Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 14, 2025

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation
Published on: March 1, 2017
Not by intuitions alone: Institutions shape our ownership behaviour.
Reka Blazsek1, Christophe Heintz1
1Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Wien, Austria blazsek_reka@phd.ceu.edu; https://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/people/reka-blazsek heintzc@ceu.edu; http://christophe.heintz.free.fr/.
Understanding ownership involves both biological instincts and cultural evolution. Cultural processes are crucial for solving coordination problems and explaining arbitrary ownership beliefs.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Evolutionary Psychology
- Cultural Evolution
Background:
- Humans constantly make decisions regarding ownership.
- Understanding the cognitive basis of ownership is essential.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the cognitive processes underlying ownership decisions.
- To integrate biological and cultural evolutionary perspectives on ownership.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of existing literature on biological and cultural evolution.
- Theoretical elaboration on coordination problems and ownership.
Main Results:
- Biologically evolved intuitions about competition and cooperation play a role in ownership.
- Cultural evolutionary processes are vital for solving coordination problems related to ownership.
Conclusions:
- A purely biological evolution model is insufficient to explain ownership beliefs.
- Cultural evolution provides insights into the arbitrariness and historical contingency of ownership.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Social Proof
Attribution Theory
Conformity
Incentive Theory: Pull Theory of Motivation
The theory differentiates between...
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Social Exchange Theory

