Envy of good and envy of bad

• April 29, 2024

Recent behavioral studies found that depending on the nature of envy, whether benign or malignant, a higher price is paid, whether to imitate the behavior or pass it, publish the news portal TIME Heatlhland.

Researchers from the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands, they studied behavior of envy among students, questioning their actions derived from certain social contexts. Among the questions asked were asked to imagine a partner with an iPhone (or any other object of desire) that they coveted. Afterwards, they were asked to imagine feeling envy or admiration for the companion (benign envy ) or envy "of the bad" (malicious envy ), or simply feel envious of the product itself.

The results were published in the Journal of Consumer Research and they showed complex patterns of decision making . Volunteers who felt a benign envy , they were willing to pay more than $ 100 to have an iPhone, after seeing that their partner had one. But the individuals who coveted the object "reluctantly "They are more likely to pay a much larger amount for a similar but different gadget, for example, a deluxe version of a BlackBerry.

The malicious envy occurs if the other person is considered not worthy, or that does not deserve the object and evokes a desire to bring down the partner or friend, indicate the results of the investigation.

The study reveals that our impulse to judge Who deserves that, has to do with how we see ourselves. "Envy is not the result of making comparisons with another person, but making comparisons with people who have a superior command of objects that are important to oneself. Social comparisons are more likely to occur with people who are initially similar, because the more similar they are, the more intense the feeling of envy becomes. "

The logic of benign envy is that if you see a person similar to you, with the life and objects that you consider desirable, you would think that you deserve it too and you are willing to pay to obtain them. However, the logic of malicious envy is that if you observe a similar one with the object of desire, you you want to show your superiority by degrading his new possession. To do so, you will pay a much larger and more luxurious amount, but different to have a similar object.

The note of the portal emphasizes that the difference between the two types of envy is not associated by the motivation to be like the other, but that the behavior that motivates is to solve the inequality, increasing or decreasing, the position of the other.

Video Medicine: Is Envy Good or Bad? (April 2024).