Psychological ownership and forest management behavior: Development and validation of a multidimensional bifactor scale

Private forest ownership in Germany is undergoing profound demographic and structural transformation, resulting in a more heterogeneous population of owners with diverse values and management practices. These changes necessitate new theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding owner behavior. This study develops and validates a novel measurement instrument for psychological ownership in the context of private forestry in Germany, using a bifactor model with five specific factors. Drawing on two large-scale surveys in Bavaria and Lower Saxony, we employ exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis as well as structural equation modeling to examine the factorial structure and predictive validity of psychological ownership. Our results demonstrate that psychological ownership is significantly associated to self-implemented forest management and extensive climate change adaptation strategies, while visit frequency emerges as the most important exogenous predictor. In contrast, psychological ownership does not affect delegated forest management. Factors such as property size and membership in forest owner associations primarily influence the orthogonal factor self-investment, which is not connected to psychological ownership. Notably, the presented instrument requires further refinement and validation, particularly with regard to the stability of the identity and knowledge factors. We recommend extending the psychological ownership approach to encompass broader actor networks involved in forest management. Our findings underscore the need for policy instruments and advisory services that address the full spectrum of owner motivations and identities, and for further research into the complex actor networks that shape forest management decisions.