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Three Paths to Disposition: The Movement of Meaningful Possessions to

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Article  in  Journal of Consumer Research · March 2005

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Three Paths to Disposition: The Movement of
Meaningful Possessions to Strangers
JOHN L. LASTOVICKA
KAREN V. FERNANDEZ*

Our interpretive research treats meaningful possessions as vessels of public and

private meanings. From this perspective, we unpack consumer disposition of mean-
ingful possessions to strangers at garage sales and online auctions. We reveal
how a range of valences of self-extension and self-references other than the ideal
self shape a meaningful possession’s journey from self to other. We identify a new
iconic transfer divestment ritual, deepen and reinterpret other divestment rituals,
and uncover how a shared sense of self allows possessions to migrate across
seller-buyer boundaries. We present and discuss the implications of a model de-
picting three paths to disposition.

They’re sort’n through what’s left of you and me,
Paying yard sale prices for each . . . memory.
Oh I never thought I’d live to see
The way they’re sort’n through what’s left of you
and me.
(“Yard Sale,” recorded by Sammy Kershaw on
Polygram, 1991)
Our research has three objectives. First, we aim to ex-
plicate the role of valence in understanding consumer dis-
position. Prior research focused on positive meanings of
possessions and the self, providing explanations of which
possessions consumers retain. In contrast, our research di-
rectly considers self-references rooted in Ogilvie’s (1987)
undesired self and we note that extensions of such selves
are negatively charged. Despite Young and Wallendorf’s

O ur research examines consumers selling their mean-

ingful personal possessions to strangers outside their
interpersonal networks. Despite the 9 million U.S. garage
sales and the $19 billion worth of consumer-to-consumer
online auctions that take place each year (Dykema 1999;
Herrmann 1997), with few exceptions (Jacoby, Berning, and
Dietvorst 1977; Price, Arnould, and Curasi 2000; Young
and Wallendorf 1989), consumer research has understudied
disposition behavior. Often the possessions disposed (as the
epigraph suggests) are meaningful to the seller. If consum-
ers’ meaningful possessions are part of their extended selves
(Belk 1988), then, when consumers sell such possessions,
they symbolically divest extensions of themselves. Because
that which is sold by consumers often has meaning beyond
any cash earned, like Young and Wallendorf (1989, 33), we
view disposition as “the process of detachment from self.”
*John L. Lastovicka is professor of marketing, Arizona State University,
W. P. Carey School of Business, Box 874106, Tempe, AZ 85287; e-mail:
John.Lastovicka@asu.edu. Karen V. Fernandez is senior lecturer in mar-
keting, University of Auckland, School of Business and Economics, Private
Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand; e-mail: k.fernandez@auckland.ac.nz.
The authors thank the editors, the associate editor, the reviewers, and col-
leagues for their insights and patience during the development of our pro-
gram of research. The intellectual encouragement obtained from the Qual-
itative Research Roundtables at the annual conferences of the Association
for Consumer Research is also appreciated.
813
(1989) characterization of disposition as painful, we observe
that many consumers eagerly shed the tainted remnants of
the less desirable stages of their lives.
To quote the epigraph, when sellers divest possessions,
they may confront a “memory” reflecting a possession’s
meaning. Thus our second objective is to answer Belk,
Sherry, and Wallendorf’s (1988) call for research on di-
vestment rituals (McCracken 1986; Rook 1985) that manage
such meanings. We conceptualize a meaningful possession
as a vessel (a commodity object) carrying public meanings
(a commodity’s widely held meanings) and private mean-
ings (personal meanings not widely held). Recognizing that
vessels may carry multiple meanings with differing valences
allows us to extend knowledge of divestment rituals.
Also (with a final epigraphical reference) sellers interact
with potential buyers “sort’n through” that offered for sale.
By considering sellers’ and buyers’ connections to posses-
sions, our third objective is to demonstrate how the concept
of a common-identity-based shared self (Aron et al. 1991;
Prentice, Miller, and Lightdale 1994) explains the disposi-
tion of the meaningful to strangers. Although Price et al.
(2000) found older consumers using family or friends as
heirs, in an increasingly fragmented society, many have no
choice but to dispose of meaningful possessions to strangers.
Thus, we introduce the shared self to disposition research.
We now turn to our theoretical foundations and then de-

䉷 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. ● Vol. 31 ● March 2005

All rights reserved. 0093-5301/2005/3104-0011$10.00
814
scribe our empirical methods. We subsequently report our
findings and present a conceptual model of the three paths
to disposition.
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
Early disposition research sheds light on which posses-
sions consumers retain or choose not to sell. Jacoby et al.
(1977) hypothesize that consumers keep products that are
high in emotional involvement. Likewise, O’Reilly et al.
(1984) observe that underwear is usually not sold at garage
sales, due to buyers’ fears of contamination from clothes
worn next to the body.
Meanings, Valence, and Self-Reference
Consumers value possessions beyond possessions’ func-
tional benefits due to public and private meanings (Belk
1988; Richins 1994). Public meanings reflect self identity
(Belk 1988; Kleine, Kleine, and Allen 1995) and play a role
in social communication (McCracken 1986). Private mean-
ings that are indexical in a spatio-temporal sense help define
identity and personal history (Grayson and Shulman 2000).
The research on possession meanings has emphasized pos-
itively valenced meanings—hence, use of the terms “spe-
cial” (Price et al. 2000) or “favorite” (Wallendorf and Ar-
nould 1988) to denote possessions. However, as we
subsequently discuss, considering only positive meanings
limits an understanding of intentional disposition.
Belk’s (1988) theory of the extended self implies that
sacred items are not readily disposed (Belk 1989); the “never
sell” rule applied to sacred possessions by collectors (Belk,
Wallendorf, and Sherry 1989) supports this. Like Jacoby et
al.’s (1977) hypothesis, this only informs what is retained.
Given that emotional attachment (Schultz, Kleine, and Ker-
nan 1989) is implicated in the extended self (Belk 1989)
and that attachment ranges from positive to negative (Wal-
lendorf and Arnould 1988), possessions associated with an
undesired self (Ogilvie 1987) have negative valence (Schultz
et al.1989). Hence, consumers shed extensions of a past self
when a past self is retrospectively evaluated negatively. In
contrast, Belk (1988) posits that disposition occurs when
items no longer fit the ideal-self image. However, the idea
that consumers move away from extensions of a negatively
charged former self is not captured with the ideal self. Thus
our research exploits valence’s role in self-extensions and
self-references other than the ideal self.
Detachment and Ritual
Young and Wallendorf (1989) view disposition as a pain-
ful process in which consumers experience the death of a
piece of their lives with each possession lost. They propose
two disposition processes: emotional detachment and phys-
ical detachment, with emotional detachment required for
satisfactory disposition. But, how do consumers detach emo-
tionally? Must they emotionally detach? Must disposition
be painful? With few exceptions (e.g., McCracken 1986),
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
few direct answers exist. However, the literature on ritual
offers some insight.
Rook (1985) defines ritual as an expressive, symbolic
activity constructed of behaviors in an episodic sequence.
Boundary-crossing rituals (Belk 1997) facilitate the traversal
of a liminal zone between two states (e.g., a possession being
“me” vs. “not me”) by allowing separation from an old state
and incorporation into the new state (Turner 1969). Mc-
Cracken (1986) coins the term “divestment ritual,” noting
that disposing consumers empty possessions of private
meaning to prevent contagion (from merging identity with
a new owner). McCracken (1988) and Roster (2001) suggest
that meanings are erased from possessions by storing things
away for a while before physical separation; but this only
reflects the first part of boundary crossing—the separation
from the old state (i.e., separation from self). Appropriately,
Belk et al. (1988) call for more research on divestment
rituals. For example, do divestment rituals only erase private
meaning? We believe that divestment rituals can function
more broadly. For instance, Price et al. (2000) show older
consumers transferring private meanings to heirs. Thus, we
view divestment rituals as achieving more than erasing or
transferring private meanings—they could also create, re-
inforce, or retain meanings. We interpret divestment rituals
as managing meaningful posssessions’ private and public
meanings to facilitate satisfactory detachment from self and
transfer to another.
Disposition, the Meaning of Possessions, and
Buyer-Seller Relationships
McCracken (1986) claims that disposing consumers avoid
contamination with new owners. Research on body part do-
nation, however, reveals that contamination fears are di-
minished among close donors and recipients (Belk and Aus-
tin 1986). Thus, disposing owners may accept a merging of
identities with new owners like themselves. Whereas re-
search examines the relationships between organ donors and
recipients, with few exceptions (Herrmann 1997; Price et
al. 2000), the extant research underexamines how interper-
sonal relationships influence product disposition. Herrmann
(1997) found that finding a new owner at a garage sale who
will provide a good home for a possession can be more
important than the economic benefit obtained from selling
the item. Thus, some older consumers who are without suit-
able family recipients may use garage sales to find appro-
priate heirs (Price et al. 2000). However, how do sellers
identify suitable recipients among strangers? Price et al.
(2000) offer some insight, including divesting to those who
will continue a possession’s good works. But how are such
buyers identified?
With a common identity, even two strangers may establish
a shared self (Aron et al. 1991). Given that experimentally
induced common identities create preferential treatment for
in-group members (Speers, Jetten, and Scheepers 2002), our
research explores the role that common-identity-based
shared selves have on disposition. No research reports how
THREE PATHS TO DISPOSITION
sellers treat the meanings of their possessions when selling
to strangers. Are meanings erased before selling to a
stranger? Are they transferred to a shared self? Such ques-
tions remain unanswered.
We have identified several gaps in the literature. First, the
role of meaning valences and self references beyond the
ideal self have not been overtly considered. Second, we note
several functions of rituals that have not been applied to
divestment rituals. Finally, we see an opportunity to clarify
the role that shared selves have in disposition. We now
inform these gaps.
EMPIRICAL METHODS
Our main study, study 1, examined garage sales; this pro-
duced emergent insights (Belk et al. 1988) that were further
examined in a second study. Study 2 investigated how mean-
ing valences and past selves inform disposition.
Study 1: Garage Sales
We collected participant-observation data from 11 garage
sales in a mid-sized North American town. Participation
included setting out possessions and monitoring buyers. Ob-
servations were recorded in notes and instant photos. Taped
depth interviews were also conducted with sellers, friends,
and kin. From 5 hr. to 11 hr. were spent at each sale, yielding
439 pages of text. The trustworthiness of data and inter-
pretations was examined via triangulation of sources, meth-
ods, and investigators. Soon after each sale, field notes were
prepared and peer debriefing occurred. Open coding iden-
tified emergent themes, and axial coding developed expla-
nations. Member checks occurred with three sellers.
Study 2: Online Sellers of Wedding Dresses
In study 2,we sent identical e-mails to 43 consumers who
were selling their own wedding dresses at online auctions.
The e-mail inquired about the meaning of the dress, as fol-
lows: “I am interested in bidding on your dress on behalf
of my daughter. It looks beautiful. Is there any personal
meaning associated with your dress that you could share
with me? Knowing what something means to you may help
me appreciate the dress even more.” Replies were received
from 39 sellers and were coded to reflect meanings and
valences. Two-thirds reported negative meanings, suggest-
ing that the sellers were candid in sharing private meanings.
FINDINGS
Meaning Valence, Self-References, and Disposition
Negative Valence and Disposing the Extensions of
“Never Me.” Some items sold were emotionally mean-
ingful but were negatively charged. At times a possession
reflected a self-reference based on the undesired self (Ogil-
vie 1987) that we term “Never Me.” Such a self is unrooted
815
in firsthand experience (Banister and Hogg 2001) and thus
is a negative abstraction.
A punch bowl set sold at the Rios family garage sale
illustrates this. When Michelle Rios (a retired factory worker
in her sixties), her husband Tom (a retired school janitor in
his sixties), and their eldest married daughter Delia were
shown a photo of the bowl that had sold at their sale, they
all burst into laughter. When asked why, they explained:
Delia: It’s not like we play bridge! [going into peals of laugh-
ter again].
Michelle: You have to entertain a lot to need one. Even if
we did, we don’t have no punch to put in it. . . . Most high-
society folks use punch bowls—
Tom: [interrupting] Or if you entertain a lot!
Michelle: But we’re just ordinary folks. You could rent one
if you needed it. . . . Most high-society folks use punch
bowls, but we’re just ordinary folks.
Repeated questioning about the punch bowl yielded no rich
indexical associations.
Employing the never-me self requires some appreciation
of consumers’ life stories (Kleine et al. 1995). Hence, we
note the Rios’s occupations and their comfort in being “or-
dinary folks.” By disposing of a vessel with public meanings
associated with a “high society” that “entertain[s] a lot,”
they reinforced their working-class status. Thus, the self is
not only reflected in what consumers own but is also re-
flected in what consumers disown.
A lack of indexical private meaning tied to the bowl is
consistent with the bowl reflecting a never-me self based in
abstract stereotypes. We believe the Rios’s implicit private
meaning is “that ‘high-society’ punch bowl is not for us
‘ordinary folks.’” We view their laughter as pleasure in
disowning the bowl. Disposition changed the valence as-
sociated with the apparent private meaning from negative
to positive. The laughter also reveals that Young and Wal-
lendorf’s (1989) characterization of disposition as “fearful”
is not always appropriate.
Negative Valence and Disposing Extensions of a Past-
Undesired Self. In other cases, negative meanings were
rooted in another form of undesired self we term the “past-
undesired” self. The past-undesired self is what the con-
sumer has actually been and extensions of this self-reference
are, at least in part, negatively charged. If extensions of a
past-undesired self are disposed, then this facilitates progress
toward a more desired future self. An e-mail from D’Arcy
illustrates this:
My mother . . . talked me into going to a bridal shop. I was
just going to try on a few dresses to get an idea of what style
I liked. . . . The woman who worked at the store had been
listening to me critique all of the dresses. She then walked
over to me with my wedding dress. . . . As soon as I tried it
on I knew it was the perfect one. There was only one problem,
the guy wasn’t too perfect. . . . I hope to one day have a new
816
family and a new life. I would hate for my wedding dress to
be a burden that reminds me of a past mistake.
Based in firsthand negative experiences with an ex-spouse
and a positively charged purchase experience, the dress man-
ifests the property of polysemy since it exhibits multiple
meanings (Turner 1969). By divesting the dress, which
D’Arcy fears will act as a link to the ex-spouse, negative
meanings are less likely recalled, thus facilitating transition
toward her desired new self.
Employing the past-undesired self requires appreciation
of how consumers’ lives are in transition. Online auctions
and garage sales were often associated with a life transition,
where consumers faced remnants of a past self. Hopson and
Adams (1976) define transitions as discontinuities in life
requiring new behaviors, with major discontinuities tied to
marriage, divorce, birth, death, children, work, and geo-
graphic change. Often informants, like D’Arcy, were in the
liminal phase of a transition—a period when the consumer
is disconnected from the former but not yet connected to
the new (Turner 1969). Some former selves, before transi-
tions, are desirable, and those selves are recalled fondly.
Other former selves—such as being unhappily married—are
negatively charged and beg to be forgotten. And the vessels
and private meanings of those negatively valenced former
selves are eagerly disposed to assist transition to a more
positive future self. Thus, while research has long recog-
nized that acquisition may assist self-enhancement, we show
disposition also assists self-enhancement.
Positive Valence and Distancing. Other items sold
were positively charged with rich emotional meanings. To
cope with the strain of losing a valued extension of self,
some consumers coped in a reactive manner with withdrawal
and disengagement from their sale. Both withdrawal (phys-
ical avoidance) and disengagement (psychological avoid-
ance) are ways of distancing the self from problems when
coping with strains incurred in life transitions (Hopson and
Adams 1976). Colleen, a health-care professional, exhibited
this at her garage sale with Tony, a teacher. This white couple
in their thirties was in the process of a divorce; he was
moving out-of-state to start a new job, and she was reluc-
tantly not accompanying him. Their comments reveal dif-
ferences in valence between extensions of a desired former
self (her married persona) and extensions of an undesired
past self (his married persona). Said Tony: “She’s very emo-
tional. . . . Selling it [our stuff] makes it [that I am leaving
her] concrete.” In contrast, Colleen lamented: “All of the
things that were sold by Tony had some meaning, so it was
hard seeing the things sold. He’s selling our memories for
a dollar. He sold a camera that he had—that I had—when
we met. He sold it to a neighbor’s girl. It was marked for
$3 and she was going to buy it, and he said ‘Oh, since
you’re such a good neighbor, I’ll give it to you for a dollar.’
I couldn’t take it, so I went [inside] and took a nap with
Boodles [the dog].” When Colleen retreated, seeking com-
fort with a snuggly pet in her former marital bed, we see
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
her distancing herself from the sale and symbolically moving
back to her desired past self.
While some like Colleen distanced themselves, others dis-
tanced possessions away from the sale. This second form of
distancing occurred at garage sales when consumers displayed
meaningful possessions along the interior walls of an attached
garage. When items clung to the house—separate from items
for sale nearer the garage door opening or out on the drive-
way—such possessions symbolically retreated back to an ear-
lier time when they were at the center of consumers’ lives.
This second form of distancing was illustrated when Anna,
a married working professional, offered her eight-track, mod-
ular-stereo system for sale at her garage sale. A photo from
Anna’s sale shows the stereo on the attached garage’s back
wall and apart from the other items for sale. On the first day
of her sale, Anna commented to the researcher as follows:
Anna: That [the eight-track system] was my high school grad-
uation present.
Researcher: Were you excited when you got it?
Anna: Oh, yeah and that’s why I’ve hung onto it for so long.
I wasn’t able to sell it [before because]—it’s [a present] from
my parents. I decided that—my husband decided that—we’d
sell it a couple of years ago, and I said, “Nooo, I can’t!” Then
I thought, because Evan [the husband] had a stereo when we
got married. You know, it has a separate receiver . . . it’s old
too now, but it’s, you know [better than my eight-track]. So I
decided to sell it, but I’m not going to give much on the [$45]
price.
Later, on the second day, field notes recorded: “She seldom
points it out to buyers. . . . When more things are moved
outside, she tells every single buyer that there are clothes
inside the garage but tells only the first three . . . that the
stereo at the back of the garage is for sale.” Commenting
on the second day about her stereo, she remarks, “If it
doesn’t sell—well—I tried. And we’ll just put it back where
we had it . . . in the extra room upstairs. . . . We have a
desk in there . . . and our file cabinet.”
Garages are on the liminal boundary between the public
and the private domains and hence are on the boundary
between “me” and “not me” at private sales. Because liminal
boundaries are intrinsically dangerous due to their ambig-
uous in-between nature (Douglas 1966), Anna’s stereo clung
to the interior garage wall and never became a saleable
commodity.
Summary. We show that an understanding of the vol-
untary disposition of meaningful possessions is enhanced
by considering meaning valences and self-references beyond
the ideal self. Useful self-references included never-me, un-
desired-past-me, and desired-past-me selves. The valence of
the possession’s private meaning reflected a possession’s
self-reference. Moreover, the status of private meanings
could change during disposition depending upon self-ref-
erence. Disposing extensions of never-me could change
meaning valence. Disposing extensions of an undesired-
past-self helped consumers leave negative meanings behind,
THREE PATHS TO DISPOSITION
thus assisting movement toward a more desirable new self.
Consumers’ disposition of extensions of these first two kinds
of self-references were found both desirable and satisfactory.
In contrast, disposition of extensions of a desired-past-me
were emotionally difficult and consumers coped with dis-
tancing. We now describe the divestment rituals that made
the disposition of positively charged possessions more
palatable.
Divestment Rituals
Iconic Transfer: Retaining Private Meaning. When
divestment rituals were used, separation from positively
charged meaningful possessions was less difficult than we
have described so far. One such ritual that we call “ionic
transfer” recognizes that retention of positively charged pri-
vate meaning can be more important than retaining the ves-
sel carrying the meaning. With iconic transfer, consumers
transfer the private meaning from the disposed vessel to
another object we call the icon. Our informants used photos
and video/audio tapes as icons. With an icon, the essence
of the private meaning is retained, and hence the vessel is
more easily divested. Jan, a married white woman in her
sixties, illustrates this with her shells: “One of the things I
sold was a lamp . . . [and] it was full of shells I had col-
lected. . . . I’d go visit my sister-in-law in Florida, and
we’d go out before dawn when the tide was going out . . .
and collect the shells with live animals and go cook ‘em
and clean ‘em and bleach ‘em. . . . And so I just took some
pictures of the shells. . . . [also] some of the clothes—I
take pictures before I sell ‘em. . . . I do it so that I have a
memory.”
A comparison of indexicality and iconicity deepens our
interpretation of iconic transfer (Grayson and Martinec
2004). Comparing these concepts in the context of Jan’s
shells clarifies how an icon may hold private meanings. To
be viewed as indexical, a vessel must possess a firsthand,
spatio-temporal link to a consumer’s past; thus, the shells
were linked to the beach while with her sister-in-law. For
Jan, the shells act as an index such that, when she saw them,
she was taken to her “mind’s-eye” review of beachcombing.
In contrast, Jan’s photos have no firsthand linkage to her
past. However, icons have physical properties resembling
an indexical object. And because the shells’ likeness was
captured in the photos, the photos have an iconic property.
Just as indexical objects provoke sensations in the mind,
given the similarity between indexical and iconic objects,
icons provoke analogous sensations, including the recall of
private meanings.
This ritual performs two often-thought-contradictory
functions by allowing consumers to (1) be rid of the vessel
of the meaningful possession without undue emotional bur-
den and (2) potentially retain some of the positively charged
private meanings formerly held in the vessel. This means
that psychological detachment is not required for satisfac-
tory physical detachment. Transfer of meaning from vessel
to icon is not perfect as the icon is only an incomplete copy
817
of the vessel (e.g., photos are two-dimensional representa-
tions of three-dimensional objects). Although some meaning
is likely lost, iconic transfer retains the essence of private
meanings.
The Transition-Place Ritual: Eroding Private
Meanings. Many informants prepared for separation from
their meaningful possessions by intentionally placing items
into a household location that we call the “transition place.”
Consumers in study 1 sorted out what they wanted to sell
into an out-of-the-way location in the household like a spare
room or back porch. Anna described her transition place:
“I had a room downstairs. A special bedroom downstairs,
so I just piled them in there. . . . I’d think ‘I don’t use this
anymore,’ and I’d stick it down there. . . . I piled stuff on
the beds and on the floor. . . I’d just stick it in there.”
As Anna’s comments indicate, a transition place is an
isolated physical location serving as a stopping point in a
vessel’s journey as it moves out of the consumer’s hands.
When Cindy, a married white woman in her thirties, was
asked if there were any clothes that she had found difficult
to sell, she replied “Yeah . . . some that my mum made for
me, anything that was handmade was really hard to part
with. And special gifts and others . . . just stuff I bought,
sentimental value. . . . I kept it [stored away for] . . . two
years. . . . And then you finally decide, I haven’t worn this
in two years, why am I keeping it?” Metaphorically, the
transition place is a key way station along a meaningful
possession’s journey from being private and “me” (and full
of private meaning) to recrossing the boundary into public
space and becoming “not-me” (and thus emptied of emo-
tional meaning).
We interpret the transition place on two levels. First,
placement in a transition place signals a clear disposition
intention, thus allowing trial disposition. Intention, and then
trial, are two incremental changes facilitating an item’s
movement through the private-public boundary. At a second,
and deeper level, we note that a transition place’s isolation
resembles the specially designated locations used in isolation
rituals to facilitate boundary crossings (Turner 1969). Thus,
when Cindy spatially separated possessions from the phys-
ical center of her day-to-day life, the possessions became
less “me” and moved toward becoming “not-me.” Success-
ful transition places in study 1 were out-of-sight locations
in a home’s periphery (e.g., basement, porch, or unused
room) that were physically away from the “hearth” of
kitchen, living room, and bedroom found at the core of the
single-family residence. This interpretation suggests that iso-
lating possessions in an out-of-sight transition place incre-
mentally moves those possessions away from the domain
of “me.”
Ritual Cleansing to Both Remove and Add Meaning.
Consumers also prepared for separation from meaningful
possessions with ritual cleansing. We found garage sale in-
formants had put effort into washing, ironing, folding, pin-
ning, wrapping, and price-tagging their clothes and bed-
clothes before selling such items. At most of the online
818
wedding dress auctions of study 2 and at some of the garage
sales of study 1, women dry-cleaned the dresses they were
selling. At garage sales, the cost of dry-cleaning was more
than the asking price of the dresses. Said Kris, a white
housewife in her thirties, when asked about pre-garage-sale
actions: “Well, we did some cleaning. I did. Like I ironed
those chair pads there, I washed those and ironed them. . . .
I pinned them all together [in a set]. ” We interpret Kris’s
efforts as ritual cleansing, where she, paradoxically, both
removed and added meanings. These two meaning manip-
ulations facilitate a possession’s easy journey through the
private-public boundary as it moves from being a personal
possession toward becoming renewed as a marketplace com-
modity. Thus, cleansing is also a boundary-crossing ritual
(Turner 1969).
Relevant to the first function, we believe cleansing works,
in part, by removing the private meanings and other per-
sonalization that consumers added to a vessel when they
made the commodity their own. For example, when con-
sumers sleep on bedclothes or sit on chair pads, they sin-
gularize (Kopytoff 1986) their possessions with the physical
imprint of their own bodies. Hence, after such possessions
are acquired and used, they become decommodified (Wal-
lendorf and Arnould 1991) and move from being of the
mass market to becoming of self through personalization
(Belk 1988; Belk et al. 1989; McCracken 1986). The pos-
session thus acquires private meaning that may cause the
owner and potential buyers discomfort if made public. In
the past, when European women collectively carried out a
seasonal “Great Wash” of their linen in public, they could
be embarrassed by the quality of their linen or the revelation
of conjugal secrets (Laermans and Meulders 1999). When
Kris commented on how uncleansed things were sold at a
neighbor’s sale and said “It’s kind of personal . . . you’re
looking at their sheets,” she acknowledged that private
meanings may become evident when possessions are offered
for sale to others. Hence, during disposition of a meaningful
possession, there may be a need to cleanse away traces of
self. Cleansing rituals may erase the owner’s essence (Doug-
las 1966) so as to avoid figuratively washing one’s dirty
linen in public.
Relevant to the second function of cleansing, this ritual
also recommodifies a possession. This is done by reattaching
public meanings of new store-bought commodities to used
possessions. Douglas (1966) notes that ritual cleansing is
not only a negative transformation where meanings (like
traces of self) are eliminated but also performs a positive
organizing function and adds coherent meaning. Thus,
cleansing also conjures up a recommodified object mimick-
ing many elements of a marketplace commodity, namely,
branded products bought new and packaged by a manufac-
turer and wrapped by a retailer. For example, washing, iron-
ing, folding, and pinning linens together in matching sets
and then wrapping the sets with string and price tagging
each recommodifies possessions to resemble those sold at
retail. Thus, ritual cleansing also reassembles public
meaning.
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
Sharing Private Meaning: Abandoning and Trans-
ferring Meaning. The final ritual we describe is making
private meanings public. We believe that this occurs when
disposing of a meaningful possession and other rituals man-
aging private meanings were ineffective or were not used.
For example, if private meanings were not eroded away in
a transition place or had not been transferred to an icon,
then consumers attempted to convey private meanings to
potential buyers. We found that stories were told regardless
of whether meanings had positive or negative valence. De-
pending upon valence, however, the reason for sharing
meaning varied.
An example of a possession with negatively valenced
meanings sold at a garage sale was a pair of cast-iron
“rooster lamps” shaped like Bantam roosters with orange
lampshades. Toni, a former city girl who had married a farm
boy decades ago, and Robert, the former farm boy, had
struggled to keep their farm going. This white couple in
their sixties had just lost their farm and had moved to town
where they were holding a garage sale to get rid of things
from their farmhouse. When asked about what they were
selling, they gave the following explanations:
Robert: None of the stuff that we’re selling [today at the
garage sale] is hard to see go . . . except for a few wedding
presents like the clock and, yes, the rooster lamps. Ooh, she
[Toni] LIKED [sarcastic tone of voice] those.
Toni: We raised calves and hogs and grew corn and beans
and hay. We worked . . . it’s hard work. We’re not . . . he’s
[Robert’s] not sorry we’re not farming anymore because it’s
hard work and we couldn’t get a whole heck of a lot out of
it. . . . They [pointing to the rooster lamps] were a wedding
present. It was a big joke when I got married. Everybody
else I knew was, you know, from the city, and I married a
farmer, and it was a big . . . joke, and everybody thought
it was funny (laughter). So they gave me those rooster lamps
(laughter).
In this self-disclosure, Toni shared private meanings about
an extension of an undesirable past self. Toni’s comments
about farm life reveal that the lamps were symbols of a life
that she had endured. She gladly discarded that undesirable
past self when they lost the farm and moved to town. When
negatively charged private meanings were made public, we
believe that a therapeutic function was performed for Toni.
When Toni sold her lamp and also passed along deep feel-
ings about an undesired past self to a new owner, then that
likely assisted Toni in leaving her past self behind. The
healing effects of negative self-disclosures are well known
(Pennebaker and Beall 1986). Given that negative self-dis-
closures to a diary—or to a computer screen in a psychology
lab—have been found as healing as confiding to therapists
or priests, then when consumers unburden themselves to
buyers, the effects may be comparable.
Sellers also shared stories when selling possessions
charged with positive meanings. This occurred in study 2
when Kathleen e-mailed the story of her wedding dress:
THREE PATHS TO DISPOSITION
When I got married the first time I didn’t have a wedding
dress. . . . The day I went and bought the dress, I told the
dress that it would bring my family back together. You see
my [second] wedding was the only big wedding in the family,
and guess what it did. Not only did it bring my real family
together, it also brought the one I built around me when I
lost mine [in the divorce after my first marriage]. So now I
have a giant family of real and new. We have all got together
since the wedding, too. So you see this is a good luck wedding
dress. I just can’t see stopping it there. It is a Cinderella
dress, because I know it has made dreams come true to whom
it has touched. I know it did for me. I hope when you read
this, you can understand the story. For I am not a write[r]
. . . but, yes, there is magic in that dress. . . . If you do get
the dress, whether you pass it to someone in the family, keep
the magic going.
When Kathleen remembered life outloud and shared the
story of her “Cinderella” dress with a potential new owner,
creating a legacy (i.e., preserving and passing forward a
possession’s private meanings and good works) became pos-
sible (Price et al. 2000). Although sellers like Kathleen con-
veyed private meanings in the hope of perpetuating them,
it is reasonable to question if buyers would retain such mean-
ings. Although there is no guarantee—even within a fam-
ily—that a meaningful possession’s private meanings will
be preserved by a new owner, it would seem even less likely
that a stranger would perpetuate such a legacy.
Summary. Our second set of findings reveal that di-
vestment rituals do more than erode private meanings (so
as to prevent contagion) or transfer private meanings (so as
to create a legacy). For example, with iconic transfer, con-
sumers retain their private meanings prior to separating from
the vessel; thus, emotional separation is not necessarily re-
quired for satisfactory physical separation. Likewise, with
cleansing, consumers manipulate a possession’s public
meaning. Moreover, the transition-place ritual sheds light on
the metaphorical journey of meaningful possessions. During
disposition, many possessions’ journeys begin at “me,” then
cross the boundary between private and public space to “not
me.” Thus, with divestment rituals, consumer manipulate
private meanings (to leave one side of the boundary) as well
as public meanings (to cross to the boundary’s other side).
We also refine knowledge about the transfer of private
meaning from seller to buyer. Whereas prior research in-
terprets transferring private meanings to new owners as cre-
ating a legacy (Price et al. 2000), we offer a complementary
interpretation. Noting that some transferred meanings were
negatively valenced, we argue that sharing negatively
charged private meanings serves a cathartic effect and assists
consumers leaving an undesired past self behind. When
making public positively charged meanings, we raise the
issue of risk in actually creating a legacy. But how is this
risk managed when disposing to strangers? This is addressed
next.
819
Disposition to a Shared Self: rom Me to We
Shared Self Based in Common Identity to Assure
Legacy. Although no one is ever at unity with another,
consumers may share sufficient aspects of self with each
other such that a seller-buyer dyad exhibits a shared self
(Aron et al. 1991). Although there is no guarantee that any
new owner will continue the good works of a meaningful
possession or will retain private meanings, such a legacy is
more likely with a buyer who exhibits a shared self.
We now clarify the basis of shared self that we found
among seller-buyer dyads. The literature describes shared
selves rooted in networks like friendships or family. For
example, Goss (1984) demonstrates that shared selves, with
overlapping schemas, exist in close friendships. Whereas
friendships or families are common-bond groups defined
through an interdependent social network, we examine anon-
ymous sellers and buyers who only have just met in the
marketplace. If such strangers sense a shared self, then both
have likely discovered common identities from common
memberships in groups providing an identity (Prentice et
al. 1994). The discovery of a common identity may begin
through what an owner’s possession communicates about
group membership. When a potential buyer meets a seller
divesting of a possession communicating common-group
membership (e.g., both are guitarists), then a seller-buyer
dyad may discover a shared self. A shared self (rooted in
common identity) provides some assurance for the seller
that accurate meaning is communicated from seller to buyer.
Accurate communication depends upon a shared field of
experience and knowledge between sender and receiver.
Thus, to convey a possession’s meaning, the buyer must
share a field of experience with the seller. Common expe-
rience and knowledge from a shared membership allows a
seller to more precisely transfer a possession’s meaning to
a buyer. In many instances, sellers realize that only a few
buyers will really understand and revere the meanings as-
cribed to a possession. As we show, when sellers sense being
“in tune with” select buyers, they seize the opportunity to
divest to these special buyers.
An example of this occurred when an otherwise reluctant
seller in study 1, Charles, a white male in his sixties, became
willing to sell to Rajiv, an Asian buyer in his thirties. Despite
differences in race and age, this unlikely buyer-seller dyad
found a shared self based in the common identity of their
occupations. Charles had been a master printer but had re-
tired due to a workplace accident. He occupied himself doing
occasional handyman jobs, and we believe, had stagnated,
as he was physically unable to use many of the specialized
hand tools of his former master-printer self. Unknown to
Charles at first, Rajiv had just started working as an ap-
prentice printer. Fieldnotes describe the interaction between
this dyad:
There are tools hanging on the wall at the back of the garage
and two large tool chests on the side of the garage. They
don’t seem to be for sale. However there are three tool boxes
on the garage floor, near other things that are for sale, so
820
Rajiv asks if there are any tools for sale. Helen [Charles’s
wife] says “No, he won’t sell them. He can’t use them any-
more, but he won’t sell them. There’s lots more in the base-
ment.” Charles says “I hate to sell any thing I make a living
off. That’s one rule that I have, not to sell anything that I
make a living off.” Rajiv asks if he can look at the tools in
the tool boxes anyway and Charles says “Sure.” Rajiv re-
marks how the guys at work all have their own tools and
that he wishes he could have his own instead of using the
company tools, but they’re too expensive for him since he’s
just starting out. Charles asks what line of work Rajiv is in
and is excited to hear that Rajiv is an apprentice printer.
Charles: “I was a master printer for 18 years!” He tells Rajiv
that he might sell him some of the tools after all. Charles
tells me, “He’s in the line of work that I was and can probably
use them. I don’t want to sell them to someone who’ll leave
them lying around. I won’t feel so bad if someone is going
to use them.” He invites Rajiv to look in his tool chests and
says with a smile, “Wait till he sees what’s in these!” Charles
seems pleased that Rajiv is so impressed with his collection
of tools. Says Charles to Rajiv about a knife: “I’m GIVING
it to you because I like you . . . you come back in a week,
in a month . . . I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be ready to sell
more tools by then. I’ll even let you see the really good tools
in my basement.”
Whereas Price et al. (2000) observed older consumers
resorting to garage sales to find suitable recipients when
interpersonal networks failed to provide heirs, they did not
explain how sellers find “receiver congruity.” The example
of Charles shows how a shared self rooted in common-
membership identity may create the congruity sought by
many consumers when divesting a meaningful possession.
Charles’s interaction with Rajiv also demonstrates the mod-
erating power of the shared self. Consumer research pre-
viously recognized that possessions charged with positive
emotional meaning are not likely to be disposed (Belk 1989);
thus Belk et al.’s (1989) identification of “never sell” rules.
Yet Charles violated his own “never sell” rule. So, although
some positively charged meaningful possessions cannot be
sold under ordinary circumstances, under the extraordinary
circumstance of sensing a shared self, such possessions are
eagerly divested.
Selling to a shared self also ameliorates the need for
boundary-crossing rituals assisting a possession’s journey
from the private domain of “me.” Charles illustrates that a
positively charged meaningful possession’s journey from
“me” to “not me” is different from the journey from “me”
to “we.” If divesting to a non-shared-self, then a divestment
ritual like cleansing or using a transition place is needed to
erase private meaning for a possession’s easy journey from
being private and “me” to crossing the boundary empty of
private meaning to become “not me.” However, when di-
vesting a possession to a shared self, then the possession’s
journey is from “me” and through a more porous boundary
to “we.” Given that the seller believes the shared-self buyer
understands and will maintain a possession’s meanings, then
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
an extension of self—fully charged with positive mean-
ings—is eagerly transferred to such a buyer.
Summary. Our final set of findings reveal an additional
path in the journey of meaningful possessions to strangers.
When a pair of strangers in a seller-buyer dyad discovers
“we-ness” within an identity-based shared self, a possession
may take a different path. In this different path, a possession
crosses the more permeable “private-shared” boundary sep-
arating “me” from “we.”
Possessions following this alternative route may still be
full of positively charged private meanings. Thus—with the
exception of making private meanings public—other di-
vestment rituals to lose meanings may not be required, as
sellers are hopeful that new owners understand and will
perpetuate private meanings. Moreover, when sellers have
found new owners with a shared self, then sellers hope that
the legacy of meaningful possessions’ good works have also
been established. Recognition of this path reveals the mod-
erating power of the shared self for disposition research.
For example, given a shared self in a buyer-seller dyad, then
divestment rituals may not be needed. Likewise, sellers’
“never sell” rules (Belk et al. 1989) were violated for shared
selves. Given the presence of a shared self, sellers were
more likely to extend preferential terms to buyers.
EMERGENT MODEL
Our research revealed three alternative paths that mean-
ingful possessions take as they migrate from their former
owners into the hands of strangers. To make the journey
from self to other, one of two boundaries must be crossed.
One boundary separates the private domain of “me” from
the public world of “not me,” and the other is the more
porous boundary between “me” and “we.”
When possessions migrate from the domain of “me”
through the private-public boundary to “not me,” they fol-
low one of two paths. The valence of the meanings contained
in the vessel determines which path a possession takes. Neg-
atively charged possessions follow the first path. When di-
vesting of extensions of a never-me self or an undesirable-
past self, consumers are pleased to lose such possessions
and forget the negatively charged private meanings asso-
ciated with the vessel. Separation from a reflection of un-
desirable-past self assists a consumer’s movement toward a
new and more positive version of self. The second path is
the journey of positively charged possessions through the
boundary separating “me” from “not me.” Here consumers
employ a wide range of divestment rituals to manipulate
possessions’ private and public meanings. For example, the
iconic transfer ritual (retaining private meaning while di-
vesting of the vessel) is found in the second path. Without
use of divestment rituals in this second path, disposition of
the meaningful is emotionally difficult.
The third path we uncovered is followed when a potential
new owner is perceived as having a shared self with the
seller. Perception of a common identity facilitates a sense
of shared self, which in turn, moderates use of divestment
THREE PATHS TO DISPOSITION
rituals. Here a possession is divested without necessarily
being emptied of its positive meanings. In this case, even
a possession that was initially not for sale may be offered
to a potential new owner sharing a common identity. This
is because a sense of “we-ness” makes for a more porous
boundary between self and other, increasing the ease with
which that boundary may be traversed. The permeability of
this boundary increases the possibility that the legacy of the
possession will endure.
Our inductive model offers a nuanced explanation of the
voluntary disposition of meaningful possessions to strang-
ers. Using Young and Wallendorf’s (1989) interpretation of
disposition as “the process of detachment from self” as our
intellectual springboard, we rely on several previously under
utilized ideas to define the contingencies behind a variety
of previously observed disposition behaviors. For example,
we show that consideration of a full range of valence and
consideration of self-references other than ideal-self reveals
which migratory path possessions follow during disposition.
We also show that consumers engage in a fuller range of
meaning manipulation with divestment rituals than was pre-
viously identified in the literature. For example, our tripartite
conceptualization of meaningful possession (as vessel, pri-
vate meanings and public meanings) reveals that consumers
use divestment rituals to manage both public and private
meanings. Finally, we show how sensing a shared self leads
a consumer to believe that the stranger—who may become
the new owner of a meaningful possession—will perpetuate
the meaningful possession’s legacy.
DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Disposition’s Role in Identity Construction
Our research demonstrated that a variety of self-references
are implicated in the disposition of meaningful possessions.
Depending upon the self-reference implied, the valence re-
flected on a possession’s meaning was positive or negative.
Thus, whereas Belk’s (1988) extended self theory observed
that the self is reflected in select material possessions, our
research reinforced an important complementary perspec-
tive: the self is also reflected in the meaningful possessions
that consumers intentionally dispose. For example, divesting
the negatively valenced extensions of a former undesired
self assists leaving the past behind. Such divestment is sym-
bolic of a rejected past self, which also helps affirm the
current self.
Although consumer research has long recognized material
acquisition as a means for self-definition, we call for future
research to examine disposition as a complementary means
for consumer self-definition and identity construction. Is the
disposition of extensions of a negatively charged self-ref-
erence (a push away) intrinsically bound up with the ac-
quisition of positively charged extensions of an ideal self
(a pull toward)? Or, alternatively, do these push and pull
processes operate in more independent manners? Such fun-
damental questions await future work. Researchers have too
often focused only on what consumers possess and what
821
that signifies to the exclusion of what consumers dispossess
and what that means. However, in so doing, researchers have
bypassed another approach that has potential for more
broadly understanding the role of material possessions in
consumers’ self identities.
Divestment Rituals
By using the tripartite conceptualization of meaningful
possessions as vessels of public and private meanings, we
have demonstrated expanded roles of divestment rituals.
Less circumscribed than prior interpretations, we found con-
sumers had employed rituals to renew, reverse, obscure,
remove, lose, retain, or transfer intact their meaningful pos-
session’s public and private meanings. The type of self-
reference extended by the possession influenced which rit-
uals were used to manipulate meaning. Yet, despite our
expanded conceptualization of divestment rituals, we believe
more diversity in divestment rituals awaits future research.
Our data were limited to disposition through selling, and so
we urge others to examine a wider modality of voluntary
disposition (Jacoby et al. 1977) for divestment rituals. In
modalities other than selling (e.g., intentional destruction),
we believe more ritual diversity can be found.
Our research also demonstates how boundary-crossing
rituals explain how possessions move from being “me” to
“not me.” With one other exception (Belk 1997), boundary-
crossing rituals have not been considered in consumer re-
search. Thus, we encourage future research to also employ
the journey metaphor to explore how possessions, as well
as consumers, make transitions. For example, while we have
used boundary crossings to shed light on disposition, future
research should find this approach useful in unpacking ac-
quisition rituals.
Common-Identity Shared Self in the Seller-Buyer
Dyad
Our research only considers a common-identity-based
shared self. Fully understanding common identity and dis-
position, as opposed to a common-bond-like kinship and
disposition, goes beyond our data. We believe that the func-
tions of these two bases of buyer-seller communality are
distinct, and we suggest that both be simultaneously con-
sidered in future research. We speculate that the highest level
of seller satisfaction occurs when selling a meaningful pos-
session to a buyer with a shared self rooted both in common-
group and common-identity communalities. Common iden-
tity facilitates accurate transfer of meanings, and bonds in
an interpersonal network create social pressures to maintain
private meanings.
Finally, our data focus on the disposing consumer at the
expense of information about buyers. Thus, we urge future
research to track owners of used possessions to assess main-
tenance of original owners’ private meanings. Currently,
little is known about what drives the retention of private
meanings. We expect that a meaning’s valence influences
meaning preservation. We also suspect that those buying
822
used items from secondary marketplaces who desire au-
thenticity (Holt 1998) are more likely to value private mean-
ings. In contrast, others found buying at garage sales—such
as the frugal (Lastovicka et al. 1999)—would seem less
likely to preserve private meanings.
[Dawn Iacobucci served as editor and Eric Arnould
served as associate editor for this article.]
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