What do you think of this fact?
You know that slightly crooked shelf you put together yourself and would never swap for a better one? Psychologists have a name for that feeling: the IKEA effect.
Same box, two prices
In a 2011 working paper, Michael Norton of Harvard Business School, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely tested how much people value things they assemble themselves. In the first experiment, 52 participants dealt with a simple IKEA box. Some assembled it themselves, others only got to inspect one that was already assembled.
Then everyone could bid on the box. The builders offered on average 78 cents, the non-builders 48 cents. That’s a premium of 63 percent for the exact same product. The builders also liked it more: on a 7-point scale, they rated it 3.81 on average, the others 2.50.
Your origami is not a masterpiece
The team pushed it further with origami. Amateurs who had folded a figure themselves bid on average 23 cents for their own creation. Other participants bid just 5 cents for those very same pieces. The makers valued their work almost five times higher than everyone else did.
And it gets better. The non-builders were willing to pay 27 cents for origami folded by an expert. So the amateurs priced their own clumsy folds about as high as a pro’s work. According to the paper, they also expected other people to share their opinion.
Bonus fact: The effect needs a happy ending. In a Lego experiment, people who built a set and then had to take it apart again no longer valued it significantly more than someone else’s set. And in a second IKEA test, people who were stopped before the last two steps bid on average 59 cents, while those who finished bid 1.46 dollars.
Labor leads to love
The paper’s subtitle says it all: “When labor leads to love.” The effect wasn’t limited to DIY fans either. It also showed up in people who said they had little interest in do-it-yourself projects.
Your crooked shelf isn’t worth more to anyone else. It’s worth more to you because your sweat is in it.