Research could Assist Stewardship of Public Lands

New research by UCLA Anderson’s Suzanne B. Shu and University of Wisconsin’s Joann Peck, describes experimenting with an individual’s sense of “psychological ownership” of a given public or shared resource. The researchers have found that “subtle manipulation” of an individual’s connection to a public good “increase(s) psychological ownership and behavior that preserves the common good”.

The studies reveal that that more control you give an individual the more their psychological ownership increases.