Owning the Doctorate: The Role of Psychological Ownership in PhD Satisfaction and Commitment

The feeling of psychological ownership, the belief that something belongs to you, strengthens both satisfaction and commitment in professional settings. Doctoral study often mirrors the demands and responsibilities of employment. However, it can differ in terms of its emphasis on self-directed work, extended timeframes of projects and, for many, a substantial personal stake in the outcomes. Such differences may critically shape the ways psychological ownership impacts PhD students. This study investigated two distinct targets of ownership among PhD students: ownership of the doctoral programme and ownership of the research. Participants were a sample of 127 PhD students (range 22-66, Mage = 34.39, SD = 9.53; males = 25, females = 100, prefer not to say = 2) recruited from 98 universities worldwide. They completed a survey measuring psychological ownership, programme satisfaction, and affective commitment at both the programme and research levels. At the programme level, belonging and control emerged as the strongest antecedents of ownership and satisfaction, while satisfaction was the primary predictor of commitment. In contrast, at the research level, ownership significantly predicted satisfaction, and ownership and satisfaction independently predicted commitment. These results suggest that ownership processes operate differently across collective (programme) and individual (research) contexts. That is, belonging and control are central for programme level satisfaction, whereas agency over one's research project directly supports satisfaction and commitment. The findings extend psychological ownership theory to doctoral education and underscore the value of fostering both programme belonging and research ownership as pathways to strengthen doctoral student satisfaction, motivation and retention.