In 2024, a shirt worn by renowned baseball player Babe Ruth during the 1932 World Series sold for a record-breaking $24.1m, making it one of the most expensive collector’s items ever sold at auction. Ruth’s famous “called shot” jersey is just one of countless items previously owned by celebrities that routinely fetch eye-watering prices despite having no obvious use. Understanding what gives these objects their subjective value presents an intriguing challenge in economic and social psychology.

 

An influential study by Newman et al. (2011) proposed three explanations for such behaviour – first, that the object acts as a memento to remind the consumer of the celebrity; second, that the object is perceived to have a high market demand and is believed to attract a higher price on resale; and third that the object triggers a contagion effect – a phenomenon, observed in a variety of psychological contexts, in which the consumer believes that some intangible essence of the object’s previous owner might be transmitted to them through physical contact. Across a series of experiments, Newman et al. (2011) concluded that the evidence favours an explanation in terms of contagion.

 

Here, Chan et al. (2025) propose a large online study (N=1200; several times larger than the original study) to partially replicate Experiments 1 and 2 in Newman et al. (2011). The authors aim to establish the reliability of this supposed contagion effect and to test its potential dependence on proximity – that is, whether the desire to have physical contact with the person is necessary for the contagion effect to occur. Specifically, for their main questions they ask whether fame (celebrity, non-celebrity) and moral valence of the previous owner (positive, negative, mixed) influence item valuation, desire for physical contact, market demand, and willingness to purchase. To further test any dependence on proximity, the authors will ask whether fame and valence impact desire for non-physical contact.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA. 

 

 

 

 

1. Newman, G. E., Diesendruck, G., & Bloom, P. (2011). Celebrity contagion and the value of objects. Journal of Consumer Research, 38, 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1086/658999

 

2. Chan, M.,  Jin, Y., Chen, E. Y., Peng, S., Charlton, A. & Feldman, G. (2025). Revisiting celebrity contagion and the value of objects: Replication and extensions Registered Report of Newman et al. (2011). In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/gnrhf