Psychological ownership is one of the fundamental notions in marketing and consumer behavior. This idea has increasingly attracted researchers’ attention over the past decade due to the proliferation of digital goods and the sharing economy, both of which are challenging the conventional understanding of “ownership” of products. In this special issue, we shed light on psychological ownership toward various products, such as digital cash, online content, and pop groups, with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of the mechanism, antecedents, and consequences of psychological ownership.

In recent years, the concept of psychological ownership has garnered significant attention in marketing. Psychological ownership refers to the sense of ownership that individuals feel towards an object and the feeling that the object is “mine.” With the rise of digitalization and the sharing economy, consumers’ consumption patterns have expanded to include immaterial and sharing goods. Psychological ownership has emerged as a crucial concept for understanding the increasingly complex relationship between consumers and objects. This paper reviews 48 recent articles published in leading academic journals in the marketing field to analyze the latest trends in research on psychological ownership in marketing. The aim is to gain insights into the current status of research on psychological ownership and identify future directions for exploration.

This study focuses on idol fans’ idolatry behaviors (oshi-katsu) and discusses the necessity of considering psychological ownership to understand these behaviors. Most idol fans tend to have psychological ownership of their favorite idols, which produces paradoxical consciousness toward other fans (doutan). This study also empirically examines whether their psychological ownership affects their well-being and intention to continue idolatry behaviors. Confirmatory Factor Analysis using data collected from 550 idol fans revealed that psychological ownership of an idol is composed of psychological identity and responsibility. Further, Structural Equation Modeling showed that psychological identity positively affects companion consciousness toward other fans, and psychological responsibility positively influences competitive consciousness toward them. Although companion consciousness positively affects their well-being and intention to continue idolatry behaviors, competitive consciousness positively impacts well-being and negatively influences intention to continue idolatry behaviors. Some possible reasons for the different effects of the two kinds of consciousness on consequent factors are discussed.

In this study, we examine three kinds of content consumers: (1) fans (consumers who have low self-content relationships), (2) manias (consumers who have high self-content relationships and high social connections with others), and (3) otaku (consumers who have high self-content relationships and low social connections with others). The results of four studies show that (1) fans are likely to perceive lower levels of individual and collective ownerships and, thus, choose rental liquid consumption; (2) manias are likely to perceive higher levels of individual and collective ownership and, thus, choose experiential liquid consumption and solid consumption; and (3) otaku are likely to perceive a higher level of individual ownership and a lower level of collective ownership and, thus, choose solid consumption. These findings update the literature on content business, liquid/solid consumption, experiential consumption, and psychological ownership.

Technological innovations have created new products, services and markets, promoting ephemeral, access-based and dematerialized liquid consumption. These consumption changes can have three effects on psychological ownership: they can threaten it, cause it to transfer to other targets, and create new opportunities to preserve it. This study focused on desire for control as an underlying motive of psychological ownership and examined how this influences development of psychological ownership for music streaming services. The survey was conducted among consumers who use a music subscription service—either Spotify or Apple Music—at least once a week. The analysis revealed that the effects of desire for control on psychological ownership and loyalty to services varied depending on usage frequency. In addition, different patterns were observed across services (Spotify/Apple Music). These results suggest that the effect of desire for control on psychological ownership is not straightforward. That is, a high desire for control does not necessarily foster psychological ownership because the effect of the desire for control is moderated by other factors, such as usage frequency.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of consumers’ psychological ownership of payment methods on their choice of paying, WTP and WTA. Two experiments were conducted focusing on two types of payment methods (cash and mobile payment). In Experiment 1, we asked participants to read a fictitious purchase scenario, and verified that the payment method with lower psychological ownership is likely to be selected at the point of purchase, resulting in higher WTP. In Experiment 2, participants were assigned to read two of four fictitious buying and selling scenarios, and we verified that the payment method with the higher psychological ownership is likely to be selected at the point of receipt, resulting in lower WTA.

Can marketers accurately predict consumer preferences for new products? Accurate prediction of these preferences are important in new product development, but prior research has shown that marketers’ predictions may not be accurate. This paper aims to review research on the False Consensus Effect (FCE) in predicting consumer preferences and contribute to improving the accuracy of marketers’ predictions of these preferences. FCE is a cognitive bias that causes consumers to project their individual preferences for a product. Marketers’ predictions in which FCE occurs have large errors for actual consumer preferences and lead to undesirable decisions, such as the continued development of unattractive new products. In this paper, we describe “empathy with consumers” and “customer orientation” as factors that cause FCE that have been identified in marketing research, and the details of “individual preference suppression,” which is a method for avoidance of FCE. However, many remaining issues exist in the study of FCE in marketing research. Finally, we contribute to this research area by suggesting directions for future research in terms of individual preference suppression, predicted consumer attributes, the accuracy of measuring consumer preferences, and the characteristics of marketers.

In recent years, consumers have increasingly preferred natural products in categories such as food and cosmetics. Naturalness includes the concept of “no human intervention, processing, and additives”, and naturalness research has gradually increased. This article reviews academic literature published in overseas journals related to research on consumer behavior and marketing. The results reveal that naturalness influences consumers’ judgments and emotional reactions through specific beliefs and inferences, and that process factors and sensory factors influence the perceived naturalness. Finally, directions for future research are discussed. This article provides useful insights for understanding the concept of naturalness and naturalness preference.

Crowdsourcing refers to gathering of ideas from users and utilization of these ideas for product development. This approach has garnered significant attention, but despite its advantages, many companies that utilize crowdsourcing face difficulties in gathering user ideas. Even if ideas are obtained from users, many companies fail to utilize them effectively or are unable to continue to do so. Mineo, a low-cost smartphone company, provides a good example of overcoming these difficulties. The company has been able to collect about 9,100 ideas from users and has implemented roughly 1,100 of these ideas. In this paper, we first introduce the “Idea Farm,” which serves as a centralized platform for collection of ideas from users on the Mineo community site “mineo-ou”. Next, we show that new services have been created and existing services improved based on user ideas. Finally, we discuss three outstanding aspects of the approach taken by Mineo in collecting numerous user ideas and evolving these ideas into attractive services: 1) securing the quantity of ideas, 2) improving the quality of ideas, and 3) consideration of all ideas by executives and facilitation of the realization of user ideas.

The 6th Editorial Committee (from April 2023) established the position of “Managing Editor” for the first time. Along with this, we plan to publish an “Annual Report” in the first issue each year. In 2022 (April 2022 to March 2023), the Japan Marketing Journal published 18 special articles, 9 reviews articles, 2 peer-reviewed articles, 6 marketing cases, and 8 book reviews. The total number of publications was 43, excluding forewords and editorial notes. Fifteen peer-reviewed papers were submitted and the acceptance rate was 13.3%. Of note, datasets accompanying articles are now published in a research data repository and the journal is now listed in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).