Three experiments show that a piecemeal procedure for acquiring material possessions, whereby a quantity of possessions is acquired gradually through repeated small efforts, is more motivating than a lump-sum procedure to acquire the same amount of possessions. This is because a piecemeal procedure results in a greater sense of achievement

Leilei Gao

Yan Zhang

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ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH 
 
Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802 
 
 
Wanting Ever More: Accumulation Procedure Motivates Continued Possession Acquisition
Yan Zhang, National University of Singapore, Singapore 
Leilei Gao, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China 
 
Three experiments show that a piecemeal procedure for acquiring material possessions, whereby a quantity of possessions is acquired
gradually through repeated small efforts, is more motivating than a lump-sum procedure to acquire the same amount of possessions.
This is because a piecemeal procedure results in a greater sense of achievement.
 
 
[to cite]:
Yan Zhang and Leilei Gao (2015) ,"Wanting Ever More: Accumulation Procedure Motivates Continued Possession Acquisition",
in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 43, eds. Kristin Diehl  and Carolyn Yoon, Duluth, MN : Association for
Consumer Research, Pages: 531-532.
 
[url]:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1019649/volumes/v43/NA-43
 
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This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in
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531 
Advances in Consumer Research
Volume 43, ©2015
Wanting Ever More: Accumulation Procedure Motivates Continued Possession Acquisition
Yan Zhang, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Leilei Gao, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
People incessantly gather and store material possessions. How-
ever, the possessions that people accumulate are not always essen-
tial to their survival or life quality. Moreover, material possessions 
beyond people’s basic needs seldom improve long-term happiness 
or life satisfaction (Burroughs and Rindfleisch 2002; Diener 1984; 
Easterlin 1995;Van Boven2005). If excessive possessions cannot 
bring additional consumption utility or substantially increased hap-
piness, then why are people so obsessed with accumulating them? In 
this research, we suggest that aside from the status of owning posses-
sions, the process of acquiring possessions may itself be a driver of 
continued material pursuits. That is, an individual may gather mate-
rial possessions not only for the purpose of eventual ownership but 
also for the opportunity to engage in the accumulation process per se.
In real life, the accumulation of possessions almost always hap-
pens gradually. We posit that this piece-by-piece increase not only 
characterizes the accumulation process but also gives rise to the mo-
tivating power of that process. We test this prediction by holding con-
stant both the total quantity of acquired possessions and the effort-to-
possession exchange rate while comparing two different procedures 
to acquire possessions: piecemeal and lump-sum. A piecemeal pro-
cedure mimics the accumulation process in real life, whereby peo-
ple gradually acquire possessions through repeated small efforts. A 
lump-sum procedure does not involve gradual increases, whereby 
people acquire more possessions at a time through efforts over a 
longer interval. We show that, compared with lump-sum procedure, 
piecemeal procedure is more likely to stimulate continued acquiring 
of possessions because a piecemeal procedure generates a stronger 
sense of achievement than does lump-sum procedure. 
Our proposition is based on the basic need of humans to iden-
tify patterns in their behavior (Clary and Tesser 1983; Hastie 1984; 
Pyszczynski and Greenberg 1981). People exhibit a strong prefer-
ence for coherence and consistency, and they are predisposed to iden-
tify patterns and meaningful interrelationships within a set of stimuli 
(Whitson and Galinsky 2008). We suggest that piecemeal procedure, 
whereby individuals engage in a series of similar actions to earn re-
wards, allows people to identify a pattern in their past and current 
efforts. Because every action in the piecemeal procedure generates a 
positive outcome and because the outcome of such effort consistently 
contributes to an increase in possessions of a certain type (e.g., book 
collections), people will attribute this increasing trend in the amount 
of their possessions (Ariely and Zauberman 2003; Loewenstein 
and Prelec 1993) to their own effort and so derive a greater sense 
of achievement. Holding all else constant, piecemeal procedure cre-
ates an increasing trend in possession accumulation whereas lump-
sum creates a sudden increase. This sudden increase does not enable 
identification of a consistent pattern in one’s behavior and outcomes. 
Therefore, we suggest that, compared with those who work a long 
time for a relatively larger lump-sum reward, those who earn rewards 
piece by piece will view their actions more as achievements. In turn, 
this sense of achievement motivates people to continue their course 
of action (i.e., acquiring more possessions).
We conducted three experiments to test our hypothesis. Experi-
ment 1 was designed to demonstrate the core effect and test feelings 
of achievement as the underlying mechanism. Specifically, partici-
pates in Experiment 1 worked on five small repetitive tasks to earn 
product rewards. They either received the products one by one after 
finishing each task or received them altogether after all five tasks 
were finished. Then participants were presented with a chance to 
earn an extra similar reward. We showed that people who received 
the products one by one (M = 4.11, SD = 1.96) were more likely than 
those who received the products altogether to continue working for 
the extra reward (M = 3.29, SD = 2.06), t (77) = 1.80, p = .07, d = .41. 
In addition, those in the piecemeal condition persisted significantly 
longer on the extra task to earn an additional reward (M = 303.8, 
SD = 49.0) than those in the lumpsum condition (M = 246.0, SD = 
112.1), t (54) = 2.64, p = .008, d = .67. Finally, a bootstrapping analy-
sis indicates that the effect of acquisition procedure on willingness to 
work is mediated by perceived achievement.
Experiment 2 continued to test the underlying mechanism. We 
tested whether piecemeal procedure’s advantage over lump-sum 
procedure would diminish if participants no longer believed that the 
acquired items resulted from their own effort. Based on the propo-
sition, we predict that accumulating possessions must be achieved 
through one’s own effort. That is, the sense of achievement should 
arise from feeling that one’s behavior has led to preferred outcomes 
or goals (McClelland 1985; Murray 1938), and it is associated with 
one’s effort and competence rather than with luck or other random 
factors (Weiner 1986). Thus, if the growth in one’s possessions does 
not reflect applied effort, then the increasing pattern alone will not 
lead to a sense of achievement. In Experiment 2, participants were 
randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2(acquisition proce-
dure: piecemeal vs. lumpsum) x 2(effort-possession association: yes 
vs. no) between-participants design. Our analysis returned a signifi-
cant interaction between acquisition procedure and effort-possession 
association, F(1,139) = 4.02, p = .046. That is, if the rewards are 
directly endowed and not earned through efforts, then acquisition 
procedure will have no effect on people’s motivation to acquire still 
more possessions.
Experiment 3 tested the boundary condition. We posit that an 
increasing trend is a necessary condition for people to feel achieved 
and motivated. If the trend is disrupted, such as when possessions 
acquired later are perceived to be much different from those acquired 
earlier, then piecemeal procedure would be no more motivating 
than lump-sum procedure. Experiment 3 participants were random-
ly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2(acquisition procedure: 
piecemeal vs. lump-sum) x 2(additional reward: similar vs. differ-
ent) between-participants design. The analysis returned a significant 
interaction between reward similarity and acquisition method, F(1, 
121) = 4.85, p = .03, thus providing further support to our hypothesis. 
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Wanting Ever More: Accumulation Procedure Motivates Continued Possession Acquisition

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Wanting Ever More: Accumulation Procedure Motivates Continued Possession Acquisition

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