<p>This sounds to me very much (but not exactly) like a phenomenon Dan Ariely has done some research on, which he terms 'the IKEA effect'.
Of course, he will describe it better than me, specifically in <a href="http://people.duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/Upside/IkeaEffect1.pdf" rel="nofollow">Norton and Ariely (2012)</a>, <a href="http://people.duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/Upside/meaning.pdf" rel="nofollow">Ariely et al (2008)</a>, and <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_what_makes_us_feel_good_about_our_work" rel="nofollow">this TED talk</a>.</p>

<p>Basically, what he's found is that people value things (furniture, lego models, plans) more when they themselves have contributed their own labour in creating them.</p>

<p>In Ariely et al (2008), they found that:</p>

<ul>
<li>People are more willing to do dull, monotonous paperwork for less money if their name goes on the top of the sheet, and less willing if the paper was shredded after they had finished.</li>
<li>The same effect is found if you pay people to put together Lego models: people do more for less money if you don't take apart the models afterwards.</li>
</ul>

<p>Norton and Ariely (2012) took a different approach, but showed largely the same thing:</p>

<ul>
<li>People believe that the IKEA furniture which they themselves assembled was worth more than anyone else's furniture (measured by how much they would pay to keep it)</li>
<li>The same effect was found for origami animals.</li>
<li>..and for Lego models, but not if you take the model apart after you build it (because it's no longer the thing which <strong>you</strong> created).</li>
<li>...and not getting to finish assembling the furniture reduces this bias.</li>
</ul>

<p>Hopefully, the link between this research and your question should be clear: by making changes to a solution, that solution becomes in some way 'ours', and because of that, we overestimate it's intrinsic value.</p>

<hr>

<h1>References</h1>

<p>Michael I. Norton, Dan Ariely, and Daniel Mochon (2012), “The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love.” Journal of Consumer Psychology. Vol. 22: 453-460.</p>

<p>Dan Ariely, Emir Kamenica and Drazen Prelec (2008), “Man’s Search for Meaning: The Case of Legos.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. Vol. 67: 671-677. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-18T10:58:14.987Z
2014-03-18T10:58:14.987Z
Eoin
<p>This is often a common phenomenon, but the context that you cited in your question might hold the key to one possible explanation. When you are presenting your design to someone who is "supposed" to evaluate your design, finding flaws enforces the self-efficacy of the evaluator and signals to him that he's doing his job well. So, the boost to self-efficacy/self-esteem might be a strong motivation for the evaluator to disproportionately criticize small issues with your design.</p>

<p>In addition, there is an even more fundamental human psychology that plays a role here -- the egocentricity/false consensus bias i.e. the idea that everyone else shares the same opinion about an idea as we do. The evaluator of the design might have an expectation of what the "correct" submission looks like, and any deviation from this expectation will be immediately noticed (and frowned upon). I've worked in a software development firm for a while and I see this happening all the time in teams that span product developers, product testers and product managers. </p>

<p>(Ref: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False-consensus_effect" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False-consensus_effect</a>)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-18T04:23:17.193Z
2014-03-18T04:23:17.193Z
Prasanta
<p>It is easy.</p>

<ol>
<li>Something bad happened, spreads fast, and is related with psychological satisfaction.</li>
<li>Something good will be forgotten fast because you are satisfied you are done with it. </li>
</ol>

<p>In your example, the solution does not satisfy audience. They wanna make changes. After changes they will forget about the solution, because the solution satisfied them. 
This is similar to bad customer service: see <a href="http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/interactive/bad-customer-service-interactions-more-likely-to-be-shared-than-good-ones-28628/" rel="nofollow">Bad Customer Service Interactions More Likely to be Shared Than Good Ones</a>.</p>

<p>Perspective matters! 
You can go from point A to B by car, train, motorbike, bus, ship, plane, helicopter etc.
Going with a car is your solution, but going with a train is somebody else's solution.
It is all about satisfaction, psychology and perspective! 
Regards.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-19T01:01:29.393Z
Welcome to CogSci! This does not seem to answer the question, and is rather an unrelated piece of information. That aside, we also generally expect references in answers to make them stronger, e.g. take a look at [Eoin's answer](http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/6016/21).
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-19T07:32:07.803Z
you welcome to COGSCI , your comment is showing that , you felt the need to make changes to my solution presented by me. Because you are not satisfied with my answer !
mussdroid
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-19T11:58:45.080Z
Criticism is part of Stack Exchange's Q&A system. It's a way to indicate why one answer is more suitable than the other, and gives you a chance to motivate/update your answer according to that critique. It's nothing personal, that's why I welcomed you, ... you are very welcome to CogSci. ;p
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-19T12:21:00.327Z
Hello Steven , Thanks For Feedback ! Why do people feel the need to make changes to a solution presented by another person ?  The answer is Criticism ! There must be critcism on every system !
mussdroid
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-18T22:38:15.717Z
2014-03-19T05:12:29.390Z
2014-03-19T05:12:29.390Z
mussdroid
<p>There is an interesting phenomenon I have come across several times when working with groups, and that is the need some people have to make changes to a solution that someone else created. </p>

<p>The change is often superficial or doesn't substantively change the solution, however the person making the suggestion is often adamant that the change is vital.</p>

<p>In <a href="https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/35830/avoiding-designing-by-committee">a question</a> on the User Experience SE, some comments were made about how to plan for and mitigate this:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>People are natural complainers. So next time you present a design make sure there are 1 or more subtle defects you're sure they notice. They'll complain about those, you say ok and fix them. if you present a perfect design, they'll still find stuff regardless.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>That reminds me of the Battle Chess duck - It was well known that producers had to make a change to everything that was done. The artist working on the queen animations came up with an innovative solution. He did the animations for the queen the way that he felt would be best, with one addition: he gave the queen a pet duck. He took great care to make sure that it never overlapped the "actual" animation. Eventually, it came time for the producer to review the animation set for the queen. His comments, "that looks great. Just one thing - get rid of the duck."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Is this a known phenomena in Cognitive Sciences?  </p>

<p>It seems to indicate a need/desire on the part of the person making the suggestion to exert some control over an external process but I wonder if it is more elemental/basic than that?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-11T22:39:46.697Z
I think that people wants to conquer visibility (to get self esteem). The *real* question is why people thinks that they can conquer self esteem by taking a competitive advantage over the other person and why they try to achieve this by criticizing the other ideas..
Revious
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-12T21:07:00.643Z
The gist of the question is what if any research has been done that explores why external ideas can be difficult to accept without providing input, however superficial. This is not a question for your opinion, I'm specifically looking for research that will give insight into how this process works.
Charles Wesley
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-15T17:39:38.453Z
I'll do some research. There must be a scientific basis. I purposely put errors in my journal articles when I submit them, so that the reviewers have errors to glom onto. Gaming the system is never a bad way to get by!
theMayer
<social-psychology><decision-making>
Why do people feel the need to make changes to a solution presented by another person?
Charles Wesley
# Why do people feel the need to make changes to a solution presented by another person?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-03-06)

There is an interesting phenomenon I have come across several times when working with groups, and that is the need some people have to make changes to a solution that someone else created.

The change is often superficial or doesn't substantively change the solution, however the person making the suggestion is often adamant that the change is vital.

In [a question](https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/35830/avoiding-designing-by-committee) on the User Experience SE, some comments were made about how to plan for and mitigate this:

> People are natural complainers. So next time you present a design make sure there are 1 or more subtle defects you're sure they notice. They'll complain about those, you say ok and fix them. if you present a perfect design, they'll still find stuff regardless.

And:

> That reminds me of the Battle Chess duck - It was well known that producers had to make a change to everything that was done. The artist working on the queen animations came up with an innovative solution. He did the animations for the queen the way that he felt would be best, with one addition: he gave the queen a pet duck. He took great care to make sure that it never overlapped the "actual" animation. Eventually, it came time for the producer to review the animation set for the queen. His comments, "that looks great. Just one thing - get rid of the duck."

Is this a known phenomena in Cognitive Sciences?

It seems to indicate a need/desire on the part of the person making the suggestion to exert some control over an external process but I wonder if it is more elemental/basic than that?

**Tags:** social-psychology, decision-making

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I think that people wants to conquer visibility (to get self esteem). The *real* question is why people thinks that they can conquer self esteem by taking a competitive advantage over the other person and why they try to achieve this by criticizing the other ideas..  
> **username_0**: The gist of the question is what if any research has been done that explores why external ideas can be difficult to accept without providing input, however superficial. This is not a question for your opinion, I'm specifically looking for research that will give insight into how this process works.  
> **username_2**: I'll do some research. There must be a scientific basis. I purposely put errors in my journal articles when I submit them, so that the reviewers have errors to glom onto. Gaming the system is never a bad way to get by!  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2014-03-18. Score: 3

This sounds to me very much (but not exactly) like a phenomenon Dan Ariely has done some research on, which he terms 'the IKEA effect'.
Of course, he will describe it better than me, specifically in [Norton and Ariely (2012)](http://people.duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/Upside/IkeaEffect1.pdf), [Ariely et al (2008)](http://people.duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/Upside/meaning.pdf), and [this TED talk](http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_what_makes_us_feel_good_about_our_work).

Basically, what he's found is that people value things (furniture, lego models, plans) more when they themselves have contributed their own labour in creating them.

In Ariely et al (2008), they found that:

* People are more willing to do dull, monotonous paperwork for less money if their name goes on the top of the sheet, and less willing if the paper was shredded after they had finished.
* The same effect is found if you pay people to put together Lego models: people do more for less money if you don't take apart the models afterwards.

Norton and Ariely (2012) took a different approach, but showed largely the same thing:

* People believe that the IKEA furniture which they themselves assembled was worth more than anyone else's furniture (measured by how much they would pay to keep it)
* The same effect was found for origami animals.
* ..and for Lego models, but not if you take the model apart after you build it (because it's no longer the thing which **you** created).
* ...and not getting to finish assembling the furniture reduces this bias.

Hopefully, the link between this research and your question should be clear: by making changes to a solution, that solution becomes in some way 'ours', and because of that, we overestimate it's intrinsic value.

---

# References

Michael I. Norton, Dan Ariely, and Daniel Mochon (2012), “The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love.” Journal of Consumer Psychology. Vol. 22: 453-460.

Dan Ariely, Emir Kamenica and Drazen Prelec (2008), “Man’s Search for Meaning: The Case of Legos.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. Vol. 67: 671-677.


---

### Answer by username_4 on 2014-03-18. Score: 2

This is often a common phenomenon, but the context that you cited in your question might hold the key to one possible explanation. When you are presenting your design to someone who is "supposed" to evaluate your design, finding flaws enforces the self-efficacy of the evaluator and signals to him that he's doing his job well. So, the boost to self-efficacy/self-esteem might be a strong motivation for the evaluator to disproportionately criticize small issues with your design.

In addition, there is an even more fundamental human psychology that plays a role here -- the egocentricity/false consensus bias i.e. the idea that everyone else shares the same opinion about an idea as we do. The evaluator of the design might have an expectation of what the "correct" submission looks like, and any deviation from this expectation will be immediately noticed (and frowned upon). I've worked in a software development firm for a while and I see this happening all the time in teams that span product developers, product testers and product managers.

(Ref: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False-consensus_effect>)


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2014-03-18. Score: -2

It is easy.

1. Something bad happened, spreads fast, and is related with psychological satisfaction.
2. Something good will be forgotten fast because you are satisfied you are done with it.

In your example, the solution does not satisfy audience. They wanna make changes. After changes they will forget about the solution, because the solution satisfied them.
This is similar to bad customer service: see [Bad Customer Service Interactions More Likely to be Shared Than Good Ones](http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/interactive/bad-customer-service-interactions-more-likely-to-be-shared-than-good-ones-28628/).

Perspective matters!
You can go from point A to B by car, train, motorbike, bus, ship, plane, helicopter etc.
Going with a car is your solution, but going with a train is somebody else's solution.
It is all about satisfaction, psychology and perspective!
Regards.

> **Comments:**
> **username_6**: Welcome to CogSci! This does not seem to answer the question, and is rather an unrelated piece of information. That aside, we also generally expect references in answers to make them stronger, e.g. take a look at [username_3's answer](http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/6016/21).  
> **username_5**: you welcome to COGSCI , your comment is showing that , you felt the need to make changes to my solution presented by me. Because you are not satisfied with my answer !  
> **username_6**: Criticism is part of Stack Exchange's Q&A system. It's a way to indicate why one answer is more suitable than the other, and gives you a chance to motivate/update your answer according to that critique. It's nothing personal, that's why I welcomed you, ... you are very welcome to CogSci. ;p  
> **username_5**: Hello Steven , Thanks For Feedback ! Why do people feel the need to make changes to a solution presented by another person ?  The answer is Criticism ! There must be critcism on every system !  

---

