Highlights • Facebook use has recently been linked to depression and negative affectivity. • Unflattering social comparison and envy are common experiences for Facebook users. • Envy and social comparison mediate correlations between Facebook use and depression. • Facebook research sheds new light on the relationship between envy and depression. • Further experiments and experience sampling should corroborate causal links.

the co-occurrence of depression and envy is both plausible and empirically established. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying this correlation. An account is proposed according to which low self-esteem in depressed individuals leads to upward social comparison and thus makes envy more likely. this effect should frequently occur in online social networks like Facebook because they allow for easy impression management and hence provide high comparison standards. in a quasi-experimental online study, depressed and nondepressed participants indicated their self-esteem and were then presented with specifically set up Facebook profiles that were either attractive or unattractive. Participants were asked to compare themselves to the profile owner and to report their resulting feelings of inferiority and envy. depressed participants were more envious, especially after seeing the attractive profile. envy was associated with higher self-reported inferiority and also correlated negatively with self-esteem. the connection between depression and envy is demonstrated with an experimental elicitation of envy for the first time. the results strongly suggest that low self-esteem and consequent feelings of inferiority play a crucial role in depressed individuals' elevated levels of envy. Practical implications and limitations are discussed.

Indecisiveness, the subjective inability to make satisfying decisions, is an individual difference trait that may impede effective actions. Mechanisms underlying indecisiveness are largely unknown. In four studies, we tested the prediction that indicators of evaluation difficulty were associated with indecisiveness in simple evaluations. Across studies, indecisiveness was measured via self-report while evaluation difficulties were derived behaviorally from three indicators: difficulty distinguishing between similar evaluation objects (i.e., standard deviation of evaluation ratings), evaluation duration (reaction times), and implicit evaluations (evaluative priming effect) using familiar everyday objects. Study 1 (N = 151) was based on attractiveness evaluations of portraits. Studies 2a (N = 201) and 2b (N = 211) used chocolate as evaluation objects and manipulated to what extent the evaluations were equivalent to a decision. In Study 3 (N = 80) evaluations were measured implicitly through evaluative priming using food pictures. Contrary to our predictions, indecisiveness showed no reliable association to any indicator of evaluation difficulty, regardless of type of evaluation object, equivalence of evaluation and decision, and whether evaluation difficulty was based on explicit or implicit evaluations. All null findings were supported by Bayes factors. These counterintuitive results are a first step toward investigating evaluation processes as potential mechanisms underlying indecisiveness, showing that for both explicit and implicit measurements, indecisiveness is not characterized by difficulties when evaluating familiar everyday objects.

In decision making, intolerance of uncertainty (IU) may be linked to safety behavior, which could ironically maintain IU and, thus, foster indecisiveness. In a smartphone-based experience sampling study, 247 participants described their real-life decisions six times per day and rated (a) their situational indecisiveness, (b) decision characteristics, (c) situational IU, and (d) problematic safety behaviors. Participants higher in dispositional IU reported more indecisiveness and engaged in more problematic safety behavior across measurements. The same relationships were observed with situational IU at the level of individual measurements. Engaging in more problematic safety behaviors during the first days predicted indecisiveness on the last day, mediated by IU. The results demonstrate the real-life relevance of the relationship between IU, indecisiveness, and safety behavior.