Social comparison Part 3
Consequences and targets of envy, weak ties, schadenfreude, anger, shame, humiliation and pride
The first post in this series discussed Social Comparison Orientation, introduced the concept of envy, and for the most part explored envy from an evolutionary, societal and cultural perspective. The second post explored developmental psychology and benign vs malicious envy. Lets continue where we left off…
Consequences of envy
You may recall Sir Walter Raleigh’s fate from part 1… He was courageous, handsome and smart; this indirectly led to his eventual execution. There are more modern, less brutal, cases of leaders getting rid of advisors who are too good at their job. The punishment varies with the times, but basically people in power feel threatened by others and in turn have them ostracised or even killed in order to secure their own positions. The most insane takeaway, is this holds even when advisors didn’t demonstrably ‘make a play’ for leaders’ positions.
In Robert Greene’s book The 48 Laws of Power, he writes:
Everyone has insecurities. When you show yourself in the world and display your talents, you naturally stir up all kinds of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity. This is to be expected. You cannot spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others. With those above you, however, you must take a different approach: When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all.
“Never outshine the master.”
He goes on to advocate for humility and modesty, and expand on how people generally want to feel secure in their positions, and superior to those around them in intelligence, wit, and charm. As a result, the advice is to attribute any successes to your leaders’ mentorship and always credit them or at least their leadership with what you have achieved.
“Being defeated is hateful, and besting one’s boss is either foolish or fatal. Most people do not mind being surpassed in good fortune, character, or temperament, but no one, especially not a sovereign, likes to be surpassed in intelligence.”
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) believed that envy was natural to man and therefore part of us all. He believed that envy came about in ‘the inevitable comparison between our own situation and that of others.’ When we compare ourselves to others, we highlight our differences and in doing so, highlight our own inferiorities. We start believing that we are unhappy because of these things we lack in comparison, and envy creeps in.
“To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer, 1850, On the Suffering of the World)
In his book The Laws of Human Nature author Robert Greene explains how Arthur Schopenhauer had a simple test for envy…
Tell suspected enviers some good news about yourself - a promotion, a new and exciting love interest, a book contract. You will notice a very quick expression of disappointment, but their tone of voice as they congratulate you will betray some tension and strain in their voice. Maybe a faux “great job” or a patronising “happy for you.” Another option, he explains, is telling them some misfortune of yours, and then noticing their micro-expressions of joy in your pain. As Greene writes, “their eyes light up for a fleeting second” because people experiencing envy can’t help feeling some glee when they learn of misfortunes experienced by the people they envy.
How about envy and age? At first it might feel intuitive to assume old people envy young people, and tend to be more bitter on average, because “youth is wasted on the young” after all. This paper finds that envy declines with age! This result is consistent with other research that suggests that aging may lead to decreases in negative affect in general (Charles and Carstensen, 2007, 2009).
In other words, the younger you are, the more envy you feel. It is worth noting this study looked at adults aged 18 and above, and how this works for children is probably worth a separate study. Another particularly important takeaway in that study was the younger participants had higher incomes than the older ones, and so, despite having more money, they still felt more envy in their daily lives.
We previously discussed the Dark Triad traits and this might have something to do with the outcome here… Possessing such traits, along with feeling some envy in small to moderate doses, can enhance success. In the context of benign envy, these can probably nudge you to improve yourself too, by highlighting your own shortcomings which can be improved upon.
Conversely, older people tend to have different priorities. They have fewer years to live, and therefore feel less biological pressure to find romantic partners or have a family and as a result, status levelling is less of a priority to them. Anecdotally, I see this in many older family members who once used to take great pride in their appearance and choice of clothing… but after a certain age simply didn’t care, and would be happy to welcome guests in their pyjamas!
Targets of your envy
This will not come as a surprise but this study shows similarity is one of the strongest predictors of whether you might envy someone. You inherently know this, too. People see celebrities, sports stars or famous musicians all the time, and celebrate or revere them - hardly any regular guy is envious of Ronaldo or Messi - it’s because they all know they aren’t comparable.
Contrast this with your roommate during University; if the go on to sell their startup for a billion dollars, this might be more likely to trigger envious feelings, because you were literally sharing a room together, but they seem to have made more of their opportunities. You can truly imagine yourself being that person, and were possibly even studying the same degree which makes you extremely comparable.
In his book “Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour” Helmut Schoeck writes:
"Envy is above all a phenomenon of social proximity... Envy is always between neighbours. The envious man thinks that if his neighbour breaks his leg, he will be able to walk better himself."
Here, Schoek is describing malicious envy and similarity, and we have seen this before in part 1 when we discussed getting a salary increase and knowing whether it is more, or less than your comparable colleagues (relative versus absolute gains).
On the same theme, in this episode of the Simpsons, someone tells Marge Simpson a joke in which a genie promises to grant a man 3 wishes, but adds a condition that his wife's lover gets double whatever he gets. After first wishing for a house and a car, the man wishes to be beaten “half to death” — which Marge doesn't understand.
René Girard’s main contribution to philosophy, and in turn to other disciplines, was in the psychology of desire. He claimed that human desire functions imitatively, or mimetically, rather than arising as the spontaneous byproduct of human individuality. In other words, humans copy from people we admire (a mentor or a famous person) and from the people that are most like us (our fathers or our colleagues at work). Think about how your preferences have been shaped from your childhood, and how the promotional power of social media has grown over time. This stuff obviously works.