Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Ownership Issues

Just in time for the debate (again) about workspace hoteling – this time in the context of sharing anything in the course of – or at the end of a pandemic – Michael Heller and James Salzman recently published, Mine!:  How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives (Doubleday, 2021).  Both authors are law professors, but in spite of that their book is very readable.  Anyone who’s ever been on an airline will really enjoy the case study in their introduction on space ownership by airline passengers. It focuses on how much anyone is allowed to/should be allowed to recline their seat. Speaking about ownership in their introduction the pair reports that, “At its core, human society exists to help us deal with competing claims to scarce resources—whether food, water, gold, or sexual partners—so that we don’t kill each other too often.” Discussions of ownership, in the context of …