Prominence, property, and inductive inference

The legal principle of accession suggests that people sometimes extend ownership of a prominent item to related objects, resources, and benefits. For example, people might assume that whoever owns a large land mass is also likely to possess surrounding islands. In three experiments on 4-7-year-olds (N = 526) and adults (N = 498), we find that prominence affects inductive inferences about both ownership and liking. In Experiment 1, children were more likely to infer that a character owned various individual blocks when the character was initially described as owning a pile of blocks (prominent) than a single block (regular). Experiment 2 replicated this pattern in both children and adults, and found it extends across three stimuli sets, but not a fourth. Experiment 3 then revealed that prominence also affects children's and adults' inductive inferences about preferences. Together, the findings suggest that prominence affects inductive inferences of both ownership and preferences, and the findings likewise suggest that parts of property law could reflect aspects of psychology present from early in the lifespan.