“I Made It Work”: How Using a Self-Assembled Product Increases Task Performance

“I Made It Work”: How Using a Self-Assembled Product Increases Task Performance. Sören Köcher, Keith Wilcox. Journal of Consumer Psychology, June 14 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1262

Abstract: Although it is well established that consumers have an increased valuation for self-assembled products, less is known about how using such products influences objective consumption outcomes. Across three experiments, the current research demonstrates that consumers perform better on tasks when they use a product they have self-assembled—as opposed to an identical but ready-to-use product. We show that this effect results from an increase in self-efficacy and rule out possible alternative accounts (i.e., product efficacy beliefs, performance motivation, feelings of psychological ownership, and product liking). In addition, we demonstrate that the self-assembly effect emerges only when consumers actually use the self-assembled product, is robust when product assembly requires different amounts of time and effort, and is not merely the result of a question-behavior effect. Theoretical contributions and opportunities for future research are discussed.

General Discussion

Across three experiments, we demonstrate that using a self-assembled product to execute a task improves performance on the task; an effect that results from an increase in self-efficacy. These findings contribute to prior literature on the consequences of consumers’ involvement in product creation processes (e.g., Fuchs et al., 2015; Norton et al., 2012; Walasek et al., 2017) by broadening our understanding of how product assembly influences consumption outcomes. Although our findings are consistent with research on self-customization, we find that the product assembly effect is the result of an increase in self-efficacy, rather than the desire to affirm identity as suggested by prior research on self-customization (Kaiser et al., 2017). To provide further support that the effect of product assembly operates through a different process, we conducted a follow-up experiment where we examined how using a self-assembled (vs. self-customized) product influences task performance when people can and cannot affirm identity. Consistent with the findings of Kaiser et al. (2017), the results show that consumers perform best when they use a self-customized product and can affirm (vs. not affirm) their identity. In contrast, when consumers use a self-assembled product, their performance is not affected by whether they can affirm identity (see Web Appendix F for study details). Moreover, the results show that assembling a product has a negligible effect on how self-expressive the product is (M = 1.32 on a seven-point scale). These findings suggest that self-expression and the desire to affirm identity, which are important drivers of the self-customization effect, do not appear to play a role in the self-assembly effect.

Our findings offer several directions for future research. The current work demonstrates that making a product functional by assembling it enhances consumers’ sense of self-efficacy and performance. Yet, future research is necessary to fully understand why this effect is conditioned on the actual use of the product. Although we suggest that this is because the self-assembled product is a symbol of competence, it is also possible that this finding is the result of magical thinking on the part of the consumer that only allows self-efficacy to spillover when the assembled product is used. Moreover, it remains unclear whether other actions taken to make a product usable beyond assembly could evoke a similar effect. For instance, would simply mixing the ingredients of a protein shake lead people to have a better workout? In a similar vein, prior research on ritualistic behavior (Brooks et al., 2016; Wang, Sun, & Kramer, 2021) shows that engaging in rituals prior to a task can improve task performance, which research has suggested (Hobson, Schroeder, Risen, Xygalatas, & Inzlicht, 2018), but not empirically demonstrated, could be due to an increase in self-efficacy. Through this lens, product assembly could be viewed as a form of ritualistic behavior that increases self-efficacy. Nevertheless, future research is necessary to fully examine the relationship between rituals and product assembly.

Moreover, our findings suggest that self-efficacy may not be the only mediator of the observed effect. Thus, further research could explore additional factors that may play a role in the process. For instance, it is possible that consumers feel more responsible for performance outcomes when they use a self-assembled product, which could improve their task performance.

In addition, it is worth investigating whether the strength of the effect is dependent on consumers’ a priori self-efficacy in the domain. For instance, the effect of using a self-assembled pen on consumers’ anagram task performance may be less pronounced among consumers who are generally confident in their ability to solve anagrams. In a similar vein, since some consumers may not be confident in their ability to assemble products, using a successfully assembled product could evoke stronger feelings of self-efficacy in such consumers. In addition, the time and effort required to assemble the products used in our experiments was relatively low. Thus, future research could explore conditions wherein product assembly becomes too effortful and demanding such that the favorable consequences may vanish.

Finally, throughout the studies reported in this article, we only examined first use situations, an approach that is widely used in the related literature. However, because self-assembled products are often used more than once in real life, future studies may want to examine whether the detected effects persist when products are used over an extended period. This could be particularly interesting for products that need to be assembled each time before they are used (e.g., professional pool cues). If product assembly becomes a ritual established through repetition each time the product is used, the effect on self-efficacy could be reinforced and intensified over time (Hobson et al., 2018). However, it could also be argued that consumers may habituate to the assembly process, which may limit its impact over the long term.