Asymmetries in responses to attitude statements: the example of "zero-sum" beliefs

Abstract

While much has been written about the consequences of zero-sum (or fixed-pie) beliefs, their measurement has received almost no systematic attention. No researchers, to our awareness, have examined the question of whether the endorsement of a zero-sum-like proposition depends on how the proposition is formed. This paper focuses on this issue, which may also apply to the measurement of other attitudes. Zero-sum statements have a form such as "The more of resource X for consumer A, the less of resource Y for consumer B." X and Y may be the same resource (such as time), but they can be different (e.g., "The more people commute by bicycle, the less revenue for the city from car parking payments"). These statements have four permutations, and a strict zero-sum believer should regard these four statements as equally valid and therefore should endorse them equally. We find, however, that three asymmetric patterns routinely occur in people's endorsement levels, i.e., clear framing effects, whereby endorsement of one permutation substantially differs from endorsement of another. The patterns seem to arise from beliefs about asymmetric resource flows and power relations between rival consumers. We report three studies, with adult samples representative of populations in two Western and two non-Western cultures, demonstrating that most of the asymmetric belief patterns are consistent across these samples. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this kind of "order-effect" for attitude measurement.