1998 Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 1-10
People regard not only their own spiritual activities and bodies but also the objects which are in their physical environments as part of self (i.e., "extended self"). "Extended self" is defined as the aggregation of all objects that people regard themselves as part of self. Perceiving objects as part of our "extended self" makes people attach to the possessions. This study explores the meaning and the importance of possessions for self in terms of non-voluntary loss focusing on physical possessions which are part of "extended self." We sent the questionnaire to the victims in Ashiya city of the Great Hanshin Earthquake that occurred on 17th January 1995. The questionnaire consisted of questions asking what important possessions they lost, why the possessions were important to them, how they reacted the stress of earthquake as well as demographic factors. The main findings were as follows; 1)The most important lost possessions were dinner sets (tableswares) for both males and females. 2)The reasons of the importance were different between males and females. Males listed significantly higher percentage of utility items than females, while females listed higher percentage of memory items than males. 3)The victims who lost their possessions by the earthquake showed greater stress than those who didn't.
