The Price of Belonging : How Commodified Access to Public Sanitation Shapes Urban Users’ Psychological Ownership in Stockholm

Sammanfattning

As Stockholm undergoes significant reforms to its public sanitation services, questions ofaccess and urban belonging have grown increasingly urgent. This study aimed to examinehow payment requirements for public sanitation influence urban psychological ownershipthrough users’ appraisal processes. Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR)framework and Appraisal Theory, the study examined the mediating role of fairnessappraisal between perceived access cost friction and psychological ownership, as well associo-demographic predictors of fairness appraisal and behavioural responses to paymentfriction. A convergent mixed-methods design was employed, combining a vignette-basedsurvey (N = 231) with systematic field observation (44 coded paid episodes). Data wereanalysed using mediation, regression, descriptive, exploratory, and thematic analysis. Thefindings confirmed that perceived access cost friction influences psychological ownershipindirectly via fairness appraisal. In contrast, income, residency status, and anticipatedfacility condition did not significantly predict fairness appraisal. Field observationsrevealed that friction rejection was the dominant behavioural outcome (54.5%), alongsidepatterns of redirection, withdrawal, and bypassing through free alternatives. The studyconcluded that payment requirements for public sanitation carry civic consequences farbeyond their monetary cost by shaping users’ perceptions of fairness and psychologicalownership of urban public space.