Most of us know that when we buy products from IKEA, we take on the task of assembling them, a process that can sometimes be fun or extremely time-consuming. What we may not know is that all this leads us to a bias known as the IKEA Effect.
The IKEA Effect refers to a cognitive bias that leads us to assign greater value to products we have assembled or created ourselves, perhaps because they showcase our creativity and imagination, compared to pre-assembled items.
In 2011, a study by Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely titled "The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love", found that participants were willing to pay a 63% premium for furniture they had assembled themselves, as opposed to identical items that were already assembled.
The experiment focused on instant cake mixes. When these mixes were first introduced in the 1950s, they failed to gain popularity because housewives considered them too easy - they disregarded the effort of baking and made the process less satisfying. After manufacturers changed the formula to require "more effort" by adding an egg, they became popular.
Essentially, this bias makes people appreciate things they have invested time and effort in creating or assembling to a greater extent than similar pre-made items. The logic behind this bias is that people tend to attribute greater significance and meaning to things they have somehow "invested" in, leading to a sense of ownership and pride. In fact, people tend to spend more on these goods, a fact that is obviously known to both the Swedish giant and all those companies that ask consumers to "participate" in the production process.