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Abstract
Prior to customizing for themselves, consumers often encounter products customized by other people within their social network. Our research suggests that when encountering a custom-made example of an identity-related product created by an identified social other, consumers infer this social other was motivated to express uniqueness. After making this inference, consumers are also motivated to express uniqueness, particularly when the example was created by a close versus distant social other. Consumers express uniqueness through their own customization choices, choosing fewer options shown in the example or choosing fewer best-selling options. Consumers sometimes even pay a monetary cost or sacrifice preferred choices in order to make their own product unique. Further, this effect dissipates when motivations other than expressing uniqueness are inferred about a social other (e.g., for functionally related products). Across eight studies that span different product contexts, involve real choices, and isolate the underlying theoretical mechanism (i.e., motivation to express uniqueness), our research documents the unique role of custom-made examples, demonstrates the importance of social distance for customization choices, and identifies a novel path explaining when and why individuals express uniqueness.

Abstract
Digital goods are, in many cases, substantive innovations relative to their physical counterparts. Yet, in five experiments, people ascribed less value to digital than to physical versions of the same good. Research participants paid more for, were willing to pay more for, and were more likely to purchase physical goods than equivalent digital goods, including souvenir photographs, books (fiction and nonfiction), and films. Participants valued physical goods more than digital goods whether their value was elicited in an incentive compatible pay-what-you-want paradigm, with willingness to pay, or with purchase intention. Greater capacity for physical than digital goods to garner an association with the self (i.e., psychological ownership) underlies the greater value ascribed to physical goods. Differences in psychological ownership for physical and digital goods mediated the difference in their value. Experimentally manipulating antecedents and consequents of psychological ownership (i.e., expected ownership, identity relevance, perceived control) bounded this effect, and moderated the mediating role of psychological ownership. The findings show how features of objects influence their capacity to garner psychological ownership before they are acquired, and provide theoretical and practical insights for the marketing, psychology, and economics of digital and physical goods.