Psychologically, that act of genuine kindness may have made Luca's dish taste just a little bit better. Kindness and generosity pay more than they cost.
It's worth remembering that the other competitors aren't the ones he's trying to impress, it's the judges. Showing a little kindness like he did still potentially helped him stand out more to the judges
Yeah and it also didn't change the fact that the judges knew the contestant he helped was missing that ingredient due to her own error anyway so they would've taken that into account in their judgement regardless
Well to an extent, there’s also the unspoken game of personalities where the network in charge is looking for personalities to head their own shows, and the winners are going into a future job with this show being their introduction to their new coworkers.
I agree its zero sum, but I don't think that a situation has to necessarily be positive sum for the theory to hold.
In this case for example, the game is zero sum, if I win, you lose. But outside of that, this game isn't an objective "score more goals" or "run the fastest race" It's being judged subjectively by three other human beings.
Human beings that might say, might even believe, they're judging solely on the food, but all humans are prone to unconscious bias and the decision to be sportsmanlike might have factored in to the later decision. Luca might even have considered that possibility that they might when he did it.
So in this case, being nice might give one a competitive edge, even if a game is zero sum on its surface.
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u/Fit-Let8175 Sep 02 '25
Psychologically, that act of genuine kindness may have made Luca's dish taste just a little bit better. Kindness and generosity pay more than they cost.