People very often underrate how much power they (and their allies) have, and overrate how much power their enemies have. I call this “underdog bias”, and I think it's the most important cognitive bias for understanding modern society.

I’ll start by describing a closely-related phenomenon. The hostile media effect is a well-known bias whereby people tend to perceive news they read or watch as skewed against their side. For example, pro-Palestinian students shown a video clip tended to judge that the clip would make viewers more pro-Israel, while pro-Israel students shown the same clip thought it’d make viewers more pro-Palestine. Similarly, sports fans often see referees as being biased against their own team.

The hostile media effect is particularly striking because it arises in settings where there's relatively little scope for bias. People watching media clips and sports are all seeing exactly the same videos. And sports in particular [...]

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Outline:

(03:31) Underdog bias in practice

(09:07) Why underdog bias?

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First published:
August 17th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/f3zeukxj3Kf5byzHi/underdog-bias-rules-everything-around-me

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

Four maps showing Palestinian land loss from 1946 to 2000, marked in green.

Map showing Arab League member states highlighted in green across North Africa and Middle East.

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“Underdog bias rules everything around me” by Richard_Ngo

LessWrong (30+ Karma)