This paper offers a strategic rationale for zero‐sum thinking in elections. We show that asymmetric information and distributional considerations together make voters wary of policies supported by others. This force impels a majority of voters to support policies contrary to their preferences and information. Our analysis identifies and interprets a form of “adverse correlation” that is necessary and sufficient for zero‐sum thinking to prevail in equilibrium.

We study two-player games where one-sided asymmetric information can lead to either adverse or advantageous selection. We contrast behavior in these games with settings where both players are uninformed. We find stark differences, suggesting that subjects do account for endogenous selection effects. Removing strategic uncertainty increases the fraction of subjects who account for selection. Subjects respond more to adverse than advantageous selection. Using additional treatments where we vary payoff feedback, we connect this difference to learning. We also observe a significant fraction of subjects who appear to understand selection effects but do not apply that knowledge.

We study the problem of aggregating private information in elections with two or more alternatives for a large family of scoring rules. We introduce a feasibility condition, the linear refinement condition , that characterizes when information can be aggregated asymptotically as the electorate grows large: there must exist a utility function, linear in distributions over signals, sharing the same top alternative as the primitive utility function. Our results complement the existing work where strong assumptions are imposed on the environment, and caution against potential false positives when too much structure is imposed.