Psychological ownership as a facilitator of sustainable behaviors

Abstract

Continued enjoyment of any good or system requires sustainable behavior. This holds in particular in the context of the environment. We currently use more resources than the environment is able to reproduce. Ways to instigate proenvironmental behaviors are needed. In this chapter we suggest that instigating psychological ownership may be a successful mechanism for triggering behaviors that help maintain the environment. We argue that psychological ownership helps combat most systematic barriers to sustainability and discuss potential mechanisms for instigating psychological ownership for abstract and ubiquitous systems such as the environment. We conclude with a discussion about implications for sustainability at large.