Share it or buy it? Exploring the effects of product brand attachment on commercial sharing services

Commercial sharing services (CSSs) provide consumers with temporary access to products or services. Consumers can use CSSs to communicate an identity by renting products from specific brands. Applying the theory of the extended self, we proposed an attachment-based account of CSS usage. Across four studies, we found consistent evidence that consumers were less likely to rent the products of their strongly attached brands via CSSs because these brands were regarded as part of their extended selves, and thus sharing these products with others would contaminate the self. However, this effect was mitigated when consumers’ psychological ownership of the shared product was augmented. Our findings reveal that psychological ownership can replace the role of actual ownership in the sharing context, rendering profound implications for understanding the relationships among self, brand, and product in sharing services.