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Win–Win Denial: The Psychological Underpinnings of Zero-Sum Thinking
| Content Provider | PsyArXiv |
|---|---|
| Author | Johnson, Samuel Gregory Blane Zhang, Jiewen Keil, Frank |
| Description | A core proposition in economics is that voluntary exchanges benefit both parties. We show that people often deny the mutually beneficial nature of exchange, instead espousing the belief that one or both parties fail to benefit from the exchange. Across 4 studies (and 8 further studies in the Supplementary Materials), participants read about simple exchanges of goods and services, judging whether each party to the transaction was better off or worse off afterwards. These studies revealed that win–win denial is pervasive, with buyers consistently seen as less likely to benefit from transactions than sellers. Several potential psychological mechanisms underlying win–win denial are considered, with the most important influences being mercantilist theories of value (confusing wealth for money) and theory of mind limits (failing to observe that people do not arbitrarily enter exchanges). We argue that these results have widespread implications for politics and society. |
| DOI | 10.31234/osf.io/efs5y |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 2020-05-04 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Rights License | CC0 1.0 Universal |
| Subject Keyword | Social and Behavioral Sciences;Social and Personality Psychology;Social Cognition;Consumer Psychology;Behavioral Economics;Cognitive Psychology;Biases, Framing, and Heuristics;Reasoning;Judgment and Decision Making Behavioral Economics Decision-making Folk Economics Intuitive Theories Lay Theories Naive Realism Perspective Taking Theory of Mind Zero-sum Thinking |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Preprint |
| Subject | Social Sciences Social Psychology Psychology Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Applied Psychology |
