![]() ![]() A computational model implementing the theory provided excellent fits to the data.Īll human groups are equally human, but are they automatically represented as such? Harnessing data from 61,377 participants across 13 experiments (six primary and seven supplemental), a sharp dissociation between implicit and explicit measures emerged. We propose that storing items in long-term memory depletes a limited pool of resources that recovers over time, and that TBF items deplete fewer resources, leaving more available for storing subsequent items. We found that neither task removed the effect, thus the advantage from previous TBF items could not be due to rehearsal or attentional borrowing. Experiment 2 used a dual-task paradigm in which we suppressed either verbal rehearsal or attentional refreshing during encoding. It also interacted with lag between study items – the effect decreased as the lag between the current and a prior item increased. This effect was cumulative – performance was higher when more of the preceding items during study were TBF. MAGICAL THINKING COGNITIVE DISTORTION FREEIn two experiments, we found that free and cued recall were higher when a word-pair was preceded during study by a to-be-forgotten (TBF) word pair. We used an item-method directed forgetting paradigm to test whether instructions to forget or to remember one item in a list affects memory for the subsequent item in that list. Similarly, because higher socioeconomic status is negatively associated with zero-sum beliefs, creating a sense of abundance might counter the belief that life is zero-sum. For instance, as formal training in economics is associated with lower zero-sum beliefs, researchers could examine whether teaching people basic economic principles reduces zero-sum beliefs across various domains. More generally, research could examine long-term and scalable solutions for reducing zero-sum beliefs, focusing on interventions that simultaneously reduce threat, mitigate views of resource scarcity and increase deliberation. Indeed, because people express more moderate beliefs after deliberating policy details, prompting participants to deliberate about social issues (for example, asking them to explain the process by which one group’s outcomes influence another group’s outcomes) might reduce zero-sum beliefs. Future research could manipulate deliberation in other contexts to examine its causal effect on zero-sum beliefs. For instance, increasing deliberation reduces zero-sum beliefs about negotiations by increasing people’s accountability, perspective taking or consideration of mutually beneficial issues. Thus, any factor that simultaneously affects the threat that people experience, their perceptions of resource scarcity, and their level of deliberation is more likely to result in zero-sum beliefs, and attenuating zero-sum beliefs requires an exploration of all the different factors that lead to these experiences in the first place. Similarly, insufficient deliberation on the long-term and dynamic effects of international trade might foster a view of domestic currency as scarce, prompting the belief that trade is zero-sum. Consequently, focusing on losses might be especially likely to foster zero-sum beliefs. For instance, focusing on losses (versus gains) is both threatening and heightens a sense of resource scarcity. Although each of these three channels can separately lead to zero-sum beliefs, simultaneously activating more than one channel might be especially potent. We have suggested that zero-sum beliefs are influenced by threat, a sense of resource scarcity and lack of deliberation. This systematic study of zero-sum beliefs advances our understanding of how these beliefs arise, how they influence people’s behaviour and, we hope, how they can be mitigated. Specifically, we identify three broad psychological channels that elicit zero-sum beliefs: intrapersonal and situational forces that elicit threat, generate real or imagined resource scarcity, and inhibit deliberation. Although zero-sum beliefs have been mostly conceptualized as an individual difference and a generalized mindset, their emergence and expression are sensitive to cognitive, motivational and contextual forces. In doing so, we examine when, why and how such beliefs emerge and what their consequences are for individuals, groups and society. In this Review, we synthesize social, cognitive, evolutionary and organizational psychology research on zero-sum beliefs. ![]() ![]() People often hold zero-sum beliefs (subjective beliefs that, independent of the actual distribution of resources, one party’s gains are inevitably accrued at other parties’ expense) about interpersonal, intergroup and international relations. ![]()
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