From Participation to Relational Engagement: Psychological Ownership in Digital Petitions

Paper Title

From Participation to Relational Engagement: Psychological Ownership in Digital Petitions

Publication Info

• Topic area: Digital advocacy and relational engagement in civic technologies.
• Keywords: Psychological Ownership, relational engagement, digital petitions, civic technologies, slacktivism, Research through Design, video testimonials, activism, user-centered design.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Digital petitions often result in "slacktivism," characterized by low-effort participation that fails to foster meaningful engagement or sustained relationships with causes.
• Significance: Enhancing relational engagement in digital petitions could transform shallow participation into sustained advocacy, increasing the impact of civic technologies on societal issues.
• Motivation and related work: Prior HCI research has explored civic participation and engagement mechanisms but lacks theoretical integration to explain relational depth. Psychological Ownership (PO) theory offers a lens to analyze how users develop a sense of "mineness" with a cause, addressing gaps in understanding mechanisms for deeper engagement.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Leveraging Psychological Ownership (PO) theory to design and evaluate petition interactions that foster relational engagement through video-based affordances.
• Novelty:
  1. Introduction of PO as a design lens for analyzing relational engagement in civic technologies.
  2. Development of PO-aligned design patterns and insights for petition platforms.
  3. Operationalization of PO through a six-cycle Research through Design (RtD) program, linking theory, prototyping, and evaluation.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Six-cycle RtD program analyzing existing petition affordances, generating PO-aligned design concepts, and evaluating prototypes.
  • Integration of Vialog’s video module to test PO mechanisms such as self-investment, intimate knowledge, and control.
  • A five-arm between-subjects experiment comparing petition interaction conditions (Read, Sign, Write, Watch, Create) to measure PO outcomes.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • The Create condition (watch–then–record video) increased Psychological Ownership (PO) scores by 10.25% compared to Sign, with the effect peaking at 15.9% for participants aged 60+.
  • Watching peer videos (Watch condition) enhanced intimate knowledge, while creating testimonials (Create condition) strengthened self-investment and identity expression.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Create condition outperformed Sign in fostering deeper relational engagement, transforming the cause from a static entity to a co-authored narrative.
  • Watching and creating videos activated PO routes more effectively than reading or signing alone.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Five-arm experiment (N=499 participants) assessed PO across interaction types, supported by qualitative insights from campaigners and iterative prototype evaluations.
  • Measures included validated PO scales and exploratory item-level analysis of constructs like self-investment, intimate knowledge, and efficacy.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited to short-term engagement and single-cause contexts; future research could explore longitudinal effects and diverse civic technologies.
  • Challenges include balancing visibility with safety and addressing potential territoriality or exclusivity in ownership dynamics.

Summary

This paper demonstrates how Psychological Ownership (PO) theory can transform digital petitions from transactional interactions into platforms for deeper relational engagement. Using a six-cycle Research through Design (RtD) program, the authors developed and tested PO-aligned features, including video testimonials, which increased supporters' sense of ownership and responsibility for causes. Results from a five-arm experiment showed that richer media affordances, such as watching and creating videos, significantly enhanced PO compared to standard petition signing. The findings provide actionable insights for civic technology designers and suggest that PO-informed approaches can be applied to broader contexts like community-building and grassroots fundraising.