Building on these efforts, our aim is to develop a framework for ownership that is specifically tailored to creative practice and designed for use in HCI research.

Efforts have been made in HCI to establish more unified frameworks, though these remain limited in scope.

Building upon literature across psychology, philosophy, the humanities and social sciences more broadly, and within human-computer interaction, we introduce a nine-subdimension framework of creative ownership organized across Person, Process, and System.

We introduce a framework of creative ownership comprising three dimensions - Person, Process, and System - each with three subdimensions, offering a shared language for both system design and HCI research.

A Paradigm for Creative Ownership

In their 2003 paper, Pierce et al. [32] define psychological ownership as "that state where an individual feels as though the target of ownership or a piece of that target is 'theirs'."

In the field of psychology, there have been numerous theoretical propositions and empirical studies attempting to explain the formation of psychological ownership. Several scholars have created frameworks based on decades of psychological research that capture key themes that have emerged time and again such as effectance and control of possessions [10, 25, 44], positive affect [10], and symbolic meaning and personhood [35].

Hegel's ideas of ownership stem from the notion that the "will" can be embodied in external entities, and that this embodiment is necessary for one's actualization as a person cannot come to exist without both relation to and differentiation from the external environment [34].

One of the most fundamental materialist theories is Locke's labor theory, which posits that "every man has a property in his own person," and thereby goes on to argue that when one mixes their labor with natural resources, the resulting good becomes their property - evoking the embodiment theory of personhood [22, 34].

Materialist theories stem from notions of property as control over material entities, going as far as to stipulate that physical, material states are the ultimate determinants of reality, taking precedence over thought, consciousness, and abstract entities [27, 38]. On the contrary, idealism posits that something mental is the ultimate foundation of reality, and idealist theories of property and personhood are concerned with symbolic and mental conceptions of ownership [12].

Building upon literature across psychology, philosophy, the humanities and social sciences more broadly, and within human-computer interaction, we introduce a nine-subdimension framework of creative ownership organized across Person, Process, and System. Person captures how the artifact relates to the self; Process characterizes the decisions, intentionality, and effort by which it is created; System situates creation within its material, collaborative, and contextual conditions.

Research on the self-creation effect illustrates how creating something oneself can lead to stronger object valuation and a more profound sense of ownership - aspects that are often overlooked by traditional frameworks of ownership. Therefore, we draw upon existing frameworks and approaches to produce a framework that is more streamlined for creative contexts.

In their 2003 paper, Pierce et al. define psychological ownership as "that state where an individual feels as though the target of ownership or a piece of that target is 'theirs'." In this paper, we will focus on a narrower definition revolving around creative ownership in which the target of ownership is a creative product or artifact that the individual in question had a role in creating — no matter how small or large.

In the field of psychology, there have been numerous theoretical propositions and empirical studies attempting to explain the formation of psychological ownership. Several scholars have created frameworks based on decades of psychological research that capture key themes that have emerged time and again such as effectance and control of possessions, positive affect, and symbolic meaning and personhood. These frameworks span a range of formulations ranging from Targets-Antecedents-Consequences-Interventions to corrective dual-process models, among others. Some of the major themes found across frameworks include responsibility, accountability, identity, self-efficacy, belongingness, control, self-congruity, psychological closeness, object-knowledge, self-investment, and rights over the object.

Hegel's ideas of ownership stem from the notion that the "will" can be embodied in external entities, and that this embodiment is necessary for one's actualization as a person cannot come to exist without both relation to and differentiation from the external environment. While the specifics of theories vary, the investment of one's self, values, and identity as a means of developing feelings of ownership is a common theme that arises.

One of the most fundamental materialist theories is Locke's labor theory, which posits that "every man has a property in his own person," and thereby goes on to argue that when one mixes their labor with natural resources, the resulting good becomes their property - evoking the embodiment theory of personhood. "Bundle of Rights" views hold ownership as a set of contractual obligations between people in relation to property.

While there are many schools of philosophical thought that could be used to frame a discussion of ownership, two juxtaposing ones that encompass the duality of ownership related values are materialism and idealism. Materialist theories stem from notions of property as control over material entities, going as far as to stipulate that physical, material states are the ultimate determinants of reality, taking precedence over thought, consciousness, and abstract entities. On the contrary, idealism posits that something mental is the ultimate foundation of reality, and idealist theories of property and personhood are concerned with symbolic and mental conceptions of ownership. This dualistic framing captures both the tangible and intangible elements of ownership.