Hi,welcome to my blog on how we prefer our own ideas.
Let’s talk today about how hard we will work for a great idea, especially if we can take ownership of that idea. If we adopt an idea, we brand it as our own, and then we like it not vice versa. The basic idea is… if we didn’t invent it, then it’s not worth much.
Researchers Stephen Spiller, Rachel Barkan and Dan Ariely ran an
experiment to test this invented-here-bias. A few thousand people
followed a link to participate in idea generation. They were asked to generate ideas on one of three options.
A) Reduce the amount of water a community uses without tough
legislation.
B) promote “gross national happiness”
C) innovate a better alarm clock 

Part 1                                                                                            Condition 1. People came up with their own ideas and said how much time and money they put into generating them and how practical and likely they would be to succeed.

Condition 2. People evaluated the researchers’ ideas to the three ideas and said how much time and energy each person would be willing to invest, how practical and likely to succeed each person thought the researchers’ ideas were.
Results showed that people rated their own ideas as more practical, more likely to succeed and they would be more likely to invest more of their time and money into their own ideas.
Idiosyncratic fit is the idea that each person prefers his or her own idea because it fits with his or her own world view and core beliefs. Once we have created an idea we feel ownership and we overvalue the usefulness and importance ”our” ideas.

 
Part 2
Then the researchers changed the design to within participant design. Each person would go through condition 1& 2. The researchers used priming by giving the people 50 words to use when coming up with solutions.
                                                                                                                        Part3                                                                                                        Then the researchers just jumbled up the words in the sentence and asked people to come up with ideas. This worked as well. Even though people had been fed the ideas like a cake mix is put together for a cook, the same effect happened. People adopted these jumbled together ideas just as easily as their own ideas in Part 1.

Even though people came up with the same solutions that the researchers did in Part 1, the people said their own ideas were more practical and more likely to be successful.
The toothbrush theory holds that everyone wants a toothbrush, has a their own toothbrush, but no one wants someone else’s. We tend to overrate and overvalue our own ideas and creations. This bias is useful in keeping us motivated and committed to pursuing our own work but it could also blind us from better solutions and ideas.
Adopting new ideas regardless of where those ideas originate is
important for corporate innovation.
This investment idea is behind having your children help you plant and garden, cook in the kitchen. Once they make it, they’ll be more invested
in eating it. Children like their own cooking!
Now, think about one thing you’ve always wanted to do a little
differently at work. Name it. Talk about that idea so that others will feel some ownership for it too. Share that ownership with others and you’re
on the way to developing a new idea at work. Be refreshed and notice how much better your mind is able to take on the rest of your day.