Why We'd Rather Have Less Than Let Others Have More
Anyone curious about why people vote against their own interests, accept worse outcomes to preserve hierarchy, or feel deprived in the midst of plenty
Here’s an experiment. Two people are given a choice: both get £5, or one gets £3 and the other gets £1. A rational person takes the first option every time - more money for everyone. But a significant number of people choose the second option. They’d rather have less, as long as the other person has even less than them.
That result should unsettle you. It means that for a meaningful chunk of the population, relative position matters more than absolute wellbeing. Being ahead is more important than being better off. And once you understand that, a great deal of otherwise baffling political behaviour starts to make sense.
This collection traces the psychology behind one of the most important questions in public life: why do people consistently act against their own material interests? It starts with the two core mechanisms - relative deprivation and zero-sum thinking - then moves through the biases and cognitive shortcuts that make us vulnerable to competitive framing. It finishes with the political tools that deliberately exploit these tendencies: scapegoating, dog whistling, and the manufacturing of consent.
This isn’t a collection about being manipulated by others. It’s about understanding the part of ourselves that’s willing to accept a worse deal, as long as the hierarchy stays intact. That instinct is human. Recognising it is the first step to choosing differently.
The journey
- 1 Psychological Phenomenon Relative Deprivation Feeling worse off based on who you compare yourself to, not on what you actually have.
- 2 Cognitive Bias Zero-Sum Thinking The assumption that any situation is a competition where one person's gain must be another's loss.
- 3 Cognitive Bias Loss Aversion Losses hurt roughly twice as much as equivalent gains feel good.
- 4 Cognitive Bias In-group/Out-group Bias We automatically trust people who seem like us and distrust people who don't.
- 5 Rhetorical Device Framing Effect The way information is presented changes how we respond to it - even when the underlying facts are identical.
- 6 Logical Fallacy Just-World Fallacy The belief that people generally get what they deserve - that the world is fundamentally fair.
- 7 Psychological Defence Motivated Reasoning Using our intelligence not to find truth but to defend conclusions we've already reached.
- 8 Rhetorical Device Scapegoating Blaming a person or group for problems they didn't cause.
- 9 Manipulation Tactic Dog Whistling Using coded language that sounds innocent to most people but carries a specific prejudiced message to a target audience.
- 10 Psychological Phenomenon Symbolic Racism When prejudice is expressed not through overt hostility but through opposition to policies and positions associated with marginalised groups, framed in the language of fairness and principle.
- 11 Political Theory Manufactured Consent When media systems produce public agreement with elite interests - not through censorship, but through structure.