Transition and Growth, sentimental items we hold

Sentimental objects are stagnant through the transition of childhood to womanhood. The social lives of things? Human interaction changes objects meaning when we determine its value. eg: a teddy bear in a shop has no objective value beyond a product but is transformed by the meaning put onto it (when owned) and the social life of it has changed and has gained a different value.

'The endowment effect' we value things more because we own them.

'Our relationship with stuff starts early. The idea that we can own something, possess it as if a part of ourselves, is one that children grasp by the age of two. And by six, they exhibit the ‘endowment effect’, placing extra value on an object simply by virtue of it being, or having been, theirs. Although children understand ownership from a very young age, they think about it in a more simplistic way than adults. A study by Ori Friedman and Karen Neary in 2008 showed that aged between two and four, kids make the assumption that whoever is first in possession of the object is the owner, regardless of whether they later give it away.

Most children have an unusually intense relationship with a specific ‘attachment object’, usually a favourite blanket or a soft toy. In an intriguing study by Bruce Hood and Paul Bloom, the majority of three- to six-year-old children preferred to take home their original attachment object, as opposed to a duplicate made by a ‘copying machine’. To the prospect of taking a copy, ‘the most common response was horror,’ says Nathalia Gjersoe, who helped run the studies. ‘A few very sweet and obedient children said okay but then burst into tears.’ Four of the children even refused for their attachment toy or object to be copied in the first place. That’s despite the fact they were happy enough to take a copy of an experimenter’s toy. It’s as if the children believed their special object had a unique essence, a form of magical thinking that re-appears in adulthood in our treatment of heirlooms, celebrity memorabilia and artwork.'

Some experts refer to children’s attachment objects as ‘transitional objects’ because it is believed they aid the transition to independence.

As children mature into teens, we see possessions starting to act as a crutch for the self. In 2007, Lan Chaplin and her colleagues interviewed participants aged between eight and 18 and found that ‘materialism’ peaked at middle adolescence, just when self-esteem tended to be lowest. In a follow-up, materialism was reduced in teens who were given flattering feedback from peers to boost their self-esteem. ‘Giving children or adolescents a sense of self-worth and accomplishment seems to be quite an effective antidote to the development of materialism.'

Development and Research

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