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The Science of Envy: Why the Emotion That Stings Can Also Push You Forward

2 the researchers behind it — Envy has a reputation as a purely destructive emotion — the one that makes you want to tear others down rather than build yourself up. But decades of

Tilburg University

Niels van de Ven

Known for:Experimental research distinguishing benign from malicious envy, showing that perceived deservingness determines which form emerges and that benign envy drives upward motivation more than admiration does

Key findings

  1. 2009

    With Marcel Zeelenberg and Rik Pieters, van de Ven demonstrated across multiple studies that envy is not a unitary emotion but splits into benign envy (motivating self-improvement when the advantage is seen as deserved) and malicious envy (motivating harm to the other when it is seen as undeserved). ↗

  2. 2009

    The same research found that benign envy — unlike admiration — drives increased persistence on challenging tasks because the uncomfortable motivational pressure of envy is active in a way that admiration's pleasant focus on the other person is not. ↗

Harvard Business School

Francesca Gino

Known for:Research on how successful individuals can mitigate malicious envy from others by revealing their past failures, humanizing their success and raising perceived deservingness

Key findings

  1. 2018

    Research at Harvard Business School showed that successful individuals who reveal their past failures trigger less malicious envy from observers — because humanizing success raises perceived deservingness, shifting others' envy from the malicious toward the benign form. ↗

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