The Love of Labor or a Labor of Love

A playhouse my son built last summer for his grandchildren,

It was a true labor of love.

On this Valentine’s Day, I’m going to write about a different kind of love, the love of labor. Now I realize most people, who are still working, look forward to retirement. Probably most people grumble about jobs they need to do. However, research has shown people who are unemployed for much time become depressed and start to feel a loss of self-esteem. But there’s also another kind of love for labor called the “IKEA Effect,” a term coined by researchers, Michael N. Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely.

After studying others’ research for years, Norton, Mochon and Ariely started their own research into work as a labor of love. They created three different experiments dividing groups into builders and non-builders. In one the builders were given an IKEA box that needed some assembly with instructions. The non-builders were simply given an IKEA box already assembled and asked to inspect it. At the end, the participants were asked what they thought the identical boxes were worth. Those who were builders rated the boxes much more expensive than the non-builders.

Another experiment had builders making origami animals from a set of instructions. The non-builders and the builders were then to evaluate the origami made by the inexperienced builders along with some made by experts on a price range between $.01 to $1.00. The non-builders rated the inexperienced origami animals as worth $.01. The builders rated them as worth $.25 and all rated the origami animals made by experienced origami makers as worth $.26. Another example of the value a person places on something they have worked to create. The same held true with a third experiment they did using Legos.

The study reminded me of a unit I taught for years in third grade combining a social studies unit on Henry Ford and assembly lines with a science unit on simple machines. My students in groups of four or five became automobile manufacturers. Each group had to come up with a name for their company. Everyone designed a car and the group voted for the best. Their next step was to pick a supervisor. Then they worked on an assembly line to make cars to the design selected.  Each student would make different parts; bodies, wheels, motor, etc. The supervisor was in charge of making sure everyone stayed on task and kept the workers supplied with  materials  - toilet tissue rolls, tag board, construction paper, cereal boxes, clear laminate for windows, etc.

I had made green Henry Ford money in bills of $1.00, $5.00 and $10.00 with a picture of a Model T or Model A on it. As the CEO, I paid the workers at the end of each day’s work (about a half hour). The supervisor got paid the most, of course, as well as something to the student whose design was picked. If I saw a person working diligently at their job and not wandering off to check on another group’s cars, I paid them a bonus. Through the 3 or 4 days they worked on their cars, they also got paid for other things like a 100% on a spelling test, helping someone out when not asked, etc. At the end of the week each automobile company had their cars ready for an auction. I played the part of an auctioneer and auctioned off the cars with lots of funny patter. “Look at this pretty pink car. It’s missing a motor, but that’s no big deal.” Or “This is a darling little sports car even though its wheels keep falling off.”  The kids loved it. Those who had the most money bought the most cars. Some refused to buy until a particular car they’d helped build and favored came up for sale. Of course, I went through the whole patter as the cost of the cars went up and up until I shouted “Going, going, gone! Sold to . . . for . . . dollars.” Although, the IKEA effect research was years later, this was a perfect example. Those kids treasured the cars they helped make even though most were pathetic examples, and they were willing to spend as many Henry Ford dollars as they had to get one in particular that they favored.

 Several days after I wrote this blog, I came across a thank you card for a graduation gift I’d given one of my students when he’d graduated from high school. In it he wrote about his experiences in third grade that made it memorable. The last thing he mentioned was “and even trying our hand at entrepreneurial learning with building cars and selling them.” For me teaching was indeed a labor of love often rewarded in small ways like this thank you card. 

This research makes me wonder about my  labors of love. Obviously writing is a labor of love, but does it allow us to look at our work objectively?   

I could certainly buy vegetables as cheaply as growing them and with a whole lot less labor than those I grow myself. Chicken feed costs more than the few eggs I gather, and since I don't eat many eggs, most of them I give away. The ponies I rationalize keeping for the compost they create. But they are expensive to maintain, and is  the labor involved caring for them worth it? 

What about my other critters - my collie, Maggie, the two barn cats and the two house cats? Then there's the mowing of a rather large yard without a riding lawn mower. I wonder if it would be better to hire someone to mow for me. Are the gardens, animals and mowing all a labor of love or only of maintaining my own self- image of who I am?

What do you consider a true labor or love? Do you feel that way about most of your labors?

For those of you interested in the “IKEA Effect” research simply Google those words. It pops right up.