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Article Title: Sentimental value

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Definitions
Sentimental value is defined as the non-feature related value that is derived from the association with a significant other or affiliated with one’s significant time or event (Fletcher, 2009). For example, a materialistic article could have sentimental value if it once belonged to or was previously used by someone from your family, was a token of remembrance from a life event or was a significant present you received (e.g. graduation diploma, a vacation souvenir). The sentimental value in these instances lie with the relations associated with the item. The most accepted definitions of the term ‘sentimental value’ is from the field of philosophy by philosophers such as Fletcher (2009) and Hatzimoysis (2003). Sentimental value is considered to be a “quality of an object” which an individual feels an emotional attachment with. The notion of “sentimental value” is situated right at the centre of the triangle whose three sides point towards the trio: “memory, emotion and the self”. By tracing these three points together showcases the generation of a “non-reflective sense” of an individual. A range of sentiments such as romantic emotions, friendship, familial affection and the sentiments involved act as a medium to generate sentimental value. An object is considered to be sentimentally valuable for solely its own sake in virtue of a subsection of its characteristics. These characteristic properties consist of the object being given to, being used by, being given by or belonging to an animal or human of significance. This could include relationships based on friendship, family and romantic love. This definition goes on to cover the core understanding on the phenomenon of sentimental value. On a daily basis, one often experiences a sense of sentimental value towards objects such as books, clothes, letters and even places. It is understood to be an exceedingly prevalent phenomenon associated with an individual’s life on a daily basis.

·     Theoretical Background
In order to understand the phenomenon of sentimental value, one must first comprehend the utility that is derived from objects. There are two main components that explain the utility derived by people from the ownership of an object. The first component is the feature-related utility which as the name suggest is determined from the features of the object (e.g. specifications and appearance). An example for feature-related utility would be the design and fine quality of piece of jewellery. The second component is nonfeature-related utility that is determined by all factor except features. An example would be the possession of an object personifying their identity (e.g. brand, transaction utility).

The definition of sentimental value is presented with distinct clarifications. The first is that sentimental value is derived from only specific associations such as a significant place, person or time. These are different from other values such as identity signalling. The second is items from the same source have different degrees of sentimental value (Hutchison, 2003). An example of this is, a magnet brought back from a trip to Disney World might have a higher sentimental value as compared to a bottle purchased at the exact same place and time. This is mainly due to the difference in the strength of the association.

-      Hedonic Adaptation
Hedonic Adaptation is the fundamental goal that individuals set to attain the maximised extent of happiness. The primary goal of any individual is to maximise their level of happiness (Russell, 1930). Happiness may be momentarily gained through the medium of increased consumption and acquisition, but the chances of the level of happiness being maintained is bleak. This is due to the phenomenon of hedonic adaption, leading to the reduction of its effect to a stimulus over a period. An example being, an individual experiencing elation immediately after receiving a new object but losing interest in it after time passes. There are a number of factors affecting this adaption. The factors being the psychophysical conditioning, attention diversion, and the conceptual rationalisation. It is rather unfortunate that the experience of an individual in regard to happiness is that it decreases with the more time that passes since the fleeting of the experience. In spite of experiences commencing off as being enjoyable, as time fleets, the enjoyment tends to fade away. The decrease in the level of happiness perceived is popularly defined as hedonic adaptation and it is existing predominantly across a number of objects (Frederick and Loewenstein, 1999). This fundamental concept has led to the formation of a metaphorical “hedonic treadmill” (Brickman and Campbell, 1971). This “hedonic treadmill’ refers to the situation when an individual indulges in the constant need to spend money in order to current experience to continue experiences the same amount of happiness.

According to the consumer culture theory, an individual embraces an item having high sentimental value despite its feature-related utility being high or low. An example of this would be when the American participants were interrogated on their choice of specific item to be their favourite, they focused on the personal memories acquainted with it rather than its feature related attribute (Wallendorf & Arnould, 1988). Happiness is based on the sentimental value for objects that have high levels of sentimental value. The sentimental association exceeds the feature related utility or the economic value of the objects in these cases. Considering happiness is not likely to decrease over time in sentimentally valuable objects, the value is less likely to depreciate over time. It has been predicted that an individual is more likely to adapt to an object with a high sentimental value slower as compared to one with a lower sentimental value.

The prediction of sentimental value slowing hedonic adaption is derived from distinct propositions. The first being that sentimental value generally is not prone to declining over time. This statement has been backed up by two reasons. The first, documented by the attitudes literature, stating that essential attitude entail a sense of stability as time passes. The second is revealed by research done on human memory that reveals that people are likely to remember significant events in their life more positively than they really were at time the events took place. The second proposition being that objects that are sentimentally valuable tend to shift the focus from the features possessed by the item to the sentimental association of it. Notably, people tend to place importance on the features of an object if it has less sentimental value. In objects that have higher sentimental value people place the focus on its associations instead. The underlying shift in the focus of an object shows the role of sentimental value in slowing hedonic adaption.

·      Evidence
Research done to reveal the existence of sentimental value, falls under two main categories. One being "the work that identifies the existence of sentimental value" and the second being "the work looking at the overall relationship between people's possessions and themselves." Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981) carried out anthropological work in which 315 residents residing in Chicago were interviewed regarding the objects possessed by them at home that they would consider “special”. They listed the 6,585 objects that were identified and categorised them into groups explaining the reason why they were considered “special”. It was found that amongst the various objects that people considered to a valuable or special 15.6% were in the category that one would count as sentimentally valuable in nature (e.g. “souvenir”, “memento”, “heirloom”, etc) (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, 1981). This tallied to approximately one in every six objects that an individual considers special due to its sentimental value. In the field of economics, it has been found that the value of a gift to gift recipients is on average, approximately accounts for half of materialistic value and the other half accounts for objects that  are sentimentally valuable. (List, Shogren, 1998) (Solnick, Hemenway, 1996). This serve as an evidence to show the relevance and the existence of sentimental value.

·     Reason and Value
Sentimental value seems to hold a definite place in the “realm of value properties”. In many cases, people consider their first experience of associating an object as being valuable with a thing that holds sentimental value. This is apparent in one’s childhood, where objects possessed often go on to become the first items that are considered valuable. On a regular basis, an individual experiences conspicuous sentimental value associated to an object such as books, clothes and locations. Contrastingly, philosophers have often argued that sentimental value is not a fit the category of being a type of value. This reveals the existence of two underlying issues. The first being to what extent would the pre-existence of specific sentiments be required. The other issue being if at all the existence of the value and the sentiments associated must be concurrent. To have a deeper understanding regarding the reason behind why items hold a sentimental value, one must review the “customer culture theory literature”. This theory has been invested in understanding the rich relationships that people often form with their possessions. In spite of the fact that the “customer culture theory literature” rarely utilises the term “sentimental value”, it is exceedingly obvious that the phenomenon of sentimental value serves as a vital component in the relationship any individual shares with their things (Arnould and Thompson, 2005),  (Belk, 1991), (Bradford, 2009), (Curasi, Price and Arnould, 2004), (Price, Arnould, and Curasi, 2000) and (Wallendorf and Arnould, 1988).

It is not essential for the value of the object to co-exist with the sentiments that deem as a necessity for generating sentimental value. Taken in a way, the phenomenon of sentimental value does require the felt presence of every sentiment continually. It deems as a reasonable understanding that an individual must possess certain range of sentiments, an example being sentiments involving romantic love, for some of the objects to acquire a sentimental value. This does not seem to be the case continually as the person does not mandatorily have to have particular “conscious feelings” to continue to bare the value of the object. For instance, if an individual were to be upset or angry, it would not necessarily make them feel the sentiment while still having it. The anger or sadness would not determine the object losing the sentimental value it holds. A strong claim suggests that even in terms of “weaker senses” of having a sentiment, in a case where it can survive not being felt, sentimental value has the capability to outlive the sentiments attached to it. An object can continue to persist having a sentimental value attached to it even if the relationship from which it gains its value comes to an end. Under these circumstances, the relationship ceases to exist, the individual involved in the relationship that cultivated the sentimental value may feel extremely differently and maybe even have negative sentiments towards one another. This situation extensively takes places in cases regarded to romantically involved individuals. In such cases, the places and things continue to hold a certain sentimental value even after the sentiments that led to the attachments come to an end.

·     Emotion
“Sentimental” in the word “sentimental value” reveals a link with experiences and relationships that evoke emotions or sentiment. The definition of sentimental value suggests that it is the value generated from an item that is emotionally associated with a significant person, time or event in one’s life. Research show that when one is posed with the decision between choosing a gift that is sentimental valuable and a gift that has superficial features aligned with it, a majority opt for the latter. This result suggests that people are confident about preference and feature associated gifts being appreciated by the receivers but are unsure about sentimentally valuable gifts evoking the same response. In Feinberg ‘s words, “Innocent sentiment… when it becomes a reason for inappropriate action, becomes blameable sentimentality.” Belk (1991) examined five cases related to possessions (Belk, 1991) relating to the concept of sentimental value. The objects that were “memory-laden” consisting of wedding rings, heirlooms, photographs of family and travelling souvenirs. These are considered valuable since they are able to bring back memories of people, time and places.

Sources:

Fletcher, Guy, “Sentimental Value”, “The Journal of Value Inquiry”, Department of philosophy, University of Reading, 2009, 

Hatzimoysis, Anthony, “SENTIMENTAL VALUE”, The Philosophy Quarterly, July 2003, 

Yang, yang, Jeff, Galak, “Sentimental Value and Its Influence on Hedonic Adaption”, “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2015, 

Givi, Julian, Glak, Jeff, “Sentimental value and gift giving: Givers’ fear of getting it wrong prevents them from getting it right”, “Journal of Consumer Psychology”, October, 2017, 

Williams, Nicole, Christian, Rebecca, L. Hartl, Tamara, O. Frost, Randy, “The value of possessions in compulsive hoarding: Pattern of use and attachment”, “Behaviour Research and Therapy”, November, 1995, 

D’Arms, Justin, Jacobson, Daniel, “Demystifying Sensibilities: Sentimental Values and the Instability of Affecta”, “The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion”, January, 2010, 