Minimal Sense Of Self Essay

The development of a minimal sense of self, across objects, plays an important role in the growth of a human (Cunningham, Turk, Macdonald & Macrae, 2008). It is common for a person to develop a sense of ownership towards objects, which can elicit a greater sense of appeal, known as the ownership effect (Cunningham et al., 2008). In some cases, such as in the mere ownership effect, the value of the object can be overestimated (Feng, Zhao, & Donnay, 2013). Even though, ownership not only causes appeal it can also cause aversion. For instance, the endowment effect is considered a manifestation of loss that causes aversion due to the loss of a possession, which is greater than the pleasure of acquiring that possession (Feng et al., 2013). Furthermore, studies have found that objects acquired in this context can have different memory traces and might have an effect on recognition memory (Feng et al., 2013). In fact, how those objects are encoded in the memory might differ from those stranger to that person (Feng et al., 2013). In addition, the concept of self can be extended to people, refer as the extended self (Kim & Johnson, 2012). For instance, studies have found that ownership and …show more content…
Colored lines, below and above the item, were used to sort the item in the correspondent bag. Participants had a time limit of 5000ms to move the object before it disappeared. After allocating the item, a blank screen appeared for 500ms.
Recognition Memory Test: 150 items, 50 self-owned and 50 other-owned, were displayed in the screen and participants were asked to decide if they recognized the object from the previous task. Novel items were included, thus subjects could say if they did not recognize the item. No time limit was defined for the answer and a blank screen followed it for 1000ms.
For all the tasks the color and location of the bags as well as the order of the items was randomized.