Terry Connolly

Who they are

The work of Terry Connolly reaches this site through the paper listed below. The name is tied to Possession Effect. Their paper reports: Stated ownership and physical possession were manipulated independently in endowment experiments.

Key papers

Reb, J., & Connolly, T. (2007). Possession, feelings of ownership and the endowment effect. Judgment and Decision Making, 2(2), 107-114. What it reports: Stated ownership and physical possession were manipulated independently in endowment experiments. Possession significantly affected valuation, factual ownership did not; the possession effect was mediated by feelings of ownership and appeared to lead people to include the object in their reference point.

Key ideas

Possession Effect: The finding that physically holding an object raised its valuation, through stronger feelings of ownership, while being told it was owned did not.

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