Zero-sum Thinking

Why do we so often assume that someone else's success must come at our expense?

A colleague receives a promotion, and we feel diminished. Another community gains opportunities, and we fear losing our own. In relationships, business, and politics, we repeatedly interpret life as a competition with a fixed number of winners.

Zero-Sum Thinking explores the psychological tendency to view resources, success, recognition, and opportunity as limited quantities that must be fought over.

Drawing on behavioural psychology, economics, social comparison, and examples from everyday life, the book examines how scarcity thinking fuels resentment, rivalry, polarisation, and unnecessary conflict.

It also considers how cooperation, expanding opportunity, and a more accurate understanding of shared interests can challenge the assumption that one person's gain requires another person's loss.

An illuminating exploration of competition, human behaviour, and the possibility of moving beyond a winner-takes-all mindset.