Why envy outperforms admiration reading

Question 1

Describe the methods and results of study 1

Answer 1

Purpose: Does benign envy lead to a motivation to improve oneself?
Method: Participants described a person they knew who was better at something and were then asked to rate how envious of the person they were (three measures of envy; benign envy, malicious envy and admiration)
- then participants responded to a question about motivation in studying during the semester they planned on doing
Results: only benign envy was significantly related to increase in study hours the participant planned on doing

Question 2

Describe the methods and results of study 2

Answer 2

Purpose: to replicate study 1 and to see if behavioural outperformance led to motivation to improve oneself
Method: participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: benign envy, malicious envy, admiration or control
- after recalling an envy experience specific to the group they were in, participants were asked how pleasant or unpleasant those feelings were and how deserved they felt that another person had an advantage over them
- participants were then asked to fill out the RAT
Results: (1) all envy experiences were rated equally negative, (2) Malicious envy was considered to be undeserved while benign and admiration were considered to be deserved, (3) participants in the benign envy condition did better on the RAT than those in the other conditions

Question 3

Describe the methods and results of study 3

Answer 3

Purpose: to eliminate the possibility that participants in study 2 rated envy because of a factor such as social status and not because of performance
Method: participants were randomly assigned to benign envy, malicious envy, admiration or control conditions
- participants all read the same fake story about an exceptional student at their university and were asked to describe how they would feel upon meeting this student
- participants were then checked for the manipulation and asked to work on the RAT
Results: Participants in the benign envy condition performed better on the RAT than the other conditions and participants in the benign envy condition persisted for a longer time on the RAT puzzles than the other conditions

Question 4

Describe the methods and results of study 4

Answer 4

Purpose: to focus on the relationship between admiration and envy
Method: Participants were primed either to believe that changing one’s behaviour is easy or that change is difficult
- participants then read the same story as study 3 and were asked how benign/maliciously envious and how much admiration they felt towards the superior student
- then participants were asked how much time they planned on studying this semester
Results: participants in the change is easy condition felt more benign envy compared to the change is difficult condition
- participants in the change is easy condition planned on studying for longer hours during the coming semester
- people who think that improvement is under one’s own control experience more benign envy, leading to a higher motivation to self-improve