'Celebrity Contagion and the Value of Objects' [
PDF] by George Newman, Gil Diesendruck & Paul Bloom in 38
Journal of Consumer Research (2011) asks "why do people purchase objects that were once owned by celebrities, such as film stars or politicians, and also by despised individuals, such as serial killers and notorious dictators?". The authors examine three potential explanations - mere associations, market demands, and contagion (the belief that these objects contain some remnants of their previous owners) before concluding that although market demands play a role, contagion appears to be the critical factor affecting the valuation of celebrity possessions.
Manipulating the degree of physical contact that a celebrity has with an object dramatically influences consumers’ willingness to purchase it, and individual differences in sensitivity to contagion moderate this effect. Additionally, the valuation of celebrity possessions is principally explained by measures of contagion, and subliminally activating the concept of contagion changes consumers’ willingness to purchase celebrity objects.
They note that -
In 1996, Sotheby’s auctioned roughly 1,300 items from the estate of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Before the auction began, Sotheby’s optimistically estimated the value of the entire lot at around $4.6 million. The total yield after 4 days was a staggering $34.5 million (USA Today, April 24, 1996). Some notable items included iconic pieces such as President Kennedy’s rocking chair, which sold for $453,500; his set of golf clubs ($772,500); and the desk on which the president signed the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ($1.43 million). Many of the items, however, had little his- torical relevance, yet they still fetched remarkable sums of money, such as a tape measure ($48,875) and a set of books on Cape Cod ($21,850). Clearly, these items generated large prices because of where they had been and whom they had come into contact with, not their tangible properties or func- tional utility. For example, if the buyer of the tape measure discovered that it was actually not from the Kennedy household, he would presumably be outraged and want his $48,875 back, though nothing perceptible or tangible about the object would have changed.
The valuation of celebrity items, however, is not restricted to positively regarded figures, such as JFK. Curiously, there is also a market for items once belonging to hated and despised individuals. For example, items such as Charles Manson’s hair, paintings by John Wayne Gacy, and the personal effects of Saddam Hussein have been sold at specialty auctions, sometimes fetching tens of thousands of dollars per item (Stone 2007). And, recently, the U.S. government auctioned several items that belonged to the notorious fraudulent investor Bernard Madoff, including a footstool, originally listed at $360, which sold for $3,300, and a nondescript bar set, originally listed at $680, which sold for $2,200 (New York Times, November 15, 2010). Why are these objects valued? Do people value objects that belonged to despised individuals for the same reasons they value objects that belonged to well-regarded individuals?
One explanation is that celebrity possessions are valued because of their associations. Objects that were once owned or touched by specific people remind us of those people. This captures the fact that objects associated with admired individuals are positively valued. However, it also predicts that objects belonging to individuals who are explicitly disliked should carry no value at all. A second explanation has to do with intuitions about how these objects are valued by others (their market value). For instance, we might value objects that belonged to celebrities because we believe that there are other people who would later purchase them from us at higher prices or because others would be impressed that we own such things. A third account is rooted in the concept of contagion (Belk 1988; Rozin, Millman, and Nemeroff 1986). This is the belief that a person’s immaterial qualities or “essence” can be transferred to an object through physical contact.
The present studies demonstrate that the mere association of an object with a well-liked individual does not appear to be a significant driver of value. Moreover, while market forces do play a role, contagion appears to be the critical factor affecting the valuation of celebrity possessions. Specifically, we find that manipulating the degree of physical contact that a celebrity has with an object dramatically influences consumers’ willingness to purchase it, and individual differences in sensitivity to contagion moderate this effect. Additionally, the valuation of celebrity possessions is principally explained by measures of contagion, and subliminally activating the concept of contagion changes people’s willingness to purchase celebrity objects. In the remainder of this article we review the previous work on contagion and celebrity possessions and report the results of three experiments that use converging methodologies to test the role of contagion in the valuation of celebrity possessions.
