The reason why people feel envious

Psychological explanation of envy

🏷️ Categories: Social relationships, Motivation

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“Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies.”
~ J.K. Rowling on Harry Potter

One of the 7 biblical deadly sins, or as Bertrand Russell called it, "a lamentable facet of human nature."

Envy arises when we measure ourselves against others and feel inferior. We tend to envy those who share similar circumstances, as this provokes a sense of injustice or inequality. We do not envy those who are at a much higher level because they are not comparable cases (Smith & Kim, 2007; Parrott & Smith, 1993). The most intense envy comes from close quarters.

People do not envy a tycoon; people envy the neighbor who got promoted when we did not. That's why the neighbor's grass always looks greener than our own.

The Two Types of Envy

Healthy envy and malicious envy have similar origins but manifest in completely different ways...

Healthy envy makes a person feel envious of the object or quality possessed by the person they are comparing themselves to (Crusius & Lange, 2014). On the other hand, malicious envy involves feeling that we deserve the object or quality more than the envied person, which can lead to gratification at their failures.

— "If I can't have it, no one can."

Your success is their pain, and your pain is their success

That's the conclusion reached by a group of Japanese scientists after investigating the areas of the brain activated when feeling envy (Takahashi et al., 2009).

When we feel envy, the same area of the brain is activated as when experiencing physical pain, and what's even more remarkable, when participants imagined the envied person failing, dopamine was released in certain areas of the brain. Not only is there gratification in seeing the envied person fail, but in the event that both parties lose, just knowing that the envied person has lost more brings gratification to the envious one (Dvash et al., 2010).

— "I may be doing badly, but others are doing worse."

The greater the perceived envy, the greater the pleasure derived from seeing the envied person fail (Takahashi et al., 2009).

Envy is like pouring gasoline on the flame of motivation

Envy can be transformed into motivation, and motivation into achievements.

Adaptations are responses we develop to adjust to our environment and increase our chances of survival. However, unlike physical adaptations, feelings are sometimes more complex. If a person feels pain touching a cactus, they will try to avoid it next time. If a person feels envy, they perceive themselves as unfairly inferior when comparing and will seek ways to improve or obtain resources to equalize or surpass the other person.

In this sense, envy becomes an external source of motivation that drives the envious person to surpass the envied one, ultimately leading to self-improvement (Smith & Kim, 2007; Ramachandran & Jalal, 2017).

See you in the next letter, take care 👋❤️

📚 References

1. Crusius, J., & Lange, J. (2014). What catches the envious eye? Attentional biases within malicious and benign envy. Journal Of Experimental Social Psychology, 55, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2014.05.007

2. Dvash, J., Gilam, G., Ben-Ze’ev, A., Hendler, T., & Shamay‐Tsoory, S. G. (2010). The envious brain: The neural basis of social comparison. Human Brain Mapping, 31(11), 1741-1750. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.20972

3. Rowling, J. K. (2015). Harry Potter y el misterio del príncipe. Turtleback Books.

4. Parrott, W. G., & Smith, R. H. (1993). Distinguishing the experiences of envy and jealousy. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 64(6), 906-920. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.64.6.906

5. Ramachandran, V. S., & Jalal, B. (2017). The Evolutionary Psychology of Envy and Jealousy. Frontiers In Psychology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01619

6. Russell, B. (1930). The Conquest of Happiness. W. W. Norton & Company.

7. Smith, R. H., & Kim, S. H. (2007). Comprehending envy. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 46-64. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.46

8. Takahashi, H., Kato, M., Matsuura, M., Mobbs, D., Suhara, T., & Okubo, Y. (2009). When Your Gain Is My Pain and Your Pain Is My Gain: Neural Correlates of Envy and Schadenfreude. Science, 323(5916), 937-939. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1165604