Envy

Envy is a negative, unpleasant, and often-painful emotion that is elicited by comparison with another person or group that has something that one either desires or wishes that the others lacked. This might include an attribute, a possession, a social position, an achievement, luck, or quality of being. The experience of envy consists of a blend of (a) sadness or distress over one's shortcomings or one's inferiority to the envied person, (b) admiration for the envied person, (c) longing for what the envied person has, (d) anger and displeasure over the envied person's superiority, and (e) resentment of the inequitable situation. Compared with more basic emotions (e.g., fear, anger, joy, sadness, surprise, and disgust), envy can be considered to be a more complex emotion involving a high degree of cognitive appraisal or cognitive elaboration. Like other cognitive emotions (such as disappointment, guilt, or regret), envy is associated with areas of the neocortex—the part of the brain that supports the majority of our most complex cognitive abilities. As such, envy is more influenced by conscious thoughts than basic emotions are. This entry first addresses the relation of envy with jealousy, then describes the most important source of the envy, that is, comparisons with others and addresses the hostile nature of envy. The entry concludes with discussion of the possible functions of envy.

The emotion of envy is often confused with that of jealousy. One important reason for this is the semantic overlap in the common language use of the term jealousy. Whereas envy will almost always have a single meaning (i.e., an unfavorable comparison with another person), jealousy is commonly used to mean both jealousy (i.e., a threat of losing someone to a rival) and envy (e.g., “I'm jealous of his house”). An additional reason for the confusion is the tendency for both emotions to co-occur. For example, a rival can be threatening and [Page 533]evoke jealousy precisely because he or she has enviable qualities. Despite the semantic overlap in the use of the term jealousy and the frequent cooccurrence of the two emotions, envy and jealousy are quite different emotions. They are elicited by distinct appraisals and produce distinctive emotional experiences. Envy typically involves two people and occurs when one lacks something enjoyed by another. In contrast, jealousy typically involves three people and occurs when one is threatened by a (feared or actual) loss of an important relationship to another. Furthermore, unlike envy, the experience of jealousy involves fear of loss, anxiety, suspiciousness, and anger about betrayal.

Envy tends to arise because the advantages enjoyed by others have important consequences for how people feel about themselves. Being confronted with another person's relative superiority reflects badly on the self and usually results in envy and the accompanying painful blend of feelings of inferiority, hostility, and resentment. Thus, unfavorable social comparisons are at the heart of envy. Social comparisons that involve someone who is psychologically close (e.g., someone who is similar in background, age, and social class, or shares similar interests, aspirations, values, work, and status) are both more likely and have more impact than do social comparisons with others who are less close. As such, social comparisons with proximate others are more likely to elicit envy. In addition to the impact of psychological closeness, the emotion of envy is also affected by the self-relevance (i.e., personal importance) of the comparative issue. For social comparisons such as these, the threat to people's self-esteem is especially strong and results in an intensified experience of envy. Thus, people envy others who are emotionally significant to them and are perceived to have outperformed them on issues that are important to their self-worth.

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