RESEARCH_TIMELINE
The Science of Envy: Why the Emotion That Stings Can Also Push You Forward
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 social psychology research tell a more precise story. Envy is not one thing. Research distinguishes benign envy, which motivates upward striving, from malicious envy, which motivates pulling the other person down — and the deciding factor between the two is perceived deservingness. When a friend gets something you want and you believe they earned it, the envy that follows tends to be benign: it predicts warmer, more supportive behavior toward them, not less. The old script — 'envy is always a character flaw' — misses this split almost entirely.
How the science changed · 1991–2025
- 1991
Richard Smith and Sung Hee Kim publish early conceptual work distinguishing envy from related states like resentment and admiration, establishing envy as specifically tied to upward social comparisons with an individual — laying the groundwork for later two-type models. ↗
- 2009
van de Ven, Zeelenberg and Pieters publish a landmark study in Emotion demonstrating that envy splits into two functionally distinct emotions: benign envy (the other deserves their advantage) motivates moving oneself up; malicious envy (they don't deserve it) motivates pulling them down. Perceived deservingness is the hinge. ↗
- 2011
Follow-up experimental work by van de Ven and colleagues confirms that benign envy increases persistence on challenging tasks: participants induced to feel benign envy worked harder and longer than those in admiration or neutral conditions, whereas malicious envy did not produce the same motivational boost. ↗
- 2018
Harvard Business School researchers publish findings that successful individuals who reveal their past failures trigger less malicious envy from observers — humanizing success reduces the perception that it was undeserved, shifting others' envy toward the benign form. ↗
- 2021
A Frontiers in Psychology study validates the two-face model and adds a self-control dimension: individuals with higher dispositional self-control are better able to channel envy toward benign rather than malicious responses, suggesting the split is not just about context but also about regulation capacity. ↗
- 2025
Applied psychology coverage synthesizes research on friendship jealousy specifically, noting that benign envy after a friend's success — when the friend's win is seen as deserved — predicts warmer and more supportive behavior toward that friend rather than withdrawal or sabotage. ↗