How Do People Respond to Threatened Social Status?

Abstract

Envy can motivate to strive for self-improvement, but can also lead to hostile behavior. These diverging outcomes of upward comparisons reflect two kinds of envy: benign envy, motivating to level oneself up, and malicious envy, motivating to level others down. We argue that these pathways of envious responding relate to the pursuit of prestige and dominance as two ways of achieving social status and posit that they can clarify determinants of benign versus malicious envy. We review evidence on envy moderators on the dispositional level related to reactions in the face of status threat, such as basic motivational tendencies and grandiose narcissism. Furthermore, we describe how status-related moderators on the social level, such as perceived pride in the superior other, may shape envious responding. We outline how a socialfunctional approach to envy-conceptualized as a status-related emotion-can contribute to a more complete understanding of the diversity of envious behavior.

The painful duality of envy: Evidence for an integrative theory and a meta-analysis on the relation of envy and schadenfreude.

“…In this triad, envy is a negative affective state following from an upward comparison of the envier to the envied person with respect to the envy object (Miceli & Castelfranchi, 2007; Smith & Kim, 2007). Research supports that envy is enhanced when the envy object is relevant for social status (Crusius & Lange, 2017; Fiske, 2010; Lange, Blatz, & Crusius, in press; Lange & Crusius, 2015b; Silver & Sabini, 1978) and when the envier perceives the envied person to be similar to the self (Henniger & Harris, 2015; Schaubroeck & Lam, 2004). Envy is not necessarily a short-term affective state but has been hypothesized to evolve (Hoogland, Thielke, & Smith, 2017) and transmute into other emotions (Smith, 2004) over time.…”

Telescopes and microscopes of motivation: Emulative goals in admiration and envy differ in abstractness and temporal orientation

“…Indeed, envy can cause increased desire for others' superior goods (Crusius & Mussweiler, 2012;Van de Ven, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2011a), predict higher goal setting (Lange & Crusius, 2015a), elicit more effort (Lange & Crusius, 2015b), and be a precursor for higher performance (Schaubroeck & Lam, 2004). A growing amount of theorizing and empirical research (Crusius & Lange, 2017;Falcon, 2015;Lange, Blatz, & Crusius, 2018;Lange & Crusius, 2015b;Lange, Weidman, & Crusius, 2018;Van de Ven, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2009) supports that emulative tendencies are characteristic of a specific form of envy-benign envy.…”

“…Functionally, benign envy has been proposed to reduce status differences by prompting efforts to level oneself up. In contrast, malicious envy might be aimed at reducing status differences by leveling superior others down (Crusius & Lange, 2017;Van de Ven et al, 2009). Thus, according to this theoretical approach, upward motivation is a defining element of benign envy.…”

Counterfactual thoughts distinguish benign and malicious envy

“…Taken together, the studies complement and extend earlier research showing that counterfactual thinking predicts the intensity of envy (Van de Ven & Zeelenberg, 2015). Resting on functional accounts of counterfactual thinking and envy (Crusius & Lange, 2017;Van de Ven et al, 2009), they suggest that specific counterfactuals reflect and shape envious responding. Situational demands may thus elicit certain counterfactual thoughts that underlie benign versus malicious envy in line with their functions.…”