"We place higher value on things we partially created ourselves."
Is this an actual cognitive bias or is it an bloodless interpretation of human response to the modern world?
We used to make a lot of things ourselves. In tribal days almost everything we had was made either by ourselves or someone we knew. Later, peasants built and maintained their farms & lords oversaw the execution of plans they themselves devised. Even after the industrial revolution most people painted, repaired, and upgraded the objects around them.
It is part of our nature.
The modern world has little of this. Cars come from the dealership, food comes from the store, stuff that breaks go in the trash, and the things we do at work are usually fragments of a corporate design that has nothing to do with our lives.
When we do get to build something it just feels right. It validates something inside of us and we value the object accordingly.
We place a higher value on things we partially create because they DO have a higher value -- to us. The value of something is not determined by its going rate on the market. That's just the price.
Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
As described in the False Consensus article, The "error" arises when rational human behavior is examined from the planet Vulcan instead of the perspective of the people actually involved.
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