new owners (buyers) had control in the selling story. Younger children

showed a similar pattern but were less consistent in privileging new owners in the selling story. It

is important to note that participants were reliably correct in identifying owners. Only two younger

children ever mis-identified the owner at the end of a story (once in a Find, and once in a Sell

story).

Mean proportions of owner–control responses were analyzed in a 3(Age group: Younger,

Older, Adult) × 3(Context: Owner–Finder, Owner–Borrower, Owner–Seller) × 2(Proposer: Owner, Non-

Owner) analysis of variance (ANOVA), with Age and Proposer as between-subjects factors. Owner

selections increased with age, F(2, 83) = 17.9, �2 = .30, p < .001. Younger children selected owners less

often than did adults and older children (who did not differ significantly from one another). This main

effect of age was conditioned by an interaction with Context, F(4, 166) = 7.9, �2 = .16, p < .01. Younger

children were less likely than older children to assign control to owners in the Owner–Seller condition;

older children were less likely to do so than were adults.

The significant main effect of Context, F(2, 166) = 11.3, �2 = .12, p < .001 is also best interpreted in

interaction with Age. An analysis of simple effects revealed significant Context differences only for

children, Younger – F(1, 2, 166) = 16.4, p < .001, and Older – F(1, 2, 166) = 9.2, p < .001. These effects

are evident in Fig. 1. In owner–finder and owner–borrower stories, participants of all ages reliably

assigned control to the owner. Children, however, selected owners significantly less often in conflicts

with sellers than in conflicts with borrowers or finders (which did not differ). Older children, like

adults, assigned control to owners at rates significantly greater than chance even in the owner–seller

context, Older – M = .7, t(29) = 3.3, p < .01, and Adult – M = .9, t(28) = 19.1, p < .001. Younger children did

not show a reliable difference from chance-level performance in the owner–seller context, M = .48,

t(29) = −.31, ns. Young children were as likely to assign rights to sellers (original owners) as they were

to buyers when the two conflicted (Fig. 1). Note that this is the only condition in which ownership

rights are transferred. Older children and adults reliably indicated that new owners (buyers) could

control property against the wishes of original owners (sellers). Younger children did not, although

even younger children treated buyers as having more control than finders or borrowers.

The ANOVA also revealed a main effect of Proposer, F(1, 83) = 26.7, �2 = .24, p < .001, and a significant

interaction with Age, F(2, 83) = 14.62, p < .01. Simple effects analyses revealed that children selected

the owner more often when the non-owner proposed the change than when the owner proposed,

Younger – F(1, 83) = 7.3, and Older – F(1, 83) = 44.6, p < .05. Owners could block non-owners’ attempts

to control their property but were somewhat less able to exercise their control over non-owners’ objec-

tions. Older children selected owners significantly more often than would be expected by chance, both

when owners proposed change, M = .78, t(14) = 6.4, p < .001, and when non-owners proposed change,

M = .94, t(14) = 17.1, p < .001. Younger children’s selections did not differ from chance when owners pro-

posed, M = .47, t(14) = −.4, ns, but they did reliably select owners when non-owners proposed, M = .86,

t(14) = 10.3, p < .001. Adults showed no significant difference by proposer and selected owners at rates

greater than chance in both cases.

The preceding set of analyses explored intuitions about who has the right to exercise control over

property. A second set of questions concerned the content of property rights. What can owners decide

about their property? Fig. 2 shows the proportion of owner responses for each Feature type by age,

indicating that some features were seen as more controllable by owners than were others. Notably,

participants tended not to grant owners the ability to re-categorize their property. This restriction was

most evident in children’s responses. To assess overall performance, a 3(Age group: Younger, Older,

Adult) × 5(Feature type: Alter, Lend, Re-categorize, Discard, Use) × 2(Proposer: Owner, Non-Owner)

ANOVA was performed, with Age and Proposer as between-subjects factors. Main effects of Age and

Proposer were described in the previous section.

There was a main effect of Feature type, F(4, 332) = 22.26, p < .001, �2 = .16. The interaction between

Feature type and Proposer was significant, F(4, 332) = 42.31, �2 = .34, as was the three-way interaction

of Feature type, Proposer, and Age, F(8, 332) = 4.33, p < .001, �2 = .09. Because a simple interaction effect

of Feature type by Age was significant only when owners proposed the action F(8, 332) = 7.73, p < .001,

further analyses considered only the owner-propose condition. Non-owner proposals were almost

always rejected, regardless of the content of the proposal.

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Fig. 2. Endorsements of owners’ control by feature type, Experiment 1. Only owner’s proposals are shown. Endorsements of

non-owner’s proposals were low across feature types. Error bars indicate one standard error.

The preceding analysis revealed significant effects of Feature type, suggesting that owners are not

granted unlimited control of their property. Adults and older children denied owners’ attempts to

change category identity more often than they denied other actions. No other feature comparisons

were significant except for older children, for whom discarding was less acceptable than Lending.

Young children also distinguished among the features or actions owners could take. In general, they

were more likely to accept positive than negative actions. Pairwise comparisons revealed that the pro-

social act of Lending was accepted more often than any other action. The most negative or “incorrect”

acts (Discard and Re-categorizing) were rejected more often than the others.

A remaining question is whether the context effect for preschool-aged children held across fea-

tures. Were original owners (in borrow and find scenarios) granted more control than new owners (in

buy scenarios) for all features? The small number of items and lack of variability in the non-owner

proposing condition limited the power of analyses of context by feature effects. Here we focus on the

most positive act (lending) and the most negative (discarding). Adults and older children judged orig-

inal and new owners equally able to lend their property (adults, 94% for original owners and 100% for

new owners; older children, 97% original and 80% new; both differences: ns; all comparisons 1-tailed

sign tests). Younger children granted original owners the right to lend property more often than they

granted the right to new owners (77% versus 47% respectively, p = .05). Similarly, adults and older chil-

dren judged original and new owners equally able to discard their property (Adults, 85% versus 94%;

older children, 77% versus 53% both differences: ns). Younger children were less reluctant to grant

owners the right to discard their property; however, original owners were relatively more able to dis-

card than were new owners (47% versus 13%, p < .05). Thus the general pattern of context effects held

for both positive and negative actions.

4. Discussion

Consistent with past research, even young children denied that transfers of physical possession

constituted changes in ownership/property rights. People who found or borrowed property did not

acquire the rights to use it against the wishes of the original owners. Adults and older children did

accept that some transfers effectively transferred rights. Someone who buys an object acquires rights

to control it and, critically, the seller gives up those rights. Young children however, did not reliably

endorse transfers of rights in this case; sellers retained some control. That is, a person receiving own-

ership via transfer does not have the same rights to control property as someone retaining original

ownership

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Young children’s judgments are somewhat consistent with a “first-owner” model. In general the

story character described as initially owning the property continued to have the right to control the

property even after various transfers had occurred. This result is consistent with Hook’s (1993) sug-

gestion that young children treat transfer of ownership as akin to lending. However, there were also

indications that young children distinguished between transfers that did change ownership/property

rights and transfers that did not. Young children reliably denied that finders and borrowers could con-

trol property. They did not consistently deny that buyers could exert control. Indeed, young children

were more likely to accept buyers’ control than finders’ or borrowers’. Moreover, young children denied

that sellers could exert control over the objections of buyers.

Adults and older children displayed a similar set of consistent intuitions about ownership and

control of property. For older participants, owners were able to control their property, even in the

face of objections by non-owners. Similarly, owners were able to reject non-owners’ suggested actions

with their property. This pattern of results reveals that it is not the intrinsic value of the action that

determined whether it should be done or not. Rather, an action proposed by an owner was accepted,

while the same action proposed by a non-owner was rejected. Younger children were more likely to

consider the valence of an action when deciding who should get to control some property, which may

have contributed to the chance-level performance in the seller–buyer condition. The significance of

action valence is examined further in Experiment 2.

Attention to valence may have been one source of unexpected variability in young children’s

responses. Other features of Experiment 1 that might have complicated children’s judgments were

the between-subjects nature of the design and the somewhat indirect assessment of transfer. As there

is likely individual variability in responses, a within-subjects design, where the same participant judges

both owners’ and non-owners’ control, may provide a more sensitive measure. In addition, the method

in Experiment 1 asked participants to evaluate property rights at a single time, after a transfer had

occurred. Asking participants to evaluate property rights both before and after a transfer may show

clearer evidence of an appreciation of changes in property rights.

5. Experiment 2

Experiment 2 directly examines intuitions about transfers by asking the same participants to evalu-

ate story characters’ property rights both before and after changes of ownership. The central question

is whether young children’s assignments of property rights will follow the transfer; do they accept

that rights may be gained and lost via effective transfers of ownership? One alternative hypothesis

is that young children hold a “first owner” principle. The person who originally owned the property

retains rights; property rights are non-transferable. A second alternative, suggested by the results of

Experiment 1, is that young children may be especially sensitive to the value or valence of the proposed

actions. Rather than attending to who has the right to control some property, children are more con-

cerned with whether some proposed action will have a good or a bad outcome. Experiment 2 addresses

these alternative hypotheses.

Experiment 2 involved a task similar to that of Experiment 1. Participants evaluated disputes

between two people proposing different actions to be done with the same object. In contrast to Exper-

iment 1, participants evaluated two instances of the same dispute, involving the same people, actions,

and objects: once before and once after a transfer of ownership occurred. To make the context of the

disputes more natural, stories involved transfers through gift giving, rather than buying or selling. Both

gift giving and selling are salient contexts of ownership transfer for young children (Blake & Harris,

2008). Even so, young children’s chance-level performance in seller–buyer condition in Experiment

1 may be due to their limited experience of buying. Using a familiar case of ownership transfer, gift

giving, would ensure young children’s performance in Experiment 1 is not due to limited experience.

Rather than manipulating the valence of the proposed action by including different actions (as in

Experiment 1), Experiment 2 manipulated actor competence. A single action (alteration) was used

for all stories. Some actors were described as competent agents whose actions would produce a good

result. Other actors were incompetent and would produce a poor result if they undertook the alteration.

Stories in Experiment 2 presented three possible bases for deciding disputes. Participants could

decide on the basis of original ownership: Should the first owner get to control the property? Partici-

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pants could decide on the basis of competence or outcome: Should the skilled actor get to control the

property? Finally, participants could decide on the basis of current ownership: should the person who

owns the property now get to control the property? By counter-balancing these three attributes, the

basis for children’s judgments of property rights should be apparent.

6. Method

6.1. Participants

Sixteen adults (9 female), 19 (11 female) 4–5-year-olds (M = 4–7, range, 4–0 to 5–3) and 19 (8

female) 7–8-years old (M = 8–0, range = 7–1 to 8–11) participated in the study. Participants were pre-

dominantly White and from middle- or upper-middle class backgrounds. Adults were recruited from

undergraduate courses at a large public university, children from preschools and after-school programs.

6.2. Design and procedure

Each participant heard eight stories about conflicts between owners and non-owners. During

each story ownership was transferred through gift-giving. One of the characters proposed altering an

object (e.g., coloring a picture), and the other character rejected the proposal. Proposals and rejections

occurred twice, both before and after the transfer. Participants evaluated both proposals.

Ownership and ability were manipulated. Ownership status changed through gift-giving. Ability

was manipulated by ascriptions of good or bad ability to the story characters (e.g., good at coloring),

which remained the same after the ownership transfer. In half the stories the proposer is an owner who

becomes a non-owner, in the other half a non-owner proposer becomes an owner. In half the stories

the proposer was described as highly skilled (e.g., “good at coloring”); in the other half the proposer

was unskilled (e.g., “bad at coloring”). These two factors were crossed, resulting in four story-types.

Participants responded to two stories of each type.

Each story began with introduction of two characters and an object. For instance, “This is Katy.

This is Lisa. Katy has a magazine. One day, she went over to her friend, Lisa’s house and brought

the magazine with her. Katy and Lisa looked at the magazine together.” The location of the dispute

(owner’s or non-owner’s home) was counterbalanced across stories. Before the transfer, one character

proposes to alter the object. An example is an owner who is good at altering: “Katy says, ‘I want to cut

a picture out of the magazine.’ Katy is good at carefully cutting out pictures so the magazine would

look okay when she was finished”. The other character objects: “Lisa says, ‘No, don’t cut the picture. I

don’t want a picture cut out.”’ At this point the experimenter asks: “Katy knows that Lisa would not

like this idea but she wants to cut out the picture in the magazine anyway. Is it okay for Katy to cut

out the picture from the magazine?” The story continues with an ownership transfer: The owner gives

the object to the non-owner. The dispute occurs again. The same person (who would now be a non-

owner in the example story) suggests the action again, the other actor objects. Participants evaluate

the acceptability of the action a second time, following the transfer. Participants were also asked to

indicate who owned the object both before and after the transition occurred in the story.

One change from Experiment 1 is that participants were asked whether it was acceptable for the

proposer to take the action, rather than which of the two characters “gets to decide.” This change was

made for two reasons. First, there was some concern that the demand to choose between two characters

might be more difficult than the evaluation of a single character’s proposal. Second describing the

proposer as “deciding” to carry out the action suggests that the act will occur. In Experiment 2 it was

critical that participants realize that the modification did not occur after the first dispute (e.g., the

magazine did not actually get cut the first time).

Adults read the stories, saw the pictures, and answered the story questions working at individ-

ual computers in a classroom. Children were interviewed individually at a quiet location within their

school. Child participants followed along with the experimenter as stories were presented on a lap-

top computer. The experimenter read the story text aloud, verbally asked questions, and recorded

participants’ answers. Stories were presented in random order with content (object type) randomly

associated with structure (owner to non-owner, ability) across participants.

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Fig. 3. Acceptance of proposals by ownership status and ability, Experiment 2. Error bars indicate one standard error.

7. Results

Fig. 3 shows frequencies of acceptance of the proposed actions, that is, how often participants

answered ‘yes’ to the question of whether a person can alter a feature of an object. There were two

stories for each of four conditions (owner/good, owner/bad, non-owner/good, non-owner/bad). Since

participants made two judgments per story (before and after transition), the maximum score for each

condition is four. Fig. 3 shows two major findings. First, at all ages responses are based on ownership

status, not on ability. Second, there is a developmental increase in acceptance of owners’ proposals.

No child ever made an incorrect response to the question of identifying owners.

Data were analyzed in an ANOVA with Ability (good or bad) and Ownership status (owner or non-

owner) as within-subject factors and Age as a between-subject factor (Fig. 3). There was a significant

main effect of Ownership status, F(1, 51) = 145.4, �2 = .74, p < .05. Owners were more able to control the

object than were non-owners. Analysis of simple effects revealed that the effect of ownership was sig-

nificant for all age-groups (all p values <.001). Despite the consistent main effect of ownership, there

was a significant effect of Age, F(2, 51) = 4.42, �2 = .15, p < .05, and a significant interaction between

Ownership and Age F(2, 51) = 13.44, �2 = .35, p < .05. The test of linear contrast of Age on the difference

score between owner and non-owner confirmed the developmental increase in appreciating own-

ership rights, t(51) = 5.18, p < .0001. This indicates that with increasing age participants more reliably

judged that owners could assert control of their property against the wishes of non-owners.

There was a weak effect of Ability, p = .051, �2 = .07. Participants showed a slight tendency to judge

that a person with good ability was more able to control the object than a person with bad ability.

Ability, however, was only significant as a main effect. Simple effects of ability at each age group were

not significant. Neither was there a significant Age by Ability interaction. Though there may be some

consideration given to the expertise of the proposer, young children were no more likely to consider

this factor than were adults, and at no age was ability a major contributor to judgments.

The preceding analyses implicitly assessed appreciation of ownership transfers. Half the items

coded as “owners” in the ANOVA were original owners, and half were new owners. Similarly, half

the non-owners had initially been owners. Thus a failure to accept the described ownership transfers

would have resulted in chance-level (50%) performance. Nonetheless, because of the specific interest

in ownership transfer, this factor was examined separately. Participants made acceptance judgments

both before and after the transfer. If the transfer of ownership was considered to be effective, the

proportion of acceptance responses (proposer can control) should decrease when the proposer changes

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Table 1

Mean proportions of acceptances before and after transition for each direction of ownership transition. Numbers in parentheses

are standard deviations.

Owner to non-owner Non-owner to owner

Before After Difference Before After Difference

Adults .99 .05 −.94 (.24) .06 .95 .89 (.31)

Older children .66 .04 −.62 (.51) .03 .62 .59 (.49)

Younger children .44 .12 −.32 (.46) .20 .46 .26 (.52)

from owner to non-owner, but increase when the proposer changes from non-owner to owner. Table 1

shows the mean difference in acceptance before and after transfers. A separate paired t-test for the

two different transfer cases was conducted for each age group. Participants in all age groups saw

both owner to non-owner and non-owner to owner transfers as effective (all p values <.05). Even the

youngest children appreciated that ownership rights could be gained or lost via transfers.

In both Fig. 3 and Table 1, young children’s rates of acceptance appear close to chance (50%) levels

in some cells. In fact, the data reflect a mixture of two consistent response strategies. One response

strategy is accepting all proposals by owners, but none by non-owners. The probability of a participant

answering according to ownership both times on any one item is .25 (two, two-option questions). The

chance probability of answering according to ownership for five or more of the eight items is less than

.05 (binomial probability). Participants who answered according to ownership for at least five items

may be considered “ownership choosers.” Using the same logic, a participant who refused to accept

the action both before and after the transfer (“no” to both questions) for at least five of the eight items,

was considered to be a “never chooser.” All adults displayed the ownership pattern. Children, however,

showed one of two patterns. They either appreciated owners’ rights or they rejected any attempt to

alter the objects. Thirteen of 19 older children and 6 of 19 younger children were ownership choosers

while 6 of 19 older children and 8 of 19 younger children were never choosers. Adults were more likely

to be ownership choosers compared to both older children, �2(1) = 6.09, p < .05, and younger children,

�2(1) = 17.42, p < .05. The group difference between older and younger children was not significant.

Adults were less likely to be never choosers than both older children, �2(1) = 6.09, p < .05, and younger

children, �2(1) = 8.73, p < .05. No significant difference was found between older and younger children.

Note that intuitions that actors with high ability should be allowed to control the object would have

resulted in chance-level performance on these pattern analyses. That most young children showed

one of the two defined response patterns confirms the ANOVA results that ability was not a significant

factor in judgments of property rights.

8. Discussion

Participants in Experiment 2 displayed two consistent patterns of judgments regarding transfers

of ownership. As in Experiment 1, a majority of participants reliably indicated that an owner could

control their property against the wishes of a non-owner. The distinctive finding in Experiment 2

was that even many young children tracked owners’ rights across transfers. Owners could give up or

lose their property rights; story characters who initially lacked control of property could gain it via

transfer of ownership. All adults and a majority of young school-aged children showed this response

pattern. Preschool-aged children, however, were about equally split between appreciation of transfer,

and denial that any story character could exert control of an object over the objections of another.

For the immediate concerns of Experiment 2, the critical point is that when young children did

endorse exercise of property rights, they did so using the same criteria as did adults and older children.

For example, ability or quality of outcome had no significant effect on property rights at any age.

Neither were participants, including young children, particularly likely to assign control to original

owners. Current ownership, whether initial or transferred, was the only thing that enabled control of

property. These results allow us to reject two alternative hypotheses about young children’s ascriptions

of property rights. They do not indiscriminately adopt a “first-owner” principle, nor do they respond

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according to the intrinsic value of proposed actions. Rather, young children keep track of the ownership

across transfers and assign rights accordingly, at least in the context of gift-giving.

9. General discussion

These studies explored children’s and adults’ understandings of ownership transfers. They suggest

important commonalities between preschool-aged children, young school-aged children, and adults.

Participants indicated that owners have the right to control their property in the face of demands by

non-owners. They also responded that non-owners ought to defer to the wishes of owners regarding

the use, alteration, lending, and disposal of those objects. The major difference between children

and adults seems to be that adults have most clearly distinguished ownership rights from other

considerations that affect decisions about property.

The critical question concerned whether young children recognize that ownership transfer entails

that original owners’ rights are relinquished. Experiment 1 compared different relations to property.

Older participants clearly showed that owners control their property over non-owners such as sellers,

borrowers, or finders. Young children showed inconsistent intuitions about transfer of control as a

result of buying. Sellers were granted more control of objects (restricting owners’ rights) than were

borrowers or finders. Young children accepted that some transfer had taken place in the selling con-

dition; when asked, “Whose X is this?” children responded with the buyer. The major age difference

was that preschoolers did not reliably accord rights to buyers over sellers; original owners still retain

some property rights. Adults and older children indicated that a person who purchased an object from

its original owner acquires rights to control that object and a person who sold an object loses rights.

Young children seemed not to accept that property rights were fully given up during a transfer of

ownership.

Experiment 2 directly examined ownership transfer—whether young children understand losing

and gaining ownership rights pertaining to ownership transfer. Results from Experiment 2 were similar

to those from Experiment 1 in that children were less consistent in assigning owners control of property

than were adults. Adults were nearly unanimous in accepting that transfers of ownership changed

those property rights. A majority of school-aged children, and about half of preschoolers, also assigned

rights according to ownership transfer. However, many younger children denied that any actors could

control the objects: They rejected all proposals. This pattern of responding is similar to that observed

for the buyer–seller context in Experiment 1. In these instances children refused to reliably privilege

either actor in the dispute.

Previous research indicates that young children have a “first-owner” view of property (Hook, 1993).

The results of the two experiments reported here are somewhat consistent with this hypothesis.

Preschoolers often judged that initial owners retained some rights to their property; recipients of

transfers were limited. However, the results also indicate that young children are not entirely obliv-

ious to ownership transfer. Some transfers were more effective than others. In Experiment 1, young

children responded that buyers have more power to control the property than either borrowers or

finders. About one half of the preschoolers in Experiment 2 reliably assigned rights to the current

owners. Those who did not show this pattern consistently denied control to original owners as well as

recipient owners. Whenever young children assigned control to one actor rather than another they did

so in the same way as did adults; that is, only ownership status was ever used as the basis for assigning

property rights. Other possible bases for control, such as original owner status or high ability, did not

reliably predict young children’s judgments. Those children who based their judgment on ownership

accepted transfers of ownership as effective.

Young children agreed with older children and adults in their identifications of ownership. Young

children designated recipients as the owners in cases of gift-giving and buying, but not in cases of bor-

rowing or finding. These results do not, necessarily, conflict with other studies showing developmental

differences in how people identify owners (Friedman & Neary, 2008). Stories in our experiments were

designed to provide clear and unambiguous cues to ownership. Ownership identification was treated

as a manipulation check to ensure children were following the stories. It remains quite possible that

there are situations, involving ambiguous or conflicting cues for example, in which children would

assign ownership differently than would adults. Nonetheless, the present study suggests develop-

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mental continuity in identification of ownership. The differences observed concern the meaning of

ascriptions of ownership; young children may have different ideas about what owners can do with

their property.

The major age difference observed in the two experiments was that many younger children did

not privilege one claimant over another in disputes over property. This was particularly apparent

in Experiment 2. Data suggest reliable individual differences in response strategies. The responses

of a group of younger children (about one half of the sample) seemed to be based on an adult-like

conception of ownership and property rights. Age differences were result of a subset of children who

did not answer according to ownership. For adults and older children, what was relevant was who

owned the object. Ownership correlated well with control for older participants. A subset of younger

children seemed to have a broader conception of property rights, in that a variety of factors contributed

to determining control of an object. In the remainder of this discussion we offer some speculation about

these various factors.

One hypothesis is that young children were more likely to apply a “fairness” or compromise solution

to the presented disputes. Fairness is a very powerful norm for young children, and a basic construc-

tion of fairness is equality. By design the stories required endorsement of one of the two disputants’

position. No compromise was possible in the forced-choice tasks. However, one interpretation of the

non-ownership based responses is that they maintained the status quo. Children tended to deny

that any changes could be made (rather than accepting all proposals for change). The logic might

be that if no one person gets to decide, things stay as they are. Also, in Experiment 2 participants were

only asked to evaluate the active, change, proposals. Questions did not ask about the passive, resist-

change position. It is possible that young children might have answered “no” to both questions; “Can

A change despite B’s objections?” and “Can B keep A from making the change?” with such responses

indicating that neither alternative was acceptable and that the disputants should find a compromise

solution.

A desire for compromise does not fully explain young children’s responses, however. In Experiment

1, young children did consistently privilege owners over temporary possessors such as borrowers or

finders. Rather, a compromise preference likely reflects the intuition that both parties have some

legitimate claim. Put another way, young children may not have limited their considerations to facts

about ownership. As adults we can appreciate that the stories may have involved more than ownership

rights. For example, original owners often feel some attachment to the objects they no longer possess.

This attachment has some influence on control decisions. Someone cannot buy an artwork and then

deface it. An owner may have a legal right to destroy a creation, but often he or she ought not to.

Similarly, “re-gifting” an item received from a friend may not be a violation of property rights, but

it may be a violation of the relationship. Lending may be relatively immune from considerations of

ownership (at least in young children’s judgments) because it is generally a nice, helpful, thing to do.

A plausible hypothesis is that many young children did not distinguish what owners may and may

not do from other considerations, such as what friends may and may not do. From the adult perspective,

the former is a matter of property rights, while the latter is a matter of interpersonal relations (which

may well involve serious moral norms). There are, at least, two ways to interpret the claim that children

were less likely to distinguish property rights from other considerations. One possibility is that they

have a broader conception of the factors determining property rights. The current study explored some

possible factors (i.e., initial ownership and outcome or ability), but there are many other features that

could affect decisions about rights over property (e.g., other people’s feelings). An alternative is that

young children have the same intuitions about property rights as do older children and adults, but

they are less likely to base their judgments on such rights. Older participants interpreted the study

questions as involving judgments of property rights; younger children may have been more apt to

interpret questions broadly, as asking, “all things considered, what ought to be done?” An important

goal for future research is to distinguish these alternatives.

In sum, there are many factors that may influence decisions about what ought to be done with

an object. Considerations include utility (what will produce a desired outcome?), psychological/social

consequences (how will other people feel?), and property rights (who has the right to decide?). Ulti-

mately, judging what ought to be done involves reconciling all these factors. However, the individual

factors may have very distinct structures and bases; what determines utility may not be related to what

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determines property rights. The current study explored one system of considerations, those involving

ownership rights and transfers.

By early school age, children’s assignments of property rights were very similar to those of adults;

they agreed on the kinds of rights associated with ownership and on the conditions that indicate or

establish those rights. Preschool-aged children largely shared these intuitions, but were less consistent,

and/or showed individual differences, in how they distinguished ownership from other considerations

that might affect decisions about property. Even many of the youngest children in the study appreciated

that property rights depended on a particular social status, that of ownership, and that property rights

may be voluntarily transferred.

The present study explored children’s conceptions of ownership transfer. The results provide evi-

dence that young school-aged children, and many preschool-aged children, understand that property

rights are transferable. We know that young children are active and motivated participants in property

relations; matters of ownership and property rights guide children’s interactions. The young children

in this study appeared to share many adult intuitions about ownership, most significantly, that it is

transferable. The results also suggest some fruitful directions for further research. Young children may

differ from adults not in their concept of ownership, per se, but in how they apply that concept and

coordinate property rights with other considerations such as outcomes and interpersonal relation-

ships. Much of the significance objects hold for us is that they represent a nexus of these powerful and

sometimes competing forces. Children’s development and participation in the social world depends

on understanding and coordinating these concerns.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to Peter Blake for helpful comments on a previous draft.

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