Is power zero-sum or variable-sum? Conceptualizing a context-dependent answer to a century-old debate with two game theoretic experiments

ABSTRACT

Is power zero-sum (relative gain/loss) or variable-sum (absolute gain/loss)? The response to this century-old puzzle depends on how power manifests itself during human interactions in diverse contexts. While few theoretical contributions investigating this puzzle seek empirical assistance, this paper utilises two game theoretic experiments for an answer. Consisting of a randomly assigned priming treatment followed by a single round of decision-making in a choice game for three groups of participants, it tests how human subjective understanding of power translates into varied objective power exercises in different situations. Findings reveal that in a ‘power to’ context whereby people mentally value their individual agency more (i.e. freedom from others), they tend to pursue absolute than relative gains, displaying a variable-sum power exercise strategy; in contrast, in a ‘power over’ context whereby people value their ability to affect others more (i.e. interdependence with others), individuals become relative-gain maximisers, thus viewing the sum of each power exercise as zero. Therefore, we conclude that whether power is zero-sum or variable-sum is context-dependent because how power is framed and subjectively understood by agents (i.e., ‘power to’ vs. ‘power over’, as contexts) shape their objective behaviours in power transactions (i.e., ‘zero-sum’ vs. ‘variable-sum’ power exercise).

KEYWORDS:

• Zero-sum
• Variable-sum
• Understanding of Power
• Exercise of Power
• Game theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Science Fund of Beijing Municipality [Grant/Award Number: 18ZGC012].

Notes on contributors

Lin Liu

Dr. Lin LIU has published extensively in game theory modelling and economics. He got his PhD in Economics from the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University.

Yi Yang

Dr. Yi YANG got his DPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford and MA from Columbia University. He currently teaches at China’s Peking University and has published widely in the fields of social theory, organizational theory, complexity science, and political science. Both authors contribute equally to this paper