IKEA effect
We overvalue what we built ourselves.
What it means
A bias whereby people place a disproportionately high value on products they have partially created or assembled themselves, sometimes valuing their amateur creations as highly as experts' work. Labor begets love: the effort invested generates feelings of competence and ownership, and the act of building forges a psychological attachment that inflates willingness to pay. The effect requires that the labor be successfully completed; abandoned or failed projects do not produce it. It matters for product design and marketing strategies built on customization, co-creation, and assembly, and it overlaps with effort justification and the endowment effect.
Examples
People pay more for a plain box they folded themselves than for an identical pre-made one.
A meal kit that makes you chop, sear and plate feels like your dinner and justifies its price; the identical ready meal you microwave is just food someone else made.
A manager defends the clunky spreadsheet she built over a cheaper tool that does more — the weekends she poured into it are quietly priced into her judgement.
First described in Norton, Mochon & Ariely (2012).