1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,160 I'm sure that many of your are familiar with IKEA. 2 00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:10,680 It's a store for kind of semi-assembled furniture. 3 00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:15,553 You buy it and you get to assemble the rest of it yourself. 4 00:00:15,553 --> 00:00:21,170 And quite a few years ago, I bought the piece of furniture from Ikea. 5 00:00:21,170 --> 00:00:27,063 It was a particular, a chest for toys. Nothing high quality, nothing particularly 6 00:00:27,063 --> 00:00:29,693 great. And I also have to admit that I'm really 7 00:00:29,693 --> 00:00:33,427 bad at assembling things. My hands are not that good to start with. 8 00:00:33,427 --> 00:00:35,946 I never exactly understand the instructions. 9 00:00:35,946 --> 00:00:40,703 And as a consequence, I spend the whole afternoon, maybe even the whole Afternoon 10 00:00:40,703 --> 00:00:44,984 into the evening assembling these things. I made lots of mistakes, I put things in 11 00:00:44,984 --> 00:00:48,632 the wrong pieces, I had to take things apart and there were some screws I could 12 00:00:48,632 --> 00:00:51,468 never find the right size according to the instructions. 13 00:00:51,469 --> 00:00:57,220 Anyway, it wasn't it wasn't a good afternoon But what I found later is that I 14 00:00:57,220 --> 00:01:01,124 kind of fell in love with a particular chest of toys. 15 00:01:01,124 --> 00:01:05,870 And I kept on carrying it with me, I have been moving a lot of round. 16 00:01:05,870 --> 00:01:08,570 And I kept on moving it and I kind of fond of it. 17 00:01:08,570 --> 00:01:14,355 And last night I looked at it again fondly thinking about the hours that I spent 18 00:01:14,355 --> 00:01:18,618 working on it. Now, it's not that I'm mis-remembering the 19 00:01:18,618 --> 00:01:21,683 agony of building it but I do like it more. 20 00:01:21,684 --> 00:01:26,880 And I started to think about what are cases in which putting effort into 21 00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:30,323 something makes you love it to a higher degree. 22 00:01:30,323 --> 00:01:35,578 Now, this actually reflects an old story. And it's a story that when people started 23 00:01:35,578 --> 00:01:41,019 creating cake mixes there was this idea that housewives would love this thing. 24 00:01:41,020 --> 00:01:43,900 And they were already selling mixers for all kinds of things. 25 00:01:43,900 --> 00:01:48,454 They were selling mixers for pie crust, and for muffins, and for all kinds of 26 00:01:48,454 --> 00:01:50,867 other things. Why not cakes? 27 00:01:50,868 --> 00:01:54,990 But the reality was that, people did not like the cake mixes. 28 00:01:54,990 --> 00:01:59,790 They were just not desirable. And the first thought that was, maybe the 29 00:01:59,790 --> 00:02:02,320 taste was not good. But no, the taste was great. 30 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:06,597 And then they came up with something they called the egg theory. 31 00:02:06,598 --> 00:02:12,171 And the egg theory was if you take powder, and you mix it with water, and you pour it 32 00:02:12,171 --> 00:02:16,607 into a pan and you bake it, you cannot really take credit for it. 33 00:02:16,608 --> 00:02:21,666 It is not yours in any way. Now, pie crust if you make a pie with 34 00:02:21,667 --> 00:02:26,617 pre-made pie crust or from a mix, you still made the pie. 35 00:02:26,618 --> 00:02:30,670 If you make biscuits or muffins, its still just part of the breakfast. 36 00:02:30,670 --> 00:02:35,609 But a cake is a whole dish, its the final dish of the meal. 37 00:02:35,610 --> 00:02:39,070 And all of a sudden, you basically are saying, this is not mine. 38 00:02:39,070 --> 00:02:43,864 I just poured it in and serve it to you. Maybe it feels a bit like opening a can of 39 00:02:43,864 --> 00:02:46,980 something. Pouring it in, and serving it to your 40 00:02:46,980 --> 00:02:49,878 guest. So what would happen, they thought, if 41 00:02:49,878 --> 00:02:54,220 they took the egg out of the mix, and took the milk powder out of the mix. 42 00:02:54,220 --> 00:02:56,710 And people had to add those things together. 43 00:02:56,710 --> 00:02:59,285 All of a sudden, it became much more popular. 44 00:02:59,286 --> 00:03:04,284 Which ironically means that we can make something more effort full and less, 45 00:03:04,284 --> 00:03:07,816 nevertheless people would like it to a higher degree. 46 00:03:07,816 --> 00:03:13,667 So, think about this idea that our liking for something is determined not by, just 47 00:03:13,667 --> 00:03:17,299 by what it is but also how much effort we put into it. 48 00:03:18,340 --> 00:03:22,060 And the most effort we put into something, the more we like it. 49 00:03:22,060 --> 00:03:25,366 So that was the basic idea and here is what we try to do, we try to test it 50 00:03:25,366 --> 00:03:28,970 empirically. So we gave people a sheet of instructions 51 00:03:28,970 --> 00:03:34,931 of how to do origami, how to do this Japanese folding ah[COUGH] little animals. 52 00:03:34,931 --> 00:03:40,805 And people could create a crane, or they could create a frog and we gave them some 53 00:03:40,805 --> 00:03:44,149 time to do it. And the reality is that what people 54 00:03:44,149 --> 00:03:48,352 created was not that good, right? These were amateurs in origami. 55 00:03:48,352 --> 00:03:51,431 They created some stuff. It looked more like crumpled piece of 56 00:03:51,431 --> 00:03:55,069 paper than a beautiful crane or frog, but nevertheless they created it. 57 00:03:56,390 --> 00:03:59,280 So we had these people who created these frogs or crane. 58 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:03,310 And then we took other people who did not create those frogs or crane. 59 00:04:03,310 --> 00:04:07,738 And we asked them to evaluate them. So we asked everybody who was a builder to 60 00:04:07,738 --> 00:04:12,719 basically say how much money they would be willing to pay to get this crane or frog. 61 00:04:12,719 --> 00:04:16,823 Because they work for us, so we are officially we own the frogs and the 62 00:04:16,823 --> 00:04:19,355 cranes. But we told them we would be willing to 63 00:04:19,355 --> 00:04:24,842 sell it to them for the right price. And we create a little auction mechanism. 64 00:04:24,843 --> 00:04:28,360 So what happened? The first thing that happened was that the 65 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:33,880 builders thought that these were going to be great and they were willing to pay a 66 00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:38,594 lot of money for them. The evaluators, not so much. 67 00:04:38,595 --> 00:04:42,300 The value it is that don't think that those were great cranes. 68 00:04:42,300 --> 00:04:46,578 So the moment you invested and you created the crane or frog, you thought your crane 69 00:04:46,578 --> 00:04:50,918 or frog was really fantastic. When it wasn't you, you didn't think that 70 00:04:50,918 --> 00:04:55,326 this was so such a, such a hot thing. Now, here's a second question. 71 00:04:55,326 --> 00:05:00,829 If you created a crane or a frog, you might say to yourself, you know what? 72 00:05:00,829 --> 00:05:04,877 I love this crane and frog, but other people would not. 73 00:05:04,878 --> 00:05:08,834 So you might be able to intuit correctly that they are valuable for you 74 00:05:08,834 --> 00:05:13,226 specifically, but not to other people. You might say, well, you know, I like the 75 00:05:13,226 --> 00:05:17,566 particular version of this tail, or I like the particular version of how this is done 76 00:05:17,566 --> 00:05:20,515 and it could have some interesting critic value for you. 77 00:05:20,515 --> 00:05:24,669 But you could recognize that other people who did not build it would not love it as 78 00:05:24,669 --> 00:05:27,109 much. Or you might be wrong, you might think to 79 00:05:27,109 --> 00:05:31,120 yourself I love this and everybody else would love it as well in the same way. 80 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:35,824 Which one of those was the case? They felt that everybody would love it. 81 00:05:35,825 --> 00:05:40,046 So the people who build the origamis thought they were more lovely and 82 00:05:40,046 --> 00:05:44,602 wonderful, but they thought that other people would recognize how wonderful and 83 00:05:44,602 --> 00:05:48,354 lovely they were. But people who were not involved in the 84 00:05:48,354 --> 00:05:52,107 building did not have this sense of appreciation. 85 00:05:52,108 --> 00:05:55,369 In the next version of the experiment, we contrasted two things. 86 00:05:55,370 --> 00:05:59,740 Some people got the easy instructions. The same as they got before. 87 00:05:59,740 --> 00:06:03,420 And for some people we basically eliminated the legends. 88 00:06:03,420 --> 00:06:07,080 We made it hard for them to understand what are all the little rules on the 89 00:06:07,080 --> 00:06:10,330 Origami instruction sheet, look like. What is the little arrow? 90 00:06:10,330 --> 00:06:14,761 What is the dotted lines, and so on. Now it was harder for them to understand 91 00:06:14,761 --> 00:06:18,649 how to build origami. And because of that, the origami they 92 00:06:18,649 --> 00:06:20,866 built was even uglier. Right? 93 00:06:20,866 --> 00:06:25,356 So what would happen? Again, the builder, who build easy origami 94 00:06:25,356 --> 00:06:29,877 loved it more than the people who are not involved in the building. 95 00:06:29,878 --> 00:06:32,890 And what about the people who build the difficult origami? 96 00:06:32,891 --> 00:06:37,596 They loved it even more. Although objectively it was worse, and the 97 00:06:37,596 --> 00:06:43,104 people who are evaluating it thought it was worse, the people who built it thought 98 00:06:43,104 --> 00:06:48,050 it was much better. So it means that not only does effort 99 00:06:48,050 --> 00:06:52,663 increase love, more effort creates more love. 100 00:06:52,663 --> 00:06:56,886 Now there's one important issue, which is you created an origami, but at the end of 101 00:06:56,886 --> 00:07:00,686 the day, it looked like nothing, right. You basically made nothing, like, you 102 00:07:00,686 --> 00:07:04,131 know, you work for a long time and at the end of the day you couldn't really think 103 00:07:04,131 --> 00:07:06,590 of it as an origami. That did not create more love. 104 00:07:06,590 --> 00:07:12,446 But to the extent that you build something, more effort does create more, 105 00:07:12,446 --> 00:07:17,280 more love. I think the same thing happens with kids, 106 00:07:17,280 --> 00:07:19,281 right? Imagine the following. 107 00:07:19,282 --> 00:07:24,396 Imagine that you go to a, a park. And you come with your kids and I say, oh 108 00:07:24,396 --> 00:07:28,200 you know, these are, these are great kids. Would you sell them to me? 109 00:07:29,270 --> 00:07:31,724 And don't worry. They'll have a good life and I'll buy the 110 00:07:31,724 --> 00:07:35,784 kids and I'll, let's say, erase all your memories from your experience and thoughts 111 00:07:35,784 --> 00:07:38,800 and wishes about these kids. And you will be the same as you are now 112 00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:40,760 just with no memory of the kids and more money. 113 00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:43,030 How much money would I need to pay you for that? 114 00:07:43,030 --> 00:07:45,490 And most people say, oh that would be a lot of money. 115 00:07:45,490 --> 00:07:49,054 I love my kids so much. To compensate me for me, you would need to 116 00:07:49,054 --> 00:07:53,927 pay me lots and lots and lots of money. Now, think about the second case. 117 00:07:53,928 --> 00:07:58,117 Imagine you have no kids and you come to a park and you meet two kids. 118 00:07:58,118 --> 00:08:02,914 These kids by the way are my particular kids, the ones you see on the screen. 119 00:08:02,914 --> 00:08:06,702 And you come to play in the park with the kids and you play with them for a few 120 00:08:06,702 --> 00:08:11,703 hours and you learn everything about them. And as you're ready to go the parent of 121 00:08:11,703 --> 00:08:16,667 these kids say hey, by the way before you say goodbye if you're interested they are 122 00:08:16,667 --> 00:08:19,725 for sale. Are you interested, and how much would you 123 00:08:19,725 --> 00:08:21,560 pay? And they're exactly like your kids. 124 00:08:21,560 --> 00:08:24,689 Under those conditions, most people seem not that interested. 125 00:08:25,850 --> 00:08:30,790 Not that interested because we recognize actually that our love to our kids is 126 00:08:30,790 --> 00:08:33,538 partly due to them but it's partly due to us. 127 00:08:33,538 --> 00:08:37,907 It's partly due to the effort we invest in them. 128 00:08:37,908 --> 00:08:42,720 And if you think about kids this way, kids are actually the ultimate IKEA effect. 129 00:08:42,720 --> 00:08:46,840 They don't come with instructions. The instructions are actually very hard. 130 00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:49,742 The amount of effort we invest in them is dramatic. 131 00:08:49,742 --> 00:08:53,750 It's tremendous, more than, probably, anything else that we do in our lives. 132 00:08:53,750 --> 00:08:58,077 And as a consequence, our evaluation of them changes very, very dramatically. 133 00:08:58,077 --> 00:09:01,690 And not only that. But we can't see that other people don't 134 00:09:01,690 --> 00:09:05,120 see our kids in the same way that we do. When I go to the park and my kids are 135 00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:09,410 playing, I can't imagine that everybody else is not interested in just sitting 136 00:09:09,410 --> 00:09:12,236 there watching my kids. I mean, I can't imagine that they'd watch 137 00:09:12,236 --> 00:09:14,836 their own kids. I mean, why would they, when my kids are 138 00:09:14,836 --> 00:09:19,902 so wonderful and exciting and so on. So basically we have both of these, love 139 00:09:19,902 --> 00:09:24,247 is increased with effort. But it also blinds us to the perspective 140 00:09:24,247 --> 00:09:27,725 of other people. And we don't see it as well. 141 00:09:27,726 --> 00:09:32,317 By the way, you can think about lots of implications for that. 142 00:09:32,318 --> 00:09:36,487 Think about lots of places that allow you to have tailor-made shoes. 143 00:09:36,487 --> 00:09:39,737 And allow people to design their T-shirts and so on. 144 00:09:39,738 --> 00:09:44,060 Usually when we think about people designing their own stuff. 145 00:09:44,060 --> 00:09:47,880 We think about it as being something that is good for individual fit. 146 00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:52,292 I like red, somebody likes blue. I like red, and you know whatever yellow, 147 00:09:52,292 --> 00:09:54,910 somebody else likes red and something else. 148 00:09:54,910 --> 00:09:59,602 And usually, the idea of allowing people to tailor something is to say people have 149 00:09:59,602 --> 00:10:04,166 very different levels of preference. Let's allow people to pick whatever they 150 00:10:04,166 --> 00:10:08,440 want and this way their preferences will be satisfied to a higher degree. 151 00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:13,360 But these results about the IKEA effect suggest that it's not just about 152 00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:17,627 individual preferences, it's also about investing effort. 153 00:10:17,628 --> 00:10:21,928 And this is actually important because if you are creating something that allow 154 00:10:21,928 --> 00:10:24,823 people to design it. If you don't think that effort is 155 00:10:24,823 --> 00:10:29,377 important, then you want to read people's minds if you could and just offer them the 156 00:10:29,377 --> 00:10:33,840 thing that would be their best fit. Or maybe you want to make it as easy as 157 00:10:33,840 --> 00:10:37,497 possible for them to get something that fits their preferences. 158 00:10:37,498 --> 00:10:41,720 But if you believe in a, in labor leading to love. 159 00:10:41,720 --> 00:10:45,750 If you believe that people need to put their own self into something and work on 160 00:10:45,750 --> 00:10:50,389 it, you know to like something more, maybe that product needs to play hard to get. 161 00:10:50,390 --> 00:10:53,550 Maybe the product needs to require some effort. 162 00:10:53,550 --> 00:10:57,510 Maybe the more effort that would be created is actually quite important 163 00:10:57,510 --> 00:11:02,064 because all of a sudden, it would lead to higher level of love and higher commitment 164 00:11:02,064 --> 00:11:06,353 to the product. Now, of course, when we create something 165 00:11:06,354 --> 00:11:11,826 we have to balance multiple things. On one hand more effort could lead to more 166 00:11:11,826 --> 00:11:16,829 love, on the other hand more effort could lead to people abandoning this choice. 167 00:11:16,829 --> 00:11:18,890 And the real question is what is the sweet spot? 168 00:11:18,890 --> 00:11:23,180 What is the amount of effort that would get people to love what they're doing to a 169 00:11:23,180 --> 00:11:27,140 higher degree without turning them off? And I'm not sure there is an ultimate 170 00:11:27,140 --> 00:11:30,001 solution for that because it depends on how much you love. 171 00:11:30,001 --> 00:11:35,090 The particular domain. How much part of your personality it is. 172 00:11:35,090 --> 00:11:37,624 How important it is for you. So there are probably all kinds of things 173 00:11:37,624 --> 00:11:39,732 in the mix. But it's important to think about both of 174 00:11:39,732 --> 00:11:42,190 those things. How do we get people to invest. 175 00:11:42,190 --> 00:11:46,044 To care about it. But not to require them to invest too 176 00:11:46,044 --> 00:11:49,223 much, that they will decide to just give up.