A cupboard full of unused crockery, an old grandfather’s watch or a stack of books inherited from a grandparent can take up space for years. The items may no longer fit into everyday life, yet the thought of donating them can feel surprisingly difficult.
Even when families are trying to declutter, some belongings remain untouched because giving them away feels like more than simply getting rid of old things.New research offers an explanation for this hesitation. Researchers found that people who inherit meaningful possessions often worry about what will happen to them after they leave the family. Their concern is not only about losing an object but also about whether the family history and legacy attached to it will continue.The study, titled “Preserving Legacy at Disposal: How Heritage Goods Shape Donation Allocation,” was co-authored by Hyewon Oh of the Stevens Institute of Technology and Ravi Mehta of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Published in the 'Journal of the Association for Consumer Research', the research examined how people decide to give away possessions that carry a connection to their family’s past.
Why an old possession can feel like part of the family
A dinner set inherited from a grandmother may have little practical value to someone who rarely hosts guests.
But the same set could represent family celebrations, childhood memories and years of shared meals. This is what researchers describe as a heritage connection. An object becomes meaningful because it links its owner to a shared past, family traditions and people who came before them. When a possession carries that kind of meaning, deciding what to do with it becomes more complicated than assessing whether it is useful.
Donating it can feel like losing a small, tangible connection to family history.The new study explored what happens when keeping these possessions is no longer practical. Across a qualitative pilot study and four experiments, the researchers found that heirs often preferred to donate meaningful items together rather than separate them among different recipients. The findings suggest that people may be willing to part with an object when they believe its story will continue in some form.
Why people prefer to keep inherited sets together
Imagine inheriting a complete dinner set from a grandparent. Some plates could be donated to one charity, bowls to another and cups to a third. From a practical perspective, distributing the items this way might help more people. Yet heirs may prefer to donate the entire set to a single organisation. The researchers found that people often wanted to preserve what they described as the integrity of heritage goods. Keeping the items together helped maintain the sense that they belonged to a shared history rather than being a collection of unrelated objects.The same idea can apply to hardcover books, collections and other belongings passed down through generations. When the objects are seen as parts of a meaningful whole, splitting them up can feel like breaking apart the legacy they represent. However, the findings also revealed an important distinction. When people viewed items as independent objects rather than parts of a unified collection, they became more willing to distribute them among different charities if that increased the chances of the items being used.
In other words, people may find it easier to let go when they believe the belongings will continue to serve a purpose.
The emotional decision behind decluttering
The findings help explain why decluttering can become an emotional task, especially when families are downsizing or sorting through the belongings of ageing parents and relatives. A person may have no use for an inherited object but still feel responsible for deciding its future carefully. The hesitation does not necessarily mean they want to keep everything forever.
They may simply be uncomfortable with the idea that something meaningful could be discarded, separated from its collection or passed on without its history being recognised.Earlier research published in the 'Journal of Marketing Research' also examined how people value heritage goods. In five studies, researchers Katherine L. Christensen and Suzanne B. Shu found that an object’s connection to shared history could influence how owners felt about passing it on.
Concerns about losing that heritage connection helped explain their decisions. Together, the research suggests that the meaning attached to possessions can extend beyond personal memories.
An inherited object may also represent continuity between generations, making the decision to part with it feel more significant than its practical value would suggest.
How families can pass on heirlooms without losing their meaning
The findings could also help charities, resale platforms and organisations that encourage people to reuse unwanted possessions.
Making donations easier may involve more than arranging collection or offering a convenient drop-off point. It may also mean recognising why the items matter to the people giving them away. For families, one practical approach is to consider whether a meaningful collection can be donated together.
If that is not possible, they could look for recipients who will use the objects, rather than allowing them to remain boxed away indefinitely.Recording a short family story, identifying who an object belonged to or sharing photographs can also help preserve its history, even when the physical item moves to a new home. These are practical suggestions rather than interventions directly tested by the study, but they follow its central finding: people care about what happens to their family’s possessions after they let them go. Ultimately, an heirloom does not have to remain in the same cupboard to keep its meaning.
For many people, the important question is whether the memories and history attached to it can continue beyond their own ownership. That may be why an old set of plates or a box of books can be so difficult to give away. People are not always holding on to the objects themselves. Sometimes, they are trying to find a way to let go without feeling that a piece of their family’s story is being lost.