Age.

Age, life stage, and form relative to sex are the individual differences in attachment in the greatest degree often studied. Generally, age, life stage or sex differences are found in the specific possessions commonalty identify and sometimes in their articulated meanings for those possessions.

Age and Life Stage DifferencesOlder Adults - Studies portray older family as no more or les attached to their favorite things than younger folks However, some scholars have observ age and life stage variations in special possessions and the reasons for possession favoriteness. According to Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981) and Wallendorf and Arnould (1988) older Americans' favorite possessions delineateed familial and other interpersonal ties more repeatedly than possessions of younger respondent In Niger, older adults' favorite possessions also indicated age-related status differences (Wallendorf and Arnould 1988)

Kamptner's (1989; 1991) seminal studies investigating the developmental implications of special possessions showed that older make submissives use material possessions to negotiate life reviews and to enlarge themselves temporally into the what may occur hereafter by giving special possessions to younger family members. More lately Price, Arnould, and Curasi (2000) confirmed this adaptive, kin-keeping character of possessions in old age. people of good position Baker, and Kraft (1995) and Pavia (1993) notice that similar processes may apply to younger adults facing death, suggesting that it is not age, by se, but life stage that influences cherished possession disposition.

Children - The literature cast reproachs at least two views of in what manner children relate to special possessions. The traditional and principally familiar view, first associated with Winnicott (1953) remind ofs that young children (up to about six years old) use inanimate uses for transitioning toward independence and self-hood Myers' (1985) adult participants identified blankets, elemental parted toys, and dolls as their earliest possession attachments serving comfort and security functions. In Winnicott's view, having these transitional ends is universal among healthy children, implying material possession attachment is necessary for healthy psychological progression in a continuously ascending gradation of the autonomous self.