The IKEA effect: when labor leads to love
Norton, with Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely, reported the four studies that named the IKEA effect, in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Participants assembled IKEA storage boxes, folded origami and built Lego, then valued their own output against output made by somebody else. Two findings sit in the first half. People valued their own amateurish creations at close to what they would pay for an expert's, and they expected other people to agree with that valuation, so the misjudgement comes with a prediction about everybody else. The second half is the boundary, and it is the part that is rarely quoted. When participants built their creation and then destroyed it, or failed to complete it, the effect went away. That makes this a finding about completed labour rather than about effort as such. On standing, the headline replicated across three different materials within the paper and is well established. The mechanism is not. The companion developmental paper by Marsh, also summarised on this site, tested effort and ownership as explanations in children and found neither moderated the bias, so the usual effort story rests on the half of this paper that this paper itself qualifies. Sample sizes for the four studies are not confirmed here, and no measurement in this literature tells us how long the inflated valuation lasts.
Norton, with Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely, reported the four studies that named the IKEA effect, in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Participants assembled IKEA storage boxes, folded origami and built Lego, then valued their own output against output made by somebody else. Two findings sit in the first half. People valued their own amateurish creations at close to what they would pay for an expert's, and they expected other people to agree with that valuation, so the misjudgement comes with a prediction about everybody else. The second half is the boundary, and it is the part that is rarely quoted. When participants built their creation and then destroyed it, or failed to complete it, the effect went away. That makes this a finding about completed labour rather than about effort as such. On standing, the headline replicated across three different materials within the paper and is well established. The mechanism is not. The companion developmental paper by Marsh, also summarised on this site, tested effort and ownership as explanations in children and found neither moderated the bias, so the usual effort story rests on the half of this paper that this paper itself qualifies. Sample sizes for the four studies are not confirmed here, and no measurement in this literature tells us how long the inflated valuation lasts.
Written from the citation as recorded when this source was checked, and the companion paper summarised here.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
origami and Lego; participants valued self-made products close to experts' products and expected others to agree; the effect dissipated when creations were built and then destroyed, or not completed. Issued online 9 September 2011 in the volume 22 issue. Verified at Crossref and the published record 2026-10-05. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2011.08.002
Where we use it
- Why You Love the Thing You Assembled, Why We Come Back
Reliability of this reference
No persistent link has been resolved for this source yet.
The source
No link available. The citation as the article records it:
Norton, M. I., Mochon, D., & Ariely, D. (2011). 'The IKEA effect: when labor leads to love.' Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(3), 453-460. Four studies using IKEA boxes, origami and Lego; participants valued self-made products close to experts' products and expected others to agree; the effect dissipated when creations were built and then destroyed, or not completed. Issued online 9 September 2011 in the volume 22 issue. Verified at Crossref and the published record 2026-10-05. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2011.08.002