ENDOWMENT EFFECT

Psychologists apply the term endowment effect to the value that a person puts on something when they own it. For most items that we own, because we own them, we endow them with a greater value. There is an emotional cost to selling something that we own. So for example, psychological studies have confirmed that for two identical apples, we have a human propensity to put a higher value on the apple that we own, versus the apple that we do not own.

Do designers experience the endowment effect?  That is to ask, deep down, do we engage in endowment cost evaluations when we present, or in essence, give up our designs? That is to ask, does the endowment effect work the same way for designers as it does for those either buying or selling an apple?

Psychologists make the distinction between something that you hold for use, and something that you hold for exchange. For example, World Series tickets are held for use, for enjoyment. While money is something that you hold for exchange. It is this distinction that explains why we don’t put greater value on a $5 bill simply because we own it.

If we limit our understanding of the value of our designs to these two categories, then our designs are something that we hold for exchange.  We create our design.  It becomes part of us.  And we hold this for the exchange of money as well as the satisfaction of getting something built.

I suggest that we need more than two categories of ownership.  Our designs are not as base as money. Yet they are not World Series tickets.

So I wonder if another psychological term needs to be created that helps to define the value of something that we create. This would be a definition that addresses and quantifies the emotional value of something that we synthesize.