ABSTRACT
Ownership, the psychological state of feeling in possession of either goods or abilities, flows from rights and also confers rights, which allow people to function unimpeded in their culture. The withering of enforced collectivism in recent political history has affirmed the strength of the private ownership concept worldwide, as has the globalization of capitalist enterprises. Cross-cultural variations in ownership are often quite striking, for instance, the comparative rates of home ownership between the United States and China. Several opportunities are available for simple simulation of empirical studies in the area of cross-cultural ownership and possession. Intellectual property is subject to piracy, an interesting psychological subject that cuts across the boundaries of property and ethics. Scales such as the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-Being, which incorporate a specific environmental mastery component, can be administered and the correlation between mastery scores and number of possessions or other evidence of ownership calculated and discussed.
