Actors judge policy success by win-loss even when alternatives would be better gauges.

Evidence

When people try to determine whether a policy has succeeded, they often use two related measuring rods. First, if the situation is competitive, they ask who won and who lost. This is appropriate if the situation is zero-sum, but it will be misleading if both sides could be better off (or worse off) than they would have been had alternative courses of action been followed. Even when misleading, the question often is asked because it is easier to answer than a more complex one would be. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2567

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgrom’s point about institutions and the logic of relative vs absolute gains in cooperation — the same win-loss framing appears in game theory’s iterated-dilemma literature.