Zero-Sum Bias: Perceived Competition Despite Unlimited Resources

Zero-sum bias describes intuitively judging a situation to be zero-sum (i.e., resources gained by one party are matched by corresponding losses to another party) when it is actually non-zero-sum. The experimental participants were students at a university where students’ grades are determined by how the quality of their work compares to a predetermined standard of quality rather than to the quality of the work produced by other students. This creates a non-zero-sum situation in which high grades are an unlimited resource. In three experiments, participants were shown the grade distribution after a majority of the students in a course had completed an assigned presentation, and asked to predict the grade of the next presenter. When many high grades had already been given, there was a corresponding increase in low grade predictions. This suggests a zero-sum bias, in which people perceive a competition for a limited resource despite unlimited resource availability. Interestingly, when many low grades had already been given, there was not a corresponding increase in high grade predictions. This suggests that a zero-sum heuristic is only applied in response to the allocation of desirable resources. A plausible explanation for the findings is that a zero-sum heuristic evolved as a cognitive adaptation to enable successful intra-group competition for limited resources. Implications for understanding inter-group interaction are also discussed.