Which is more valuable, a complete, ready-to-use product, or an incomplete one that requires assembly on arrival? The answer might surprise you. Wikipedia's article on the Ikea Effect is a stub, but NPR did a nice report on it here:
The Ikea Effect
As it turns out, most people are bad at predicting what really makes them happy. Acquiring stuff is necessary to some degree to get by, but feeling useful and competent is a harder itch to scratch than the ones for food, water, and shelter. I've never felt more useless and incompetent than I did after completing a year in a highly theoretical master's program in aerospace engineering. I've now moved on to my current job and a new apartment, and put together my first Ikea lamp last night. Some of the stupid flimsy plastic anchoring tabs snapped when I tried to follow the unintentionally-hilarious wordless guides, but I made a lamp, dammit. I can't be completely useless, right?
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