Ever grabbed a sweater at a store, held it for a moment, and then felt a little pang of guilt for putting it back? According to a 2009 study, ‘The Effect of Mere Touch on Perceived Ownership,’ published in the Journal of Consumer Research, that reaction is not random. Marketing professors Joann Peck of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Suzanne Shu of UCLA found that simply touching an object makes people feel like it already belongs to them, even if they haven't paid a cent.
Why touching something make it feel like "mine"
In the study reported by ScienceDaily, Peck and Shu were partly responding to a 2003 warning from the Illinois attorney general's office about retailers who encourage holiday shoppers to hold products and imagine them as their own. The two professors were wondering if there was any real science to that warning.
In four separate studies, people who physically touched an item reported a higher level of ownership over it compared to those who merely looked at the same item without touching it, according to the original Journal of Consumer Research paper. This appeared for buyers who wanted to purchase, and sometimes for people selling, too. Interestingly, people who simply imagined touching an object without actually touching it also reported greater feelings of ownership, which has important implications for online shopping.
The paper adds that the touch effect was strongest when the experience was positive or neutral, which helps explain why free trials and hands-on displays can be so powerful in stores. It also extends the finding to sellers, suggesting that touch can increase perceived ownership even for legal owners who already possess the item.
