Leveling up and down: The experiences of benign and malicious envy
van de Ven, Zeelenberg and Pieters proposed that envy takes two forms, benign envy that moves a person to improve their own standing and malicious envy that moves a person to undermine someone who is doing better. Study 1 was run in the Netherlands, where separate words exist for the two forms, and studies 2 and 3 in the United States and Spain, where one word covers both. In all three samples a latent class analysis of the emotional experience supported the distinction. The authors discuss implications for cooperation and group performance.
van de Ven, Zeelenberg and Pieters proposed that envy takes two forms, benign envy that moves a person to improve their own standing and malicious envy that moves a person to undermine someone who is doing better. Study 1 was run in the Netherlands, where separate words exist for the two forms, and studies 2 and 3 in the United States and Spain, where one word covers both. In all three samples a latent class analysis of the emotional experience supported the distinction. The authors discuss implications for cooperation and group performance.
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van de Ven, N., Zeelenberg, M., & Pieters, R. (2009). Leveling up and down: The experiences of benign and malicious envy. Emotion, 9(3), 419-429. doi:10.1037/a0015669 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015669