The Ikea Effect ( NPR’s morning addition of Hidden Brain) Reupholstering your furniture, being involved in the whole process , selecting the fabric, finding a qualified craftsman, watching the process evolve into an entirely new chair! Wow, that has to feel like you accomplished something! Maybe this too is the Ikea Effect (only better!) The name for this psychological phenomenon derives from the love millions of Americans display toward their self-assembled furniture from the do-it-yourself store with the Scandinavian name. "Imagine that, you know, you built a table," said Daniel Mochon, a Tulane University marketing professor, who has studied the phenomenon. "Maybe it came out a little bit crooked. But to you that table might seem really great, because you're the one who created it. It's the fruit of your labor. And that is really the idea behind the Ikea Effect." Most of us intuitively believe that the things we labor at are the things we love. Mochon and his colleagues, Michael Norton at the Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely at Duke University, have turned that concept on its head. What if, they asked, it isn't love that leads to labor, but labor that leads to love?