FWIW, here's some AI slop for you. >8^D
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evidence across social psychology and adjacent behavioral research shows a reliable
tendency to value **self-made products, ideas, and performances** more positively than
equivalent others’ outputs, though the effect is not universal and depends on context
(Norton et al., 2012; Pelled et al., 2025; Zheng & Miller, 2019; John & Robins,
1994). The strongest direct evidence comes from the **IKEA effect** literature, while
self-enhancement and ownership-bias studies show related but more qualified forms of the
same pattern (Norton et al., 2012; Pelled et al., 2025; Krueger et al., 2017; Zheng &
Miller, 2018).
Preference for One’s Own Work
Evidence Strength
Claim
Evidence strength: Strong (9/10)
People **pay more for self-made objects**than for identical objects made by
others, and a meta-analysis across 55 studies found a **moderate overall
effect**of self-assembly on valuation, //d//= 0.57 (Norton et al., 2012; Pelled
et al., 2025).
Evidence strength: Strong (8/10)
People often treat their **amateur creations**as comparable in value to
experts’ work and expect others to agree, showing overvaluation rather than
simple preference matching (Norton et al., 2012; Norton et al., 2011).
Evidence strength: Moderate (6/10)
Similar self-favoring bias appears in **idea selection and self-evaluation**, but it is
more conditional: design professionals favored their own low-value ideas, and people rate
their own performance somewhat more positively than peers or staff do (Zheng & Miller,
2019; Zheng & Miller, 2018; John & Robins, 1994).
**Figure 1:** Strength of evidence for preferring one’s own work
Experimental Findings
The classic experiments show that labor itself can raise valuation even when
there is **no customization** and the product is mundane and utilitarian, such
as assembled storage boxes (Norton et al., 2012). The same pattern extends to
hedonic creations like origami and Legos, and people can value their own poorly
made outputs as highly as expert-made ones (Norton et al., 2012; Marsh et al.,
2017).
This bias is not limited to adults or to one culture. It appears by about **age
5** (Marsh et al., 2017), and British and Indian children both valued their own
created toys over identical copies, whether they built alone or collaboratively
(Marsh et al., 2022).
Mechanisms and Limits
*
**Successful completion matters**; when people fail to finish or must
destroy what they built, the IKEA effect drops out (Norton et al., 2012; Norton
et al., 2011).
*
Feelings of **competence and pride** appear to mediate higher valuation of
self-made products (Mochon et al., 2012).
*
**Ownership alone** can be sufficient for some self-biases, as people
prioritized a newly owned voice even without producing it themselves (Payne et
al., 2024).
*
Evidence is **mixed on mechanisms**; developmental work found ownership
alone did not explain children’s valuation of their own creations, and effort
amount did not moderate the effect in 5- to 6-year-olds (Marsh et al., 2017).
Related Self-Enhancement Evidence
In performance judgments, people are on average **slightly more positive about
themselves** than peers or assessors are, and they are less accurate judging themselves
than judging peers (John & Robins, 1994). People also show self-enhancing
attributions after success more reliably than self-protective attributions after
failure, so the broader bias is real but not as general or symmetrical as folk wisdom
suggests (Miller & Ross, 1975).
There is also evidence in creative domains: participants ranked **self-made artworks**
as more self-relevant, more owned, and more liked than other-made paintings, although
one study found questionnaire preference without a matching visual-attention effect for
copied works (Straffon et al., 2022). In professional design, ownership bias was
strongest for **worse ideas**, suggesting that preferring one’s own work can impair
selection quality rather than track objective merit (Zheng & Miller, 2019; Zheng
& Miller, 2018).
Across these literatures, the evidence supports the proverb-like claim that
people often **praise their own pot**: they reliably overvalue their own
creations, and they sometimes overrate their own ideas or performance relative
to others. The clearest and strongest evidence is for **self-made objects**,
while evidence for broader self-favoring judgment is real but more conditional
and mechanism-dependent.
//These search results were found and analyzed using Consensus, an AI-powered
search engine for research. Try it at https://consensus.app. © 2026 Consensus
NLP, Inc. Personal, non-commercial use only; redistribution requires copyright
holders’ consent.//
References
John, O., & Robins, R. (1994). Accuracy and bias in self-perception: individual
differences in self-enhancement and the role of narcissism.. //Journal of
personality and social psychology, 66 1//, 206-19.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.66.1.206
Krueger, J., Heck, P., & Asendorpf, J. (2017). Self-enhancement:
Conceptualization and Assessment. 28. https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.91
Marsh, L., Kanngiesser, P., & Hood, B. (2017). When and how does labour lead to
love? The ontogeny and mechanisms of the IKEA effect.. //Cognition, 170//, 245-253.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.10.012
Marsh, L., Gil, J., & Kanngiesser, P. (2022). The Influence of Collaboration
and Culture on the IKEA Effect: Does Cocreation Alter Perceptions of Value in
British and Indian Children?. //Developmental Psychology, 58//, 662 - 670.
https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001321
Miller, D. T., & Ross, M. (1975). Self-serving biases in the attribution of
causality: Fact or fiction?. //Psychological Bulletin, 82//, 213-225.
https://doi.org/10.1037/h0076486
Mochon, D., Norton, M., & Ariely, D. (2012). Bolstering and restoring feelings
of competence via the IKEA effect. //International Journal of Research in
Marketing, 29//, 363-369. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2012.05.001
Norton, M. I., Mochon, D., & Ariely, D. (2012). The 'IKEA Effect': When Labor
Leads to Love. //Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22//, 453-460.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2011.08.002
Norton, M., Mochon, D., & Ariely, D. (2011). Author ' s personal copy Research
Report The IKEA effect : When labor leads to love.
Payne, B., Addlesee, A., Rieser, V., & McGettigan, C. (2024). Self-ownership,
not self-production, modulates bias and agency over a synthesised voice..
//Cognition, 248//, 105804. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105804
Pelled, A., Demetriades, S. Z., & Walter, N. (2025). Labor Leads to Love, Right? A
Meta‐Analysis of the IKEA Effect. //Psychology & Marketing, 43//, 388 - 400.
https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.70064
Straffon, L., Agnew, G., Desch-Bailey, C., Van Berlo, E., Goclowska, G., &
Kret, M. (2022). Visual attention bias for self-made artworks.. //Psychology of
Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts//. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000451
Zheng, X., & Miller, S. R. (2019). Is Ownership Bias Bad? The Influence of Idea
Goodness and Creativity on Design Professionals Concept Selection Practices.
//Journal of Mechanical Design//. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4042081
Zheng, X., & Miller, S. R. (2018). Uncovering Ownership Bias: The Influence of
Idea Goodness and Creativity on Design Professionals’ Concept Selection Practices.
//Volume 7: 30th International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology//.
https://doi.org/10.1115/detc2018-85964
On 8/18/26 11:11 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
A shoe from your direction. Ouch.
FRIAM's Second Law in action: If a theory is suspiciously elegant, somebody on
the
list will throw a shoe at it.
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Frank Wimberly <[email protected]>
Date: 8/19/26 12:09 AM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] New philosophy book
I do not prefer my paintings to Van Gogh's. You must mean something else.
--
8647 ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ
ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω.
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ...
--- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
