What's Mine Is a Hologram? How Shared Augmented Reality Augments Psychological Ownership

Augmented Reality (AR) holograms are 3D digital objects projected into a customer's physical environment through mobile technology. Applied as potential substitutes to physical products, AR holograms pose a unique challenge for conventional configurations of product ownership. Taking a socially situated cognition perspective, we demonstrate how customers’ shared experience of AR holograms leads to distinct perspectives on psychological ownership. In Study 1, we demonstrate how customization of AR holograms lets customers feel psychological ownership of digital products. In Study 2, we highlight the mechanisms of social adaptation related to assimilation and differentiation that drive the relationship between customization and psychological ownership of AR holograms in social settings. In Study 3, we illustrate how these mechanisms are influenced by the affordances of AR technology when customers switch between personal or shared devices. We discuss implications for theory and marketing practice of this potentially novel class of digital consumer products.