The bidirectional relationship between benign/malicious envy and subjective well-being in adolescents: The mediating effect of self-esteem.

INTRODUCTION: Subjective well-being, an important index for measuring mental health, is presently declining among junior high school students. Envy, one of their common emotions, is inextricably linked to subjective well-being. Based on the Dual Envy Theory, our research explores the bidirectional relationship between benign-malicious envy and subjective well-being. The mediating role of self-esteem, as well as the related gender differences, is examined. METHODS: Chinese middle school students (n = 1566, boys 50.3%, age = 13.96 ± 0.88 years old) were assessed at two time points over a 3-month interval. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the longitudinal relationships among the variables. RESULTS: (1) Cross-lagged analysis showed a positive bidirectional relationship between benign envy and subjective well-being and a negative bidirectional relationship between malicious envy and subjective well-being in the total sample. However, the path from T1 subjective well-being to T2 malicious envy in boys was not significant. (2) Self-esteem mediated the relationship between both benign and malicious envy and subjective well-being among both boys and girls. A Wald chi-square test showed that T2 self-esteem was a stronger predictor of T2 benign envy in boys than in girls. CONCLUSION: The results reveal a virtuous cycle of benign envy and subjective well-being, and a vicious cycle of malicious envy and subjective well-being, while emphasizing the role of self-esteem in this process. Gender differences were also noted. These findings have important implications for improving the subjective well-being of secondary school students and exploring the positive effects of envy.

Are different countries equally green with envy? A comparison of the everyday concept of envy in the United States, Spain, and Germany.

Using a prototype approach to emotion concepts, we mapped the internal structure and content of the everyday concept of envy (as used in the United States) and its translation equivalents of envidia in Spanish and Neid in German. In Study 1 (total N = 415), the features of the concept of envy, envidia, and Neid were generated via an open-ended questionnaire. In Study 2 (total N = 404), participants rated the degree of typicality of the constitutive features on a forced-choice questionnaire. The prototype analysis of envy, supplemented with network analyses, revealed that the largest connected set of features of envy, envidia, and Neid shared a group of central features, including features related to success or to people with a better appearance. Still, envy, envidia, and Neid did differ with respect to their constituent peripheral features as well as the density of their networks, their structure, and the betweenness centrality of the nodes. These results suggest that a prototype approach combined with network analysis is a convenient approach for studying the internal structure of everyday emotion concepts and the degree of overlap with respect to the translation equivalents in different countries.

The relationship between self-efficacy, malicious or benign envy in nurses: A cross-sectional study.

AIM: To determine whether nurses' self-efficacy affected envy levels and to develop the necessary strategies. BACKGROUND: Envy is a widespread global phenomenon. Envy can harm the individual, the work environment, and nursing care. However, the relationships between self-efficacy and envy have not been adequately explored in the nursing context. METHODS: This study was conducted as a cross-sectional descriptive study. The study sample consisted of 361 nurses working in a university hospital in a province of Türkiye. The research model was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The participants were selected using convenience sampling. This study was reported using the STROBE checklist for cross-sectional studies. RESULTS: Nurses' educational status affected their self-efficacy. No other personal characteristics influenced self-efficacy and envy. There was a positive relationship between malicious and benign envy. As nurses' self-efficacy increased, malicious envy decreased and benign envy increased. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study showed that nurses' education level affected self-efficacy, and self-efficacy level affected envy, and malicious envy could be reduced by improving nurses' self-efficacy. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND HEALTH POLICY: Nursing managers and policymakers should support nursing education at the minimum undergraduate level, encourage nurses to continue their professional education to improve their self-efficacy, and provide training to increase their self-efficacy.

Overactivation of posterior insular, postcentral and temporal regions during preserved experience of envy in autism.

Social emotions are critical to successfully navigate in a complex social world because they promote self-regulation of behaviour. Difficulties in social behaviour are at the core of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, social emotions and their neural correlates have been scarcely investigated in this population. In particular, the experience of envy has not been addressed in ASD despite involving neurocognitive processes crucially compromised in this condition. Here, we used an fMRI adapted version of a well-validated task to investigate the subjective experience of envy and its neural correlates in adults with ASD (n = 30) in comparison with neurotypical controls (n = 28). Results revealed that both groups reported similarly intense experience of envy in association with canonical activation in the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula, among other regions. However, in participants with ASD, the experience of envy was accompanied by overactivation of the posterior insula, the postcentral gyrus and the posterior superior temporal gyrus, regions subserving the processing of painful experiences and mentalizing. This pattern of results suggests that individuals with ASD may use compensatory strategies based on the embodied amplification of pain and additional mentalizing efforts to shape their subjective experience of envy. Results have relevant implications to better understand the heterogeneity of this condition and to develop new intervention targets.

Bidirectional relations between altruistic tendency and benign/malicious envy among adolescents: A longitudinal study and weekly diary study.

Altruism is a prosocial tendency that has developed through long-term evolutionary selection. The present study adopts social comparison and evolutionary psychology theories to examine how benign/malicious envy can affect altruism and how altruism can affect the two types of envy in turn, respectively. In Study 1, 513 adolescents participated in a three-wave longitudinal survey to explore the relationships between dispositional altruistic tendency and dispositional benign/malicious envy. The cross-lagged analysis showed a long-term and stable negative bidirectional relationship between dispositional altruistic tendency and dispositional malicious envy and a short-term positive bidirectional relationship between dispositional altruism and dispositional benign envy. In Study 2, 109 adolescents kept a weekly diary for seven consecutive weeks to record state levels of altruistic tendency and benign/malicious envy in their daily lives. The hierarchical linear model demonstrated that weekly altruistic tendency and weekly benign envy could positively predict each other, and weekly altruistic tendency presented a negative bidirectional relationship with weekly malicious envy. These findings offer an effective way to study the relationship between human behavior and emotions from perspectives of social comparison and evolutionary psychology theories. Meanwhile, it also has practical significance for the harmonious development of society.

Vaccine envy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The term vaccine envy (i.e., envy experienced when others are given the opportunity to receive a COVID-19 vaccine) was coined during the COVID-19 pandemic and has received media attention. This study is the first to systematically investigate vaccine envy. In two pre-registered online surveys conducted in May 2021 (N = 1,174) and October/November 2021 (N = 535), we collected data from vaccinated and unvaccinated German participants, including measures of vaccine envy, well-being, personal experiences during the pandemic, and various trait constructs (e.g., justice sensitivity and self-esteem). We found that in May 2021, 47% of participants experienced vaccine envy at least sometimes and that vaccine envy was connected to victim sensitivity, subjective perceptions of being threatened by the pandemic, and an increased willingness to be vaccinated. By November 2021, however, vaccine envy among unvaccinated participants had almost disappeared. Our findings advance the understanding of the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

How personal relative deprivation influences moral disengagement: The role of malicious envy and Honesty-Humility.

Scant research has investigated the potential influence of personal relative deprivation on moral disengagement, and little is known regarding the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Inspired by relative deprivation theory, this study proposed a moderated mediation model to explore the relationship between personal relative deprivation and moral disengagement by examining the mediating role of malicious envy and the moderating role of Honesty-Humility. Five hundred and eighty-nine Chinese adults completed anonymous measures of personal relative deprivation, malicious envy, Honesty-Humility, and moral disengagement. Results revealed that personal relative deprivation was positively correlated with moral disengagement and that malicious envy fully mediated this relationship. Moderated mediation analysis indicated that Honesty-Humility moderated the relationship between personal relative deprivation and malicious envy and that between malicious envy and moral disengagement. Specifically, both relationships became weaker for adults with higher levels of Honesty-Humility. These findings not only highlight the importance of identifying the underlying mechanisms between personal relative deprivation and moral disengagement, but also provide valuable implications for the effective prevention and mitigation of moral disengagement.

Understanding the causes and consequences of envy among nurses: A scoping review.

AIM: This scoping review presents an overview of the causes and consequences of envy among clinical nurses. BACKGROUND: Many nurses in the United States have in recent years left their permanent positions for temporary agency assignments that pay higher salaries. Although greed seems like a likely explanation for the rise in travel nursing, humans tend to have a particular interest in wanting what others have. EVALUATION: A five-stage scoping review framework and the PRISMA-ScR checklist guided this review. KEY ISSUES: Social comparison and malicious envy are prevalent among nurses. Envy is a powerful emotion that affects human communication and behaviour in organizations. Scholars have underexplored the potential benefits of leveraging benign envy in the nursing context. CONCLUSION: The results highlight the relational nature of envy. Social comparison and envy provide an insight that suggests that nurses who change jobs are not necessarily greedy. They may be seeking the right mix of tangible and intangible rewards. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Greed and envy can motivate nurses to change jobs. Although envy and greed may produce the same outcome, they are qualitatively different. The motivation to change jobs alludes to nurses' desire to have better control of their professional and personal lives.

Exposure to the Positivity Bias and Adolescents' Differential Longitudinal Links with Social Comparison, Inspiration and Envy Depending on Social Media Literacy.

Social media literacy is assumed to protect adolescents from negative social media effects, yet research supporting this is lacking. The current three-wave panel study with a four-month interval among N = 1,032 adolescents tests this moderating role of social media literacy. Specifically, we examine between- vs. within-person relations of exposure to the positivity bias on social media, social comparison, envy, and inspiration. We find significant positive relations between these variables at the between-person level. At the within-person level, a different pattern of results occurred: higher exposure to others' perfect lives on social media was related to increased inspiration, and higher social comparison was related to increased envy, yet both associations only occurred in one of the two time intervals. Additionally, no within-person associations between exposure to positive content and envy were significant, nor between exposure and social comparison or social comparison and inspiration. These results thus seem more complex than traditional paradigms of selective and transactional media effects assume. Furthermore, multiple group tests showed that the within-person cross-lagged relation between social comparison and envy only occurred for adolescents with low affective social media literacy. The moderating role of social media literacy was not supported in any other instances. The results overall point at the need to instruct affective social media literacy to help adolescents navigate positively biased social media platforms in a healthy way.

Neuroanatomy of complex social emotion dysregulation in adolescent offenders.

Social emotions require the correct integration of emotional, cognitive, and social processes and are critical for complex social interactions. Adolescent criminal offenders (AOs) show abnormalities in the experience of basic emotions. However, most research has focused solely on basic emotions, neglecting complex social emotions that could be critical for social reintegration. The purpose of this study was to investigate the behavioral and neural correlates of social emotions (envy and Schadenfreude) in AOs. We explored the experience of complex social emotions, as well as their anatomical correlates, in AOs (n = 19) and a nonoffenders control group (NOs, n = 20). Additionally, we assessed the relationship between social emotions, executive functions (EFs), and fluid intelligence (FI). Structural brain imaging was obtained in all participants. The results showed that AOs had significantly lower envy and Schadenfreude ratings and exhibited lower performance in EFs compared with NOs. The measurement of EFs relied on the INECO frontal screening (IFS). Experiencing fewer social emotions was associated with diminished EFs but not with FI. Moreover, in AOs, reduced levels of envy and Schadenfreude were linked with reduced gray matter volumes in regions subserving mentalizing abilities (inferior parietal lobe and precuneus) and socioemotional processing (inferior and middle temporal regions), as well as key hubs of the executive frontoparietal network (inferior parietal lobule, orbital and rectus gyri). Additional analysis on the AOs revealed no associations between the type of crime and our variables of interest (EFs, FI and social emotions). Our findings are the first to provide evidence on abnormalities in the experience of social emotions in AOs that are associated with neurocognitive markers of social cognition and EFs. Understanding social emotions and their abnormalities (under-experience) as complex intertwined processes may have important future translational implications, including risk prediction for social adaptation/reintegration, sociocognitive targeted interventions, and skill training for social emotions in vulnerable populations.

Testing three explanations for stigmatization of people of Asian descent during COVID-19: maladaptive coping, biased media use, or racial prejudice?

OBJECTIVE: To investigate factors associated with the stigmatization of people of Asian descent during COVID-19 in the United States and factors that can mitigate or prevent stigmatization. DESIGN: A national sample survey of adults (N = 842) was conducted online between May 11 and May 19, 2020. Outcome variables were two dimensions of stigmatization, responsibility and persons as risk. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed. RESULTS: Racial prejudice, maladaptive coping, and biased media use each explained stigmatization. Racial prejudice, comprising stereotypical beliefs and emotion toward Asian Americans, was a stronger predictor of stigmatization than maladaptive coping or biased media use. Fear concerning the ongoing COVID-19 situation and the use of social media and partisan cable TV also predicted stigmatization. Low self-efficacy in dealing with COVID-19, when associated with high estimated harm of COVID-19, increased stigmatization. High perceived institutional efficacy in the handling of COVID-19 increased stigmatization when linked to high estimated harm of COVID-19. On the other hand, high perceived collective efficacy in coping with COVID-19 was associated with low stigmatization. More indirect contacts with Asians via the media predicted less stigmatization. CONCLUSIONS: Efforts to reduce stigmatization should address racial stereotypes and emotions, maladaptive coping, and biased media use by providing education and resources to the public. Fostering collective efficacy and media-based contacts with Asian Americans can facilitate these efforts.

Collective Strategy Condensation: When Envy Splits Societies.

Human societies are characterized by three constituent features, besides others. (A) Options, as for jobs and societal positions, differ with respect to their associated monetary and non-monetary payoffs. (B) Competition leads to reduced payoffs when individuals compete for the same option as others. (C) People care about how they are doing relatively to others. The latter trait -the propensity to compare one's own success with that of others- expresses itself as envy. It is shown that the combination of (A)-(C) leads to spontaneous class stratification. Societies of agents split endogenously into two social classes, an upper and a lower class, when envy becomes relevant. A comprehensive analysis of the Nash equilibria characterizing a basic reference game is presented. Class separation is due to the condensation of the strategies of lower-class agents, which play an identical mixed strategy. Upper-class agents do not condense, following individualist pure strategies. The model and results are size-consistent, holding for arbitrary large numbers of agents and options. Analytic results are confirmed by extensive numerical simulations. An analogy to interacting confined classical particles is discussed.

Individual differences in envy experienced through perspective-taking involves functional connectivity of the superior frontal gyrus.

Envy is the painful or resentful awareness of another's advantage combined with a desire to possess that same advantage. Recent neuroscientific research has begun to shed light on the brain regions that process the experience of envy, including regions of the prefrontal cortex involved in emotional processing and social cognition. It is still unclear, however, which regions of the brain are functionally connected during the experience of envy. We recorded functional neuroimaging data while inducing simulated envy in participants, experienced through a perspective-taking hypothetical scenario task. In this task, participants took the perspective of a protagonist portrayed in a written description and compared themselves to either i) a self-similar/superior individual, ii) a self-dissimilar/superior individual, or iii) a self-dissimilar/average individual. During each comparison, participants also reported how much envy they experienced while taking the protagonists perspective. We demonstrate an inverse relationship in the connectivity of the left superior frontal gyrus to both the right supramarginal gyrus and the precuneus with respect to self-reported envy ratings across participants. In other words, we show that the greater the functional connectivity that the left superior frontal gyrus shares with the right supramarginal gyrus and precuneus, the less reported envy a participant experiences. Overall, our results are in line with previous research implicating the superior frontal gyrus in the reappraisal of negative emotions and extend these findings by showing this region is also involved in modulating the simulated experience of the social comparative, negative emotion of envy.

Cognitive behavioural responses to envy: development of a new measure.

BACKGROUND: Envy is depicted as motivating destructive desires and actions intended to spoil or destroy that which is envied. AIM: To develop a new valid and reliable measure of malicious envy (C-BRES), which included items representing the cognitive, emotional and behavioural responses empirically associated with this emotion. METHOD: A total of 203 adults completed the new 22-item cognitive and behavioural responses to envy scale (C-BRES). Exploratory factor analysis was carried out to test for reliability and internal consistency of the C-BRES. Evidence towards the concurrent construct validity (convergent and discriminant) of the C-BRES was assessed through correlations with the Dispositional envy scale and other measures of psychosocial outcomes empirically linked to envy. RESULTS: Factor analysis for categorical data identified five dimensions of envy, namely: injustice, hostility, malicious action tendencies, malicious feelings and behavioural responses. The reliability indices of the five factors and the total scale were satisfactory (>0.85). Evidence towards the concurrent construct validity (convergent and discriminant) of the C-BRES is reported. In particular, envy was associated with higher levels of depression, psychoticism, neuroticism, anger and lower levels of self-esteem and quality of life. CONCLUSION: All findings support the psychometric adequacy of the C-BRES.

How mindfulness affects benign and malicious envy from the perspective of the mindfulness reperceiving model.

At present, mindfulness is a hotspot in psychological research. Mindfulness is an effective tool that enables people to effectively inhibit negative emotions. Previous studies have shown that envy is a typical negative emotion; however, envy can be divided into two completely different types: benign envy and malicious envy. The question then arises, how does mindfulness affect both types of envy? Using a mindfulness reperceiving model, we explored the effect of mindfulness on these two different types of envy and on the mediating mechanism of psychological resilience. To accomplish this, we recruited 676 Chinese undergraduates to complete the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), the Benign and Malicious Envy Scale (BEMAS) and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). The results we obtained showed that mindfulness and psychological resilience significantly and negatively predicted malicious envy and that psychological resilience played a partially mediating role in the relationship. In addition, the results showed that there was no significant effect between mindfulness and benign envy; however, psychological resilience can significantly and positively predict benign envy and played a completely mediating role between mindfulness and benign envy. These results effectively extend theories based on the mindfulness reperceiving model while also being important for promoting benign envy and inhibiting malicious envy in terms of improving mindfulness and psychological resilience.

Social comparison and perceived envy-motivated communication involving travel nurses: A qualitative study.

AIM: This study investigated travel nurses' perception of their communication and relational experiences with other nurses. BACKGROUND: It is common for nurses to offer and to accept help, especially since nurses enter and exit numerous nursing teams throughout their careers and sometimes several times within a single shift. The social norm of reciprocity suggests that nurses supported by other nurses will likely reciprocate in prosocial behaviour. However, when and whom one can or will help highlight differences in individuals' ability to share and compete for personal and professional resources. METHOD: Thematic analysis on data collected through semi-structured interviews. RESULTS: Four categories of perceived envy-motivated communication conceptualize nurses' communication and relational experiences. CONCLUSION: This study underscores the pervasiveness of social comparison and perceived envy-motivated communication among nurses. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nurse managers should explore how they might leverage social comparison and the effects of envy to improve unit productivity. One strategy that nurse managers might adopt to promote fairness perception and trust is to communicate expressly how they allocate resources to their nurses. A sequential strategy to level the gap in nurses' exposure to different ways of overcoming resource deficiencies is to encourage mutual learning as prosocial behaviour.

From envy to social anxiety and rumination: How social media site addiction triggers task distraction amongst nurses.

AIM: To investigate the effect of social networking site addiction on task distraction among nurses. BACKGROUND: Most of the existing literature focuses only on positive aspects of social networking site, while negative aspects thereof have rarely been highlighted. The current study focuses on finding the impact of social networking site addiction and mental states like envy, social anxiety and rumination on task distraction among nurses. METHOD: Data were collected through self-administrated questionnaires from 378 nurses in Pakistan. The study used descriptive and inferential statistics including correlation and structural equation modelling techniques to test the hypothesized model. RESULTS: The results suggest that social networking site addiction results in task distraction which is further enhanced by envy, social anxiety and rumination among nurses. CONCLUSION: The study contends that social networking site addiction stimulates various stressors among nurses such as envy, social anxiety and rumination that augment its negative effects on task distraction. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Findings of the study can be used develop strategies to control task distraction among nurses to limit its negative impact and to enhance work performance. Awareness campaigns can help nurses and other healthcare professionals to comprehend the effects of using social media at work.

Schadenfreude, malicious and benign envy are associated with low body mass index in restrictive-type anorexia nervosa.

PURPOSE: According to the Cognitive-Interpersonal Maintenance Model of anorexia nervosa, social factors are involved in the maintenance and development of this disorder. Therefore, this study aimed to test whether patients with restrictive-type anorexia nervosa (AN-R) experience malicious envy (negative emotions associated with the wish that others lack their superior quality), benign envy (negative emotions associated with the desire to reach and obtain the others' superior quality) and Schadenfreude (pleasure at the misfortunes of others) with a higher intensity than healthy controls (HC). METHODS: 26 AN-R patients and 32 HC completed scenarios that aimed to induce envy and Schadenfreude and completed questionnaires measuring envy, self-esteem and social comparison. RESULTS: AN-R patients reported more benign envy than HC. Interestingly, higher body mass index (BMI) was associated with less Schadenfreude, malicious and benign envy in AN-R only. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that AN-R patients present higher motivation to evolve when facing others' superior quality (i.e., benign envy). It also underlines the importance of considering social factors in the maintenance of AN-R and the role of BMI when examining emotions related to others' fortune. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level III, case-control analytic study.

Construct validation of the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire in Spanish-speaking countries: Assessment of the reliability, structural and external validity and cross-cultural equivalence.

A recent re-operationalisation of grandiose narcissism has resulted in the distinction of two narcissistic strategies based on the cognitive, affective-motivational and behavioural dynamics: admiration (assertive self-enhancement) and rivalry (antagonistic self-protection). The Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire (NARQ) was developed to assess this model with two higher-order dimensions. However, cross-validations of the NARQ have not been extensively conducted across diverse population groups and languages. This study aimed to test the internal and external validity (through the relation with envy and self-esteem), reliability and cross-cultural equivalence of the Spanish version of the NARQ. The psychometric properties were evaluated in a Spanish sample (N = 310), and cross-cultural equivalence was tested in participants from Chile (N = 234) and Colombia (N = 256). The results supported the reliability and validity of the Spanish NARQ, as well as the cross-cultural equivalence across Spanish-speaking countries. In addition, we discuss obtained differences across Spanish, Chilean and Colombian sample within two narcissistic strategies.

Yesterday's News: A Temporal Discontinuity in the Sting of Inferiority.

Reactions to other people who get desirable outcomes should be a simple function of how much one desires those outcomes. Four studies ( N = 4,978) suggest that one's reactions depend on the temporal location of outcome acquisition: Observers care more (e.g., feel more envy) right before, versus right after, other people have identical experiences (Studies 1, 2a, and 2b). For example, participants' envy in February rose as Valentine's Day approached (as a peer's enviable date loomed in the future) but abruptly plateaued come February 15 onward (after the date occurred). Further, the passing of time specifically assuaged the pain of comparison (whereas positive reactions, such as feeling inspired, remained high; Studies 3a, 3b, and 3c); therefore, taking a past perspective can be used to regulate negative emotions in the present (Study 4). Time asymmetrically shapes the experience of upward comparison, despite other people's desirable outcomes indeed being achieved. Other people's good lives sting less if they have already lived them.