Sometimes there can only be one winner. One person can be promoted to CEO of the company. There is a single champion of the 100-meter freestyle in Olympic swimming.

These are zero-sum instances. Success, achievement, or acquisition of some resource by one person necessarily makes it the case that no one else can acquire or have just as much access to those same resources. We all know what it feels like to be in zero-sum situations, especially when we are the person competing for the job or house. We have experienced the teeth-clenching suspense when only one can win.

What about social resources?

While we readily accept competition in material resources, what about social ones? Do we treat love, trust, and leadership with the same scarcity mindset? For example, can there only be one leader in a room? If you put a lot of trust in one friend, can you trust another friend just as much? Does a mother have less love available to give to each subsequent child she has after her first?

New research from Professor Fan Yang and Dr. Kevin Wei at the University of Chicago investigates adult’s and children’s perceptions of social resources.

“The literature often emphasizes the prevalence of zero-sum biases, painting a picture of people as narrow-sighted and competitive,” said Yang, who directs the Human Nature and Potentials Lab at the University of Chicago, “but we wanted to explore the positive. To what extent do people hold zero-sum beliefs? What do they perceive as not zero-sum, and why?”

Wei, a psychology researcher from the University of Chicago, points out that we constantly see zero-sum thinking in society, “where issues are often framed as one group’s gain coming at another’s expense,” and shares that the research project “stemmed from a curiosity to better understand these beliefs—specifically, whether people might even see social resources like love and trust as zero-sum.”

Yang and Wei designed two studies to examine if and how people perceive material and social resources as zero-sum. In the first study, they compared participant’s perceptions of competitive resources, like the number of candies a person has or their level of popularity, to non-competitive resources, like the amount of air and love available. In the second study, they looked at the effect of resource renewability on participant’s zero-sum perceptions.

Results from both studies show that adults do not tend toward zero-sum beliefs when evaluating non-competitive social resources. People generally understand that love and trust can be given and obtained by many people, and an individual can generate more love and trust even after they’ve given to other people.

Children’s zero-sum beliefs

Alongside adults, Yang and Wei looked closely at the views of 4-to-9-year-old children in the studies to see how perceptions may change across development. Many people may assume that children, especially younger children, have stronger zero-sum beliefs than adults.

As Yang and Wei point out, research has shown that children are sensitive to resource scarcity and fairness. Some studies have illustrated connections between competitiveness and sharing among youth. From this perspective, some may anticipate children being stingy, competitive, or fearful about social resources.

In contrast, the results from both studies show that children generally do not see social resources as scarce. Younger children are less likely than other children to see all of the resources (material and social) as zero-sum. This finding holds even when the young study participants were told that the resources were non-renewable.

It is interesting to consider how these new study findings could inform child-centered domains, like parenting and education. What new questions might arise about relational dynamics and social-emotional development when we consider children’s understanding of the shareable and regenerative nature of many social resources?

Yang notes that the research “offers a more nuanced view of human nature” and “acknowledges our capacity to see the world in ways that enable us to thrive together.”

When asked about the study’s implications, Wei said he hopes “this work can be used to frame social relationships and interactions in a way that encourages cooperation instead of unnecessary competition.”