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Reading 2 min.
in collaboration with
Amélie Boukhobza (Clinical psychologist)
Do you love assembling shelves and other furniture of all kinds? Maybe it’s the Ikea effect, a positive feeling that arises when we make things with our own hands.
Earlier this morning, you put together a shelf and felt proud and “accomplished”? This strange feeling has a name: the IKEA effect. This has even been validated by science. Decryption.
Pride increased tenfold by the “do it yourself” effect
The Ikea effect obviously refers to the Swedish giant’s furniture. And for good reason: Ikea customers can literally build any kit furniture they want. These are not only affordable but also easy to assemble. But what happens when they do? They fall “in love” with their creations.
This “Ikea effect”, also called the possession effect, therefore refers to the feeling of pride that inhabits “apprentice DIYers”. Consumers place a disproportionate value on products that they have partially produced.
The Ikea effect was notably highlighted by Pascal Wagner-Egger, teacher-researcher in social psychology at the University of Fribourg, and co-author of Beware of your brain (Editions 41, 2022).
“People are willing to pay more for vegetables that they pick themselves on the farm or for toys that they have to assemble, even though their production cost is lower“, he explains.
Michael Norton of Harvard Business School, Daniel Mochon of Yale University and Dan Ariely of Duke University have published three studies on this subject. And Ikea and other furniture giants have played on this attraction to the DIY phenomenon, literally “Do it yourself”.
Good in his body, good in his head!
Making things yourself increases self-confidence
On this subject, our expert psychologist Amélie Boukhobza is rather positive:
“I didn’t know about the IKEA effect but it’s absolutely fascinating! To think that depending on our investment time, our efforts in particular, we can give more value to a product, regardless of its objective quality… The overvaluation of more personalized objects may seem quite logical. It can still give you a lot of confidence, to do something with your hands and see a result, which others will also be able to see with their own eyes. It’s quite rewarding,” she emphasizes.
Furthermore and more rationally, if we invest time and energy in something, “it also seems logical to have a tendency to overestimate the final result and the perceived value“, adds the expert.
Finally, “recognizing and understanding this bias could help us make choices that are perhaps sometimes more informed and more satisfactory“, concludes the psychologist.