Envy is an emotion that occurs when a person lacks anothers superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it. Envy is a painful emotion that can arise from a negative social comparison with another person who has superior abilities, achievements, or possessions. There are two qualitatively distinct forms of envy, which motivate different behaviors: benign envy and malicious envy.
Positive aspects of envy:
- Benign envy can provide emulation, improvement motivation, positive thoughts about the other person, and admiration. This type of envy, if dealt with correctly, can positively affect a persons future by motivating them to be a better person and to succeed.
Negative aspects of envy:
- Malicious envy entails hostile feelings, thoughts, and action tendencies aimed at harming the superior position of the envied person.
- Envy can increase personal effort, but it can also lead to emotional pain, a lack of self-worth, and a lowered self-esteem and well-being.
- Envy may lead to the devaluation of the other attributes possessed by the envying person and, over time, to the devaluation of the envy-causing attributes themselves.
Factors that can cause envy:
- Envy may be caused by wealth, power, beauty, and materialistic possessions.
- As children get older, they develop stronger non-materialistic envy such as romantic relationships, physical appearance, achievement, and popularity.
Strategies for dealing with envy:
- More effective strategies for reducing initial envy appear to be stimulus-focused rather than self-focused.
- Self-bolstering (e.g., "thinking about my good qualities") may be an effective strategy for moderating self-deprecating thoughts and muting negative affective reactions.
