Why we experience the zero-sum bias
- Mistaken belief in limited resources: assumeing that a certain resource is more limited than is actually the case.
- Mistaken belief in trade-off consistency: assuming that there must be a tradeoff between the various advantages and disadvantages of each option, so that the options must be balanced overall.
- Common correlations: certain types of tradeoffs or problems tend to be frequently correlated with each other, which can cause people to assume that they exist even in situations where they don’t.
- Previous experience: people mistakenly assume that a certain situation is zero-sum because they were exposed to similar situations in the past that were in fact zero-sum.
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How to make rational decisions
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The zero-sum bias
A cognitive bias that causes people to mistakenly believe that one party’s gains are directly balanced by other parties’ losses.
This bias encourages belief in an antagonistic nature of social relationships
For example, the zero-sum bias can cause people to think tha...
Zero-sum bias effects
It can generally be said to affect people on two scales:
- Individual scale. It causes people to mistakenly assume that there is intra-group competition for a certain resource, between them and other members.
- Group scale. It causes people to mistakenly assume that t...
How to avoid the zero-sum bias
To reduce the degree to which you experience the zero-sum bias, you need to identify cases where you assume that a certain situation is zero-sum, and then assess the situation rationally in order to identify whether it is actually zero-sum, which you can do, for example, by asking yours...
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