Mere Feelings of Ownership Inflate Subjective Expertise and One’s Propensity to Give Advice

Person-to-person advice giving is one of the most influential forms of information. Unfortunately, however, the advice-giver is not always objectively equipped to provide it. In the present research, we identify an ecologically common, psychological state that can inflate people’s sense of expertise, increasing their likelihood to give advice on that topic even when their objective expertise does not change. Specifically, we show that high feelings of ownership over an object, person, or domain can lead people to believe they are more expert in that area, increasing their likelihood to give advice as well as their self-perceived quality of it. Providing evidence for this phenomenon across archival as well as experimental studies, we then show that psychological ownership can actually exert a curvilinear effect. That is, when made to feel low ownership over a familiar topic, people similarly inflate their sense of expertise. Altogether, we advance our understanding of everyday advice-giving, the consequences and mechanisms related to psychological ownership, and offer important real-world insights on when people will advise others – even when they might not be in the best position to do so.