Moissanite Rings and the Endowment Effect

In the book Cognition & Strategy by Thomas W. Valente and Gary G. Gersick, the authors discuss the endowment effect, which is a cognitive bias that causes people to place a higher value on things that they own than on things that they do not own.
The authors use the example of moissanite rings to illustrate the endowment effect. Moissanite is a gemstone that is often referred to as a “synthetic diamond” because it has a very similar chemical composition and physical properties to diamond. However, moissanite is actually a naturally occurring mineral that was first discovered in 1893 in a meteorite that crashed in Siberia.
Moissanite rings are less expensive than diamond, and it is available in a wider range of colors. Moissanite is also just as durable as diamond, but it is slightly less scratch-resistant.
The authors argue that people who own moissanite rings are more likely to …
