Material Objects Research Group (MORG)

The Material Objects Research Group (MORG) is a collective of individuals whose interests concern interactions between humans and the vast array of things that surround us. Acknowledging that our perceived environment includes the ineffable, the trans-substantial, the imagined, the dreamed, and the conceived, we nevertheless have taken as our focus those things which are manifested materially and which are recognized, shared, interpreted, and valued by individuals and groups.

Our aim is to explore the varied ways humans create, perceive, and consume these material objects in order to better understand some of the complexities of everyday lives. Our investigative methods tend to be qualitative, but our research interests are wide and diverse, including such subjects as hoarder motivations and rationales, dementia and the integration of objects in social life, the negotiation of social identity via arts, discrimination and choice in consumer decisions, and the spiritual nature of collecting.

• Our current investigations include the following topics:
• Places, things and wellbeing: gallery environments and the objects therein
• Conflict and essentialism in selecting a single favorite object
• Development of personal character through serial collecting
• Objects, memories and cognition in older adults
• Processes of object dissociation in the context of charity donations
• The place of cleanlinessin consumer purchases
• Folk notions of accumulated energy in object collections
• Rationality in explanations of pack-ratbehaviors
• Beliefs in subjectivity and agency in inanimate objects