Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
We overvalue what we build
The origami experiments
The experiments came from behavioral scientists Michael Norton, Dan Ariely, and Daniel Mochon. In one, participants folded origami frogs and cranes from a simple set of instructions, then named what their creation was worth. A group of neutral strangers was asked what they would pay for the same creations.
The builders valued their own origami roughly five times higher than the strangers did, and they rated it as equal in value to the work of a real origami expert.
The storage box study
In another study, one group of participants folded a flat-packed IKEA storage box into shape while a second group simply received a box already assembled. Asked what they would pay to keep it, the builders offered 63% more than the non-builders.
The researchers named the pattern the IKEA effect: people place significantly more value on things they put effort into creating.
Why does making something raise its value to us?
Psychologists link it to effort justification, an idea from cognitive dissonance theory developed by Leon Festinger in the 1950s. People who spend effort on something resolve the tension of that cost by concluding the result was worth it. In a 1959 experiment by Elliot Aronson and Judson Mills, women who went through a more embarrassing screening to join a discussion group rated the same dull group more favorably. In their IKEA effect paper, Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely reported that feelings of competence helped explain why labor led to love.
Why was origami a good test of value?
A sheet of paper costs almost nothing, so any gap in price between builders and strangers has to come from the making, not the material. Following the same instructions kept the participants' skill roughly equal. Asking neutral strangers what they would pay separated the creator's feelings from the object's value to everyone else. Traditional origami starts from a single uncut sheet of paper.
How is this like the endowment effect?
The endowment effect is the finding that people value something more once they own it. Richard Thaler described it in 1980, and a 1990 study by Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch, and Thaler gave some students coffee mugs. Those who owned a mug asked for roughly twice as much to sell it as other students were willing to pay for one. The IKEA effect adds a second source of attachment, because building something creates ownership and effort at the same time.
More from Curiosity Chronicle
