While driving and listening to NPR this morning, I heard a story that I had to share here. It was about something called the “Ikea Effect.” The idea is that, by building a piece of Ikea furniture ourselves, we value it much more than if someone else had built it for us. Here’s the link to read the summary, or listen to the audio from this morning.
The story actually started with a bigger idea – do we love what we love because of how hard we work for it, or do we work hard for it because we love it? And, as you can guess, they were going for the first. Working hard to make something or take care of something (like a pet?) can actually cause us to love it more.
I’m not sure that this applies to Ikea stuff for me. I built my first Ikea Expedit shelf recently, and I’m mostly just glad the annoyingly large thing is built. Well, I do love the outcome, but I still realize that building it just sucked.
But what about vintage or second-hand finds? I believe that I love something that I had to search high and low to find in smelly stores of old junk than if I’d simply found it online at a chain store and clicked “order.” Remember that old Rice Krispie treat commercial where the gas station clerk put out just one treat at a time on the counter, so each customer got the thrill of thinking they’d gotten the last one?
Anyway, it’s a quick little clip on NPR. Go have a listen.
