Envy

Last updated
Portrait of a demented woman or The monomaniac of jealousy, by Theodore Gericault, c. 1819-1822 The mad woman-Theodore Gericault-MBA Lyon B825-IMG 0477.jpg
Portrait of a demented woman or The monomaniac of jealousy, by Théodore Géricault, c.1819–1822

Envy is an emotion which occurs when a person lacks another's quality, skill, achievement, or possession and wishes that the other lacked it. [1]

Contents

Aristotle defined envy as pain at the sight of another's good fortune, stirred by "those who have what we ought to have". [2] Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness. [3] Recent research considered the conditions under which it occurs, how people deal with it, and whether it can inspire people to emulate those they envy. [4] [5]

Types of envy

Some languages, such as Dutch, distinguish between "benign envy" (benijden in Dutch) and "malicious envy" (afgunst), pointing to the possibility that there are two subtypes of envy. [5] Research shows that malicious envy is an unpleasant emotion that causes the envious person to want to bring down the better-off even at their own cost, while benign envy involves recognition of others being better-off, but causes the person to aspire to be as good. [6] Benign envy is still a negative emotion in the sense that it feels unpleasant. [5] According to researchers, benign envy can provide emulation, improvement motivation, positive thoughts about the other person, and admiration. [6] This type of envy, if dealt with correctly, can positively affect a person's future by motivating them to be a better person and to succeed. [7] [8] There is some discussion on whether the subtypes should be seen as distinct forms of envy, as some argue that the action tendencies (to damage someone else's position for malicious envy and to improve one's own position for benign envy) are not part of how the emotion is defined, while others think action tendencies are an integral part of an emotion. [9] Those who do not think subtypes of envy exist argue that the situation affects how envy leads to behavior; while those who do think subtypes exist think that the situation affects which subtype of envy is experienced. [9]

Evolutionary role

Invidia, allegorical painting by Giotto di Bondone, c. 1305-1306 Giotto - Scrovegni - -48- - Envy.jpg
Invidia, allegorical painting by Giotto di Bondone, c.1305–1306

Following Charles Darwin's 1859 book advancing the theory of evolution by natural selection, his 1872 work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals advanced the theory that there has been an evolution of emotion which developed in animals for the survival value emotions offer. [10] In 1998, neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp provided data demonstrating that mammalian species are equipped with brains capable of generating emotional experiences. [11] [12] Subsequent research in the behavioral sciences have provided insights into emotions such as envy and their impact on cognition and behavior. For example, consistent with envy being a motivation, empirical research shows that envy concentrates cognitive resources, focusing the subject's attention towards collecting information on the social target and enhancing the ability to recall such information. [13] [14] In primate research, Frans de Waal conducted long-term research demonstrating that chimpanzees as well as distantly related primates such as brown capuchin monkeys have a finely honed sense of justice within their social group, and that the key emotion used to measure and regulate fair outcomes is envy. [15] De Waal's research leads him to argue that without envy motivating our interest in making social comparisons, there would be no reason to care about fairness and justice. [16]

Based on a model of evolved responses to those who are better off, Sznycer has argued that envy increases support for economic redistribution. [17]

Regarding possessions or status

Hieronymus Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things (Invidia) Jheronimus Bosch Table of the Mortal Sins (Invidia).jpg
Hieronymus Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things (Invidia)

Often, envy involves a motive to "outdo or undo the rival's advantages". [18] In part, this type of envy may be based on materialistic possessions rather than psychological states. Basically, people find themselves experiencing an overwhelming emotion due to someone else owning or possessing desirable items that they do not. Feelings of envy in this situation would occur in the forms of emotional pain, a lack of self-worth, and a lowered self-esteem and well-being.

In Old Money, Nelson W. Aldrich Jr. states: [19]

Envy is so integral and painful a part of what animates human behavior in market societies that many people have forgotten the full meaning of the word, simplifying it into one of the symptoms of desire. It is that (a symptom of desire), which is why it flourishes in market societies: democracies of desire, they might be called, with money for ballots, stuffing permitted. But envy is more or less than desire. It begins with the almost frantic sense of emptiness inside oneself, as if the pump of one's heart were sucking on air. One has to be blind to perceive the emptiness, of course, but that's what envy is, a selective blindness. Invidia, Latin for envy, translates as "nonsight", and Dante had the envious plodding along under cloaks of lead, their eyes sewn shut with leaden wire. What they are blind to is what they have, God-given and humanly nurtured, in themselves.

Overcoming

Envy may negatively affect the closeness and satisfaction of relationships. Overcoming envy might be similar to dealing with other negative emotions (anger, resentment, etc.). Individuals experiencing anger often seek professional treatment (anger management) to help understand why they feel the way they do and how to cope. Subjects experiencing envy often have a skewed perception on how to achieve true happiness. By helping people to change these perceptions, they will be more able to understand the real meaning of fortune and satisfaction with what they do have. According to Lazarus, "coping is an integral feature of the emotion process". [20] There are very few theories that emphasize the coping process for emotions as compared to the information available concerning the emotion itself.

There are numerous styles of coping, of which there has been a significant amount of research done; for example, avoidant versus approach. Coping with envy can be similar to coping with anger. The issue must be addressed cognitively in order to work through the emotion. According to the research done by Salovey and Rodin (1988), "more effective strategies for reducing initial envy appear to be stimulus-focused rather than self-focused". [21] Salovey and Rodin (1988) also suggest "self-bolstering (e.g., "thinking about my good qualities") may be an effective strategy for moderating these self-deprecating thoughts and muting negative affective reactions". [21]

Benefits

Russell believed that envy may be a driving force behind the movement of economies and must be endured to achieve the "keep up with the Joneses" system. He believed this is what helps to maintain "democracy" as a system in which no one can achieve more than anyone else. [22] Attended to, envy may inform a person about who they admire and what they want. Benign envy may lead a person to work harder to achieve more success. [8]

In adolescence

Envy becomes apparent in children from an early stage, and adults, while equally susceptible to this emotion, demonstrate a higher level of proficiency in disguising it. Envy plays a significant role in the development of adolescents. Comparing oneself is a universal aspect of human nature. No matter the age or culture, social comparison happens all over the globe. Comparison can range from physical attributes, material possessions, and intelligence. [23] However, children are more likely to envy over material objects such as shoes, video games, high value mobile phones, etc. Children believe these material objects are correlated to their status.

Social status has been found to have a strong connection with self-esteem. [24] An adolescent's self-esteem is very fragile during early years and is heavily impacted by peer opinion. If a child is comfortable with who they are and self-confident they are less likely to become envious of others' material objects, because they do not self-identify with materials. Material objects are not the only things that adolescents become envious over; however, it is the most prevalent.

As children get older they develop stronger non-materialistic envy such as romantic relationships, physical appearance, achievement, and popularity. Sometimes envious feelings are internalized in children, having a negative impact on their self-esteem. Envy comes from comparing; these comparisons can serve as a reminder that they have failed social norms and do not fit in with their peers. A feeling of inadequacy can arise and become destructive to a child's happiness and cause further internal damage.

A child's identity is formed during their early years. Identity development is considered the central task during adolescence. [25] When children grow up understanding who they are, they are able to better define what their strengths and weaknesses are while comparing themselves to others. [26] Comparison can have two outcomes: it can be healthy in aiding in self-improvement or it can be unhealthy and result in envy/jealousy which can develop into depression. This is why self-exploration and identity development are critical in adolescent years.

It is important to identify healthy and unhealthy envy in a child at an early age. If a child is showing signs of unhealthy envy, it is best to teach the child productive ways to handle these emotions. It is much easier to teach a child how to control their emotions while they are young rather than allowing them to develop a habit that is hard to break when they are older.

In adulthood

Vauxhall Vagabond (1953) (33320873386).jpg

The things that drive people mad with envy change throughout their lifetime. Studies have shown that the younger the person, the more likely they are to be envious of others. [27] Adults under the age of 30 are more likely to experience envy compared to those 30 years and older. However, what people become envious over differs across adulthood.

Younger adults, under the age of 30, have been found to envy others' social status, relationships, and attractiveness. [27] This starts to fade when a person hits their 30s. Typically, at this point in life, the person begins to accept who they are as an individual and compare themselves to others less often. However, they still envy others, just over different aspects in life, such as career or salary. [27] Studies have shown a decrease in envy as a person ages; however, envious feelings over money was the only thing that consistently increased as a person got older. [27] As a person ages, they begin to accept their social status. Nonetheless, envious feelings will be present throughout a person's life. It is up to the individual whether they will let these envious feelings motivate or destroy them.

In philosophy

Aristotle, in Rhetoric, defined envy (φθόνος phthonos) as "the pain caused by the good fortune of others", [28] [29] while Kant, in Metaphysics of Morals, defined it as "a reluctance to see our own well-being overshadowed by another's because the standard we use to see how well off we are is not the intrinsic worth of our own well-being but how it compares with that of others".

Religious views

In Buddhism

In Christianity

Envy is one of the seven deadly sins in Roman Catholicism.[ citation needed ]

In Hinduism

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna said "One who does not envy but is a compassionate friend to all ... is very dear to me." [30]

In Islam

According to a Da'if narration in Hadith, Muhammad said: "Envy consumes good deeds just as fire consumes wood, and charity extinguishes bad deeds just as water extinguishes fire. Prayer is the light of the believer and fasting is a shield against the fire" (Sunan Ibn Majah 4210).

Muhammad said, "Do not envy each other, do not hate each other, do not oppose each other, and do not cut relations, rather be servants of Allah as brothers. It is not permissible for a Muslim to disassociate from his brother for more than three days such that they meet and one ignores the other, and the best of them is the one who initiates the salaam." Sahih al-Bukhari [Eng. Trans. 8/58 no. 91], Sahih Muslim [Eng. Trans. 4/1360 no. 6205, 6210]

Cultural references

In English-speaking cultures, envy is often associated with the color green, as in "green with envy", and yellow. Yellow is the color of ambivalence and contradiction; a color associated with optimism and amusement; but also with betrayal, duplicity, and jealousy. [31] The phrase "green-eyed monster" refers to an individual whose current actions appear motivated by jealousy, not envy. This is based on a line from Shakespeare's Othello . Shakespeare mentions it also in The Merchant of Venice when Portia states: "How all the other passions fleet to air, as doubtful thoughts and rash embraced despair and shuddering fear and green-eyed jealousy!"

The character Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist series is one of the seven homunculi named after the seven deadly sins.

The character of Zelena on ABC's Once Upon a Time takes on the title "The Wicked Witch of the West" after envy itself dyes her skin in the episode "It's Not Easy Being Green".

In Nelson W. Aldrich Jr.'s Old Money, he states that people who suffer from a case of malicious envy are blind to what good things they already have, thinking they have nothing, causing them to feel emptiness and despair. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emotion</span> Conscious subjective experience of humans

Emotions are physical and mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is no scientific consensus on a definition. Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humour</span> Tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement

Humour or humor is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours, controlled human health and emotion.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, and adjust emotions to adapt to environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shame</span> Affect, emotion, cognition, state or condition

Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jealousy</span> Emotion

Jealousy generally refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, and concern over a relative lack of possessions or safety.

An open relationship is an intimate relationship that is sexually non-monogamous. The term is distinct from polyamory, in that it generally indicates a relationship where there is a primary emotional and intimate relationship between two partners, who agree to at least the possibility of sexual or emotional intimacy with other people.

Coping refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviors and can be individual or social. To cope is to deal with and overcome struggles and difficulties in life. It is a way for people to maintain their mental and emotional well-being. Everybody has ways of handling difficult events that occur in life, and that is what it means to cope. Coping can be healthy and productive, or destructive and unhealthy. It is recommended that an individual cope in ways that will be beneficial and healthy. "Managing your stress well can help you feel better physically and psychologically and it can impact your ability to perform your best."

Emotional reasoning is a cognitive process by which an individual concludes that their emotional reaction proves something is true, despite contrary empirical evidence. Emotional reasoning creates an 'emotional truth', which may be in direct conflict with the inverse 'perceptional truth'. It can create feelings of anxiety, fear, and apprehension in existing stressful situations, and as such, is often associated with or triggered by panic disorder or anxiety disorder. For example, even though a spouse has shown only devotion, a person using emotional reasoning might conclude, "I know my spouse is being unfaithful because I feel jealous."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual jealousy</span> Psychological concept

Sexual jealousy is a special form of jealousy in sexual relationships, based on suspected or imminent sexual infidelity. The concept is studied in the field of evolutionary psychology.

Self-pity is an emotion in which one feels self-centered sorrow and pity toward the self regarding one's own internal and external experiences of suffering. Self-pity has also been defined as an emotion "directed towards others with the goal of attracting attention, empathy, or help"

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emotion in animals</span> Research into similarities between non-human and human emotions

Emotion is defined as any mental experience with high intensity and high hedonic content. The existence and nature of emotions in non-human animals are believed to be correlated with those of humans and to have evolved from the same mechanisms. Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to write about the subject, and his observational approach has since developed into a more robust, hypothesis-driven, scientific approach. Cognitive bias tests and learned helplessness models have shown feelings of optimism and pessimism in a wide range of species, including rats, dogs, cats, rhesus macaques, sheep, chicks, starlings, pigs, and honeybees. Jaak Panksepp played a large role in the study of animal emotion, basing his research on the neurological aspect. Mentioning seven core emotional feelings reflected through a variety of neuro-dynamic limbic emotional action systems, including seeking, fear, rage, lust, care, panic and play. Through brain stimulation and pharmacological challenges, such emotional responses can be effectively monitored.

Appraisal theory is the theory in psychology that emotions are extracted from our evaluations of events that cause specific reactions in different people. Essentially, our appraisal of a situation causes an emotional, or affective, response that is going to be based on that appraisal. An example of this is going on a first date. If the date is perceived as positive, one might feel happiness, joy, giddiness, excitement, and/or anticipation, because they have appraised this event as one that could have positive long-term effects, i.e. starting a new relationship, engagement, or even marriage. On the other hand, if the date is perceived negatively, then our emotions, as a result, might include dejection, sadness, emptiness, or fear. Reasoning and understanding of one's emotional reaction becomes important for future appraisals as well. The important aspect of the appraisal theory is that it accounts for individual variability in emotional reactions to the same event.

The theory of constructed emotion is a theory in affective science proposed by Lisa Feldman Barrett to explain the experience and perception of emotion. The theory posits that instances of emotion are constructed predictively by the brain in the moment as needed. It draws from social construction, psychological construction, and neuroconstruction.

Dispositional affect, similar to mood, is a personality trait or overall tendency to respond to situations in stable, predictable ways. This trait is expressed by the tendency to see things in a positive or negative way. People with high positive affectivity tend to perceive things through "pink lens" while people with high negative affectivity tend to perceive things through "black lens". The level of dispositional affect affects the sensations and behavior immediately and most of the time in unconscious ways, and its effect can be prolonged. Research shows that there is a correlation between dispositional affect and important aspects in psychology and social science, such as personality, culture, decision making, negotiation, psychological resilience, perception of career barriers, and coping with stressful life events. That is why this topic is important both in social psychology research and organizational psychology research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Determination</span> Positive emotional feeling

Determination is a positive emotional feeling that promotes persevering towards a difficult goal in spite of obstacles. Determination occurs prior to goal attainment and serves to motivate behavior that will help achieve one's goal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaak Panksepp</span> American neuroscientist (1943–2017)

Jaak Panksepp was an Estonian-American neuroscientist and psychobiologist who coined the term "affective neuroscience", the name for the field that studies the neural mechanisms of emotion. He was the Baily Endowed Chair of Animal Well-Being Science for the Department of Veterinary and Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology, and Physiology at Washington State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, and Emeritus Professor of the Department of Psychology at Bowling Green State University. He was known in the popular press for his research on laughter in non-human animals.

Positive affectivity (PA) is a human characteristic that describes how much people experience positive affects ; and as a consequence how they interact with others and with their surroundings.

Relational transgressions occur when people violate implicit or explicit relational rules. These transgressions include a wide variety of behaviors. The boundaries of relational transgressions are permeable. Betrayal for example, is often used as a synonym for a relational transgression. In some instances, betrayal can be defined as a rule violation that is traumatic to a relationship, and in other instances as destructive conflict or reference to infidelity.

Social undermining is the expression of negative emotions directed towards a particular person or negative evaluations of the person as a way to prevent the person from achieving their goals.

Self-blame is a cognitive process in which an individual attributes the occurrence of a stressful event to oneself. The direction of blame often has implications for individuals’ emotions and behaviors during and following stressful situations. Self-blame is a common reaction to stressful events and has certain effects on how individuals adapt. Types of self-blame are hypothesized to contribute to depression, and self-blame is a component of self-directed emotions like guilt and self-disgust. Because of self-blame's commonality in response to stress and its role in emotion, self-blame should be examined using psychology's perspectives on stress and coping. This article will attempt to give an overview of the contemporary study on self-blame in psychology.

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading