Participants: Overall, 303 Japanese undergraduates (186 males, 113 females, and four who did not specify their gender; mean age = 20.40) participated in the study. Subsequently, 300 participants were included in the analysis, excluding three international students.
Preliminary survey: Prior to the experiment, a preliminary survey was conducted with 16 Japanese undergraduates (10 males, 6 females; mean age = 20.31) to select products with high and low involvement for Japanese university students. For the six products with relatively high tactile importance (ballpoint pen, sweatshirt, aroma hand cream, stick scissors, freestanding pen case, and tumbler) used in Iseki & Kitagami's (2017) study among Japanese university students, participants were asked to respond to five items on product involvement (e.g., "This is a product about which I would like to collect information"; α = .90) using a seven-point scale. Based on these results, the aroma hand cream, which had a relatively high involvement score (M = 5.13, SD = 1.46), was selected as the high-involvement product, and the freestanding pen case, which had a relatively low involvement score (M = 3.08, SD = 1.06), was chosen as the low-involvement product.
Measures: The participants were asked to respond to a two-item physical control (Peck, et al., 2013; r = .82, p < .001; M = 3.46, SD = 1.69), three-item sense of psychological ownership question (Pierce, Kostova, & Dirks, 2001; α = .95, M = 2.35, SD = 1.46), as well as a two-item purchase intention question (r = .90, p < .001; M = 2.54, SD = 1.43), "I want to purchase the product" and "I want the product,” using a seven-point scale.
Procedure: The experiment was developed for this study and conducted online (see appendix for the questionnaire used in the experiment). The participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: involvement (low vs. high) × imagery (no imagery vs. haptic imagery). In the haptic imagery condition, participants were asked to imagine how they would feel if they touched or held the product. Conversely, in the no-imagery condition, the participants were asked to consider whether they would purchase the product. They were then instructed to look at a product image that matched the condition. The participants were then shown product images for 30 seconds and asked to respond to items on psychological ownership and purchase intention. Subsequently, a debriefing session was conducted.