Desire for Control as an Underlying Motive of Psychological Ownership for Music Streaming Services:

Abstract

Technological innovations have created new products, services and markets, promoting ephemeral, access-based and dematerialized liquid consumption. These consumption changes can have three effects on psychological ownership: they can threaten it, cause it to transfer to other targets, and create new opportunities to preserve it. This study focused on desire for control as an underlying motive of psychological ownership and examined how this influences development of psychological ownership for music streaming services. The survey was conducted among consumers who use a music subscription service—either Spotify or Apple Music—at least once a week. The analysis revealed that the effects of desire for control on psychological ownership and loyalty to services varied depending on usage frequency. In addition, different patterns were observed across services (Spotify/Apple Music). These results suggest that the effect of desire for control on psychological ownership is not straightforward. That is, a high desire for control does not necessarily foster psychological ownership because the effect of the desire for control is moderated by other factors, such as usage frequency.

Keywords

• psychological ownership
• desire for control
• loyalty
• usage frequency
• music streaming service