Zero-Sum Bias
We perceive situations as zero-sum (win-lose) even when they are not.
Zero-sum bias is a cognitive bias towards zero-sum thinking — the perception that situations are zero-sum (i.e., one person's gain is another's loss) even when this is not the case. This bias leads to resistance to trade, international cooperation, and immigration, as people intuitively believe others' gains must come at their expense. In reality, most cooperative exchanges create value for all parties.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Politics Immigration Fallacy People oppose immigration based on the belief that immigrants take jobs from native workers, not accounting for the ways immigrants also create jobs and economic growth — treating employment as a fixed pie.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
When a coworker's idea was implemented, Alan felt his own ideas, which had been praised earlier, were now being dismissed.
When a local company announced it was creating 200 new jobs, a resident said, 'That's 200 jobs that could have gone to people from our town if they hadn't moved the factory here.'
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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