Keeping it all without being buried alive: Understanding product retention tendency

This research introduces product retention tendency, a consumer lifestyle trait characterized by an individual's propensity to retain consumption-related possessions. We develop a parsimonious measure of product retention tendency. Next, we report on the results of two studies designed to contrast product retention tendency with clinical compulsive hoarding, examining the relationships between these different types of keeping behavior as related to waste avoidance and product attachment tendencies. Three experimental studies examine the relationship between product retention tendency and the decision to retain versus relinquish different types of possessions, including used and in-need-of-repair durables, as well as perishable possessions. (C) 2011 Society for Consumer Psychology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.