Abstract
It is not uncommon to witness individuals competing for social resources such as affection and status. Does this mean that people view social resources as inherently zero-sum—where gains for one person result in losses for another? Two preregistered studies found that U.S. adults and 4- to 9-year-old U.S. children did not view nonrival social resources (love and trust) or rival social resources (popularity and leadership) as zero-sum, both less zero-sum than material resources like stickers. Importantly, zero-sum thinking was not determined by the inherent properties of the resources but was influenced by renewability: Perceived renewability of resources predicted lower levels of zero-sum beliefs, and both social and material resources were perceived as less zero-sum when presented as renewable compared with nonrenewable. These findings shed light on the nature and origins of zero-sum beliefs, highlighting renewability as a key mechanism and a potential intervention for reducing competition and promoting cooperation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
