By Christy DeSmith, Harvard Staff Writer, Harvard Gazette, March 21, 2024.
A recent working paper charts the surprising politics of zero-sum thinking — or the belief that one individual or group’s gain is another’s loss — with a goal of offering fresh insight into our nation’s schisms.
The buzzworthy paper was co-authored by Stefanie Stantcheva, the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy and founding director of Harvard’s Social Economics Lab. Its analysis drew from detailed surveys of more than 20,000 Americans. This allowed Stantcheva and her co-authors to measure the trait’s prevalence across demographics and party identities while also correlating zero-sum thinking with family histories and policy views.
It turns out zero-sum thinking does not map neatly with party affiliation.
“But it certainly helps explain variations in people of the same political leaning,” Stantcheva said….
Read more at the Harvard Gazette