Zero-sum thinking

Zero-sum thinking perceives situations as <a href="/facts/Zero-sum_game/ccouScgK">zero-sum games</a>, where one person's gain would be another's loss. The term is derived from <a href="/facts/Game_theory/zkEIj1ya">game theory</a>. However, unlike the game theory concept, zero-sum thinking refers to a psychological <a href="/facts/Construct_(philosophy)/pAPpvcRu">construct</a>—a person's subjective interpretation of a situation. Zero-sum thinking is captured by the saying "your gain is my loss" (or conversely, "your loss is my gain"). Rozycka-Tran et al. (2015) defined zero-sum thinking as:

<blockquote>A general belief system about the antagonistic nature of social relations, shared by people in a society or culture and based on the <a href="/facts/Implicit_assumption/rMjEC2GW">implicit assumption</a> that a finite amount of goods exists in the world, in which one person's winning makes others the losers, and vice versa ... a relatively permanent and general conviction that social relations are like a zero-sum game. People who share this conviction believe that success, especially economic success, is possible only at the expense of other people's failures.</blockquote>
Zero-sum bias is a <a href="/facts/Cognitive_bias/49YKVhmN">cognitive bias</a> towards zero-sum thinking; it is people's tendency to intuitively judge that a situation is zero-sum, even when this is not the case. This bias promotes zero-sum fallacies, false beliefs that situations are zero-sum. Such fallacies can cause other false judgements and poor decisions. In economics, "zero-sum fallacy" generally refers to the <a href="/facts/Fixed-pie_fallacy/gEtV7rrg">fixed-pie fallacy</a>.

Zero-sum thinking open-in-new

Zero-sum thinking