CODEXCard 4 of 9 · Patterns in Yourself You Have No Words For
IKEA effect
You overvalue what you built.
The IKEA effect describes how putting effort into something raises its value in our own eyes. The researchers Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely named it after the flat-pack furniture company, showing that people placed higher value on items they had assembled than on identical ones they had not.
The likely reason is that effort feels like an investment, and we want our investments to be worth it. Building something also gives a sense of competence and ownership. That is helpful when you are learning, because pride in your work keeps you going. It becomes a problem when you need to judge that work honestly, such as deciding whether to change a plan, a product or a piece of writing.
The trap on the other side is waving away everything you make. Your own creations may well be good, and dismissing them just because you are biased is no more accurate. The useful move is to ask what the work is worth to someone who did not make it. Outside feedback, comparisons with alternatives and a little time away all help.
The pattern sits close to the sunk cost fallacy, where past effort keeps us committed to something we would not choose today.
Example
You spent a weekend building a spreadsheet to track household spending, complete with colour codes and formulas. Your partner suggests a free budgeting app that does the same thing automatically. You feel a strong urge to defend the spreadsheet. Testing both for a month shows which one you actually use.
Try it this week
Ask one person who had no part in a project you made to tell you its biggest weakness, and write it down without arguing.
From Patterns in Yourself You Have No Words For (Cognitive Science).
