Leon Litwinski is one of the unknown pioneers of economic psychology. Following in the cognitive, utilitarian tradition of Descartes, Hobbes, Malebranche, Locke, and Bentham he argued that possession and the ownership of property are cognitively adaptive. They secure objects, affiliations, and ideas for their anticipated utility yet require only relaxed and intermittent attention so that cognitive resources might be directed elsewhere. Though not an empiricist himself, Litwinski's writings contain a program of cognitive research touching on six sub-topics: (1) quantitative modelling, (2) risk homeostasis, (3) anticipatory problem solving, (4) developmental progressions, (5) defendence motivations, and (6) ideas as possessions. Other topics Litwinski discussed are voluntary simplicity, stewardship, transition objects, gender differences in ownership, the neuropsychology of possession, and the psychology of belonging. © 1990.
