The Reasons Why You Keep Sentimental Items
- Slice of Psych
- Aug 10, 2021
- 2 min read
Human behavior, as always, is complicated. First, let us define what is mementos. Mementos are the objects that we kept as a reminder or souvenir of a person or event. There’s no single answer on why humans keep mementos. But I gathered the possible answers to this question, "Why do we keep sentimental items?"
1. You are stuck in the past
You cannot let go of it because you are not living in the moment. These items trigger our memories. They give us different emotions and we also associate them with different meanings that's why we hold onto them until now. But I'd like to remind you that these items don't hold our memories because our memories are kept inside our brain.
2. Endowment Effect
You somehow give it a higher value, just because you own it. This is a common scenario when we were a child and our toys. On the study of Mr. Ori and Ms. Karen in year 2008, children aged 2 to 4 years old assumed that whoever get the object first is considered as the owner already.
3. Loss Aversion
I'll give you first an example first. If you find a 500 pesos on the street, you will probably be thrilled because you will have an extra money but If you lose a 500 pesos on the street, you will probably be shouting and sad because it is your money that you've earned by working hard. In short, humans don’t like to lose things that they own..
4. The process of assorting is overwhelming
We have a lot of sentimental items in our home and if we decide to let them go, it is just hard to identify where to start or if the item is no longer needed.
5. They are an extension of ourselves
Some of our sentimental items may not have come from another person. It could be a gift during child hood years or an items we've used in an event. So it's like our identity is embedded to the items.
A quote by Tyler Durden, "The things you own, end up owning you."
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