Mediating Effects of Psychological Ownership on Group Processes in TeleAR Workspaces

This study investigates how annotation control influences group processes in teleAR and examines the mediating role of psychological ownership. Through an experiment comparing three ego-centrically defined annotation control forms – We control (both annotate), I control (one annotates), and They control (partner annotates) – we found that ego-centric perceptions of annotation control significantly shaped collaborative dynamics. We control consistently showed advantages across all measured clusters of group processes, showing significant improvements over both I control and They control. Additionally, our analysis revealed that Collective Psychological Ownership (CPO) served as a crucial mediator between annotation control and group processes, particularly in comparisons between We control and They control. Further examination of the five psychological ownership dimensions revealed limited but notable mediation effects, with the Possession and Control dimensions showing positive indirect effects on Human development and Shared practices when comparing I control with They control. These findings show how annotation control forms influence distributed collaboration and highlight the importance of considering psychological ownership in improving group processes.