What is it about?
Many studies link envy to feelings of ill will that arise when another person's success is “undeserved.” But not all ill will toward undeserving, successful people is envy—sometimes it’s just moral outrage. Our paper introduces a simple way to tell the difference. We compare reactions from people who could actually feel envy (direct competitors) with reactions from uninvolved third parties. If both groups feel ill will towards the successful person equally, the trigger probably isn’t envy. Using eight studies, we show that “undeserved success” mainly produces general negativity (in both groups), whereas factors tied to status competition—like how much people admire the winner—specifically boost envy in competitors. This lets researchers (and practitioners) separate true envy from look-alike emotions.
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Why is it important?
This work provides a simple diagnostic tool for ruling out whether negativity is driven by envy. Past studies have often blurred the underlying causes of negativity. For example, we show that a widely held claim—“undeserved success causes malicious envy”—does not hold up: It upsets everyone, competitors and bystanders alike, meaning it likely reflects fairness concerns rather than envy. That matters because, for example, organizations often blame “envy” whenever a win feels unfair, which leads to the wrong fixes. Whether in workplaces, schools, or therapy, recognizing whether negative feelings stem from status competition versus fairness concerns points to very different solutions. By offering this clean test, our paper also helps researchers avoid false positives for envy, sharpen their theories, and build cleaner, more replicable studies.
Perspectives
This project shifted how I think about emotions more generally. If envy can be mistaken for moral outrage, then perhaps other emotions are similarly entangled (and I've found they often are). To me, the third-party criterion is not just about envy but about building sharper tools to separate overlapping feelings. That’s what excites me most: It opens the door to clearer theories of social emotions and to more precise ways of addressing them in everyday life.
Mitchell Landers
University of California, San Diego
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Green-eyed monster or green-eyed mirage? A new procedure for telling when begrudging others’ success is or is not envy., Emotion, September 2025, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/emo0001575.
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