IKEA effect

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In behavioral economics, the IKEA effect is the increase in appreciation that is shown to self-designed or at least self-assembled objects in comparison to mass-produced products that are bought ready-made . The name after the furniture manufacturer IKEA and its products to be assembled by the customer was coined in 2009 by the economist Michael Norton . In quantitative terms, the increased appreciation achieved through the self-assembly of a mass- produced item almost equates to the appreciation for a one -off piece individually manufactured by a craftsman .

Comparable is the endowment effect (German possession effect ), which says that people tend to appreciate a good more valuable when they own it.

Forerunner in research

An early description of the IKEA effect can be found in the study of the rejection of cake mixes by American housewives in the 1950s. Sales of these mixes stagnated because the housewives found them too simple: their labor and their food preparation skills were no longer needed. Only when the manufacturers changed their advertising to emphasize the housewife's own contribution, for example by adding fresh eggs and / or fresh milk or by lavishly decorating the finished cake, the baking mixes finally caught on.

Study by Norton and colleagues

The IKEA effect was scientifically confirmed and quantified through the work of Norton and colleagues: the test subjects had to inspect pre-selected, assembled furniture and then assemble the corresponding furniture themselves according to instructions. Then they could bid for both pieces of furniture. There is a preference for self-assembled furniture. The results could be confirmed with origami figures and when assembling simple kits with partners. By using ready-made kits without the possibility of modification, it could be ruled out that the increased appreciation of one's own work is based on an individualization of the mass product.

Furthermore, the hypothesis that successful completion of their own work was a prerequisite for the occurrence of the IKEA effect was confirmed: If the test subjects had to dismantle the self-assembled objects before bidding, there was no statistically significant increase in the appreciation. If the participants were only allowed to assemble half of the IKEA furniture, the IKEA effect did not materialize: Their bids were less than half of those who were able to finish their furniture. It is still unclear whether the IKEA effect also occurs in more demanding or high-priced projects.

Further research

In a laboratory study published in 2010, neuroscientists from Johns Hopkins University found that a similar effect was also observed in mice . In the experiment, the laboratory mice had the choice between two food sources: To get the sugary liquid with flavor A, they had to press one of two levers. To get the sugary liquid with flavor B, they had to push the other lever. Gradually, the amount of work for one of the two flavors was increased; H. the mice had to press the corresponding lever up to 15 times. The effort remained the same for the other flavor. After returning to their home cage, the mice showed a significant preference for the flavor that they had worked harder for.

literature

  • Michael I. Norton: The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love . In: Harvard Business Review . Vol. 87, No. 2 (February 2009), p. 30. ( Online as part of the HBR list 2009)
  • Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, Dan Ariely: The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love . In: Journal of Consumer Psychology . Vol. 21, No. 4 (September 9, 2011), doi : 10.1016 / j.jcps.2011.08.002 (pre-print online (PDF; 909 kB) on Michael Norton's HBS homepage).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael I. Norton: The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love . In: Harvard Business Review . Vol. 87, No. 2 (February 2009), p. 30.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, Dan Ariely: The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love . In: Journal of Consumer Psychology . Vol. 21, No. 4 (September 9, 2011).
  3. ^ Laura Shapiro: Something from the oven: Reinventing dinner in 1950s America . Viking, New York 2004, ISBN 978-0-670-87154-4 , pp. 74-80; snopes.com: Adding an Egg to Cake Mix
  4. ↑ Vance Packard: The Secret Seducers. trans. v. Hermann Kusterer. Econ-Verlag, 1958.
  5. ↑ Alexander W. Johnson, Michela Gallagher: Greater effort boosts the affective taste properties of food . In: Proceedings of the Royal Society , Series B (Biological Sciences). Vol. 278, No. 17011 (May 22, 2011), pp. 1450-1456, doi : 10.1098 / rspb.2010.1581 . (First published online on November 3, 2010)