Concept and origins
The anthropologist George Foster (1965) argued that people in peasant societies hold an image of limited good: good things such as land, wealth, health and honor exist in fixed quantities, so if someone gets more, others get less. Psychology has studied this idea as zero-sum belief. Meegan (2010) reported zero-sum bias: even when students were clearly told grades were not allocated in fixed proportions, they felt that another student's good grade reduced their own share. Różycka-Tran and colleagues (2015) showed in a 37-nation survey that zero-sum beliefs are stronger in societies with low economic growth and high inequality.
Intergroup relations
Esses and colleagues (1998) proposed an instrumental model of group conflict in which zero-sum perceptions that immigrants compete for jobs and resources produce negative attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy. This connects with realistic conflict theory and the realistic threat in integrated threat theory. Norton and Sommers (2011) reported that White Americans see racism as zero-sum, believing that as bias against Black Americans declined, bias against White Americans increased. Wilkins and colleagues (2015) showed that such zero-sum beliefs grow when high-status groups feel they experience bias against their own group.
Political ideology and social consequences
Davidai and Ongis (2019) showed that in the United States liberals see class issues, such as relations between rich and poor, as more zero-sum, while conservatives see issues such as relations between immigrants and citizens as more zero-sum. Zero-sum thinking thus does not belong to one ideology but appears in the domains each side worries about. Strong zero-sum beliefs make people less cooperative and trusting and more likely to oppose policies such as trade or diversity from which all could benefit. Researchers suggest that information showing how the "pie" can grow may ease these beliefs.
FAQ
- What are zero-sum beliefs in simple terms?
- Thinking "if someone gains, I lose the same amount," as if the size of the pie were fixed.
- Why are they a problem?
- Even where everyone could gain together, they make people see others as competitors, increasing prejudice, distrust and conflict.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Foster, G. M. (1965). Peasant society and the image of limited good. American Anthropologist, 67(2), 293–315. The anthropological classic on the image of limited good.
- Esses, V. M., Jackson, L. M., & Armstrong, T. L. (1998). Intergroup competition and attitudes toward immigrants and immigration: An instrumental model of group conflict. Journal of Social Issues, 54(4), 699–724. Zero-sum competition and attitudes toward immigrants.
- Meegan, D. V. (2010). Zero-sum bias: Perceived competition despite unlimited resources. Frontiers in Psychology, 1, 191. Zero-sum bias even with unlimited resources.
- Norton, M. I., & Sommers, S. R. (2011). Whites see racism as a zero-sum game that they are now losing. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(3), 215–218. Zero-sum perceptions of racism among White Americans.
- Różycka-Tran, J., Boski, P., & Wojciszke, B. (2015). Belief in a zero-sum game as a social axiom: A 37-nation study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 46(4), 525–548. A 37-nation study of zero-sum belief.
- Wilkins, C. L., Wellman, J. D., Babbitt, L. G., Toosi, N. R., & Schad, K. D. (2015). You can win but I can't lose: Bias against high-status groups increases their zero-sum beliefs about discrimination. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 57, 1–14. When high-status groups adopt zero-sum beliefs.
- Davidai, S., & Ongis, M. (2019). The politics of zero-sum thinking: The relationship between political ideology and the belief that life is a zero-sum game. Science Advances, 5(12), eaay3761. Ideology shapes which domains are seen as zero-sum.