Tag Archives: psychology

May we introduce: Floyd Webster Rudmin

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“I was trying to find the cultural and cognitive foundations of possession and ownership.”

We have yet another addition to our Featured section to announce. This time we had the great pleasure to chat with a true legend of ownership research: psychologist Floyd Webster Rudmin. With his diverse background in philosophy, audiology, social psychology, law and business he managed to approach the topic of ownership and possession from a variety of different angles. The entrance to psychology of ownership and possession, however, was via political philosophy, not via consumer behavior nor via law. He was particularly inspired by the debate of communal vs. private ownership throughout history (Plato’s analysis and Aristotle’s evidence in the 5th century BC, holocultural sociology (sampling cultures) in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and saber-rattling nuclear missiles in the 1950s-1980s).

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In his featured interview, which you can read here, Floyd talks about his personal path, important works that inspired his career, as well as his opinion on the future of ownership. Click here for the full interview.

May We Introduce: Ori Friedman

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“I believe that the nature of ownership is something we need to discover through research—not something that can be stipulated in advance. ”

We are happy to announce that we got the chance to talk to yet another great personality, who we would like to introduce to you in our Featured section. Ori Friedman is a truly inspiring and dedicated researcher who got involved in the topic of ownership when he was studying people’s mental states and realized that many interesting elements were equally related to children’s reasoning about ownership, a topic that hardly anybody looked into at the time.

Unlike our previous candidates, Ori approaches the topic from a purely psychological perspective and demonstrates how diverse and broad the topic can be. Receiving his PhD in psychology at Boston College, he is now an Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada and mainly involved in social cognitive development, conceptual development, and related topics. More specifically, he investigates how children and adults reason about ownership of property, pretense and fiction.

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In his featured interview, which you can read here, Ori talks about his interests and research foci,  about the complexity of the topic and reveals his take on the future of ownership. Click here for the full interview.