What is it about?
Envy, the unpleasant emotion resulting from a specific negative social comparison, is discussed. A new measure designed to assess it is developed, validated, and cross-validated in 3 studies. The implications of episodic envy are also examined. Results show that episodic envy is composed of a feeling component and a comparison component. Results also show that envy is different from unfairness, admiration, and competition. The feeling component is strongly correlated with unpleasant emotional reactions (anxiety, depression, negative mood, hostility) and behavioral reactions (e.g., harming the other, creating a negative work atmosphere) to envy. The comparison component is correlated with behaviors intended to improve one’s position in the organization. Episodic envy predicts reactions to envy above and beyond dispositional envy.
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Why is it important?
This article offers a clear conceptualization and explanation of envy. It also offers a validated measure of envy as an emotional reaction in specific situations. This is the only validated measure of envy that exists today.
Perspectives
I hope this paper helps explain what is envy. The study of envy is very prolific these days and there are multiple conceptualizations of envy. This one, in my opinion, is the most valid one. In my other papers, I provide additional explanations of its validity in comparison to other conceptualizations of envy, such as benign and malicious.
Professor Yochi Cohen-Charash
Baruch College
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Episodic Envy, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, September 2009, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2009.00519.x.
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