Psychological Ownership in HCI: Dimensions and Development of an Instrument

Psychological ownership—the feeling that a target is “theirs”—plays a crucial role in human-computer interactions. However, current methodological tools for exploring psychological ownership in HCI are limited, offering minimal opportunities for cross-study comparisons or generalizable measurements. This paper introduces the Scale of Psychological Ownership of Technology (SPOT), a standardized instrument for measuring psychological ownership in HCI contexts. Through semi-structured interviews (n = 25), we validate five dimensions: self-identity, self-efficacy, autonomy, territoriality, and a combined dimension of accountability and responsibility. Based on this structure, we develop SPOT through item generation, refinement, and validation processes. The final 18-item instrument exhibits strong psychometric properties across exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (n = 410), with high reliability and good model fit indices for both tangible and intangible technological artifacts. SPOT provides researchers with a robust tool for measuring psychological ownership across diverse technology contexts.