The 'Ikea Effect' is a curious cognitive bias that many of us have experienced on occasion: valuing more the things that we have made ourselves, even partially. The furniture may be crooked, but it's your furniture! Or a dress for a doll may not fit perfectly or fit over her head, but you designed and sewed it and it represents you! These feelings of belonging, pride in the work done and self-esteem explain why the 'Ikea Effect' occurs.
The “Do It Yourself” (DIY) trend has been in vogue for some time now and this cognitive bias partly explains why we like to buy or give away kits to make a craft in which all the instructions and materials come. what you need, or why we prefer to customize t-shirts or shoes in our style rather than directly buying one designed by a professional or why there are communities that are dedicated to giving plans and ideas to transform furniture into other things or how to build all kinds of objects with Legos... behind The pleasure that comes from putting effort and time into a task is the 'Ikea Effect', which is not only about furniture or DIY.
The “Do It Yourself” (DIY) trend has been in vogue for some time now and this cognitive bias partly explains why we like to buy or give away kits to make a craft in which all the instructions and materials come. what do you need; or why we prefer to customize t-shirts or shoes in our style rather than directly buying one designed by a professional; or why there are communities that are dedicated to giving plans and ideas to transform furniture into other things or how to build all kinds of objects with Legos... behind the pleasure that it gives us to put effort and time into a task is the 'Ikea Effect', which It's not just about furniture or DIY.
Marketing has been able to take advantage of this behavior, since it not only saves on production or processing costs, but also makes us pay more for those products to which we want to give our personal touch.
“The 'Ikea Effect' is a cognitive bias that occurs as a result of our effort and that leads us to value or overvalue the result we have obtained,” according to psychologist and founder of Rincón de la Psicología, Jennifer Delgado, explained to La Vanguardia.
It was doctors Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School and Daniel Mochon of Yale University who described in their study The 'IKEA Effect': When Labor Leads to Love. love) that tendency to value a product much more when we make it ourselves.
In this research by Harvard Business School Marketing, a series of experiments were carried out assembling IKEA boxes, making origami and building sets with Legos, and reached several conclusions; that the valuation of products is higher when people participate in the creation, that the effect occurs “only when the work results in the successful completion of tasks” and that “that labor increases the valuation of finished products “not just for consumers who profess interest in do-it-yourself projects, but even for those who are relatively disinterested.”
“It is not just manual work, this effect is more due to effort and time,” explains Delgado. For example, on "Youtube they are investigating the Ikea effect because according to them, content creators have a very strong attachment to their accounts not only because of their followers but because they highly value personalized recommendations, something that could also be seen on Netflix." "People are tied to their accounts because they know they've invested time in it, which makes them value them much more and they don't want to lose them."
The key to why we fall in love with things we've made ourselves, even if partially or completely guided, is that it gives us a great sense of pride and makes us feel more competent about ourselves and others. This is indicated by subsequent research by the same authors who coined the term titled Bolstering and restoring feelings of competence via the IKEA effect.
In this sense, the psychologist consulted by La Vanguardia clarifies that this cognitive bias “occurs because we feel proud of what we do, but I would refer to the concept of self-efficacy because in psychology self-esteem has been promoted a lot but self-efficacy is much more important. It is confidence in ourselves, in our abilities to achieve our objectives and the results we propose.”
Furthermore, “when you do something and you see that it turned out well, that reinforces the image you have of yourself and also gives you a feeling of control that is very important to feel good because you feel that you can control more or less the things you do.” your environment and above all, you feel that if you try hard, you can achieve it. That is to say, it does not depend as much on the outside as on you and that gives you an important boost apart from reinforcing your identity, and I think that would explain the Ikea effect,” she adds.
On the other hand, “when we do something we stick to it, and even if it is not right, we consider what we have done as an extension of ourselves because we see ourselves reflected in it,” adds Delgado.
It seems logical to think that if you have invested time and effort in creating something, you will feel proud of it and, at least momentarily, your self-esteem will plummet, but what if the result is a fiasco? “As a general rule, if it goes wrong it is unlikely that you will get the 'Ikea Effect'. To explain it we would have to use Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, which says that we can to a certain extent increase the value of a thing to justify the effort and time we have invested in it but only up to a certain point, we are not stupid either. "If we see that a botch has come out, it is a botch," says the psychologist.
Thus, “if the tasks are too complicated and they go wrong, it is also likely that this ‘Ikea Effect’ will be diluted,” concludes the psychologist.
Knowing that we do not give special value to things with botched results, even so, for this cognitive bias to occur, the task “does not have to be easy, it has to have a certain degree of challenge, but just enough so that you do not get frustrated and you can do it.”
“The Ikea diagrams are complicated, if you see them at first you may think that you don't know if you are going to be able to do it, but then you go little by little and you achieve it and then you have a small challenge for yourself and that is important, but It is small because you will be able to finish it even if it is not easy, because if it were, you would not have the feeling of self-efficacy. It has to be a fair challenge to your capabilities,” Delgado exemplifies.
Proof of this is that we do not dare to take on any challenge, "people may like a piece of furniture from Ikea but they don't dare much with the kitchen because you know that it is beyond your abilities and the frustration that it generates in you is not going to convince you." ”, he thinks.
According to the Norton and Mochon study, people with lower self-esteem, those who feel less competent, are more likely to experience the 'Ikea Effect', since the satisfaction it provides of self-competence, fulfillment and pride is more important to them.
Furthermore, “I think that people who are very perfectionists might not be so prone to this bias because it depends on the result,” says Delgado, and if it is difficult for you to perceive that something you have done is good because it has imperfections, it will be more difficult to feel identified with that work.
On the other hand, the psychologist believes that, if the task being performed is done from scratch and not partially, the effect could decrease. “The Ikea name is quite well placed because the brand gives you the guidelines, the guide, but doing everything from scratch I think could dilute the 'Ikea Effect' quite a bit. We feel proud when we see a piece of furniture assembled and it looks very cool, but you have actually put three screws in, no matter how much it cost you. However, if you cut the wood yourself and do it all, the result is not as professional and hence the effect could be diluted,” she explains.
"There could be very satisfied people doing everything from scratch, but personality characteristics come into play much more there, which is why I would say that the 'Ikea Effect' could be more generalized when doing things that already have guidelines."
