Understanding envy

“The one thing I find hard to control,” says Mr. P (not his real name), the patriarch of a manufacturing and retailing empire, “is envy.”  Mr. P has virtues galore: Brilliant and hard-working, he is a dedicated and disciplined visionary.  He cares for his employees.  With savvy and sense, he has built his businesses into household names.

By the standards of the world, Mr. P has made it.  “Yet I can’t help feeling envious of others who I feel have accomplished more,” he says.

Never fun

 
Most of us, whether we admit it or not, struggle with envy.  The exceptions might be saints, though the Bible says that at times, the apostles envied one another (see “Even Jesus Has to Choose,” July 4, 2014).

As long as inequality exists, envy will never cease.  At the dawn of the world, envy drove Cain to kill his brother; in ancient Greece, Socrates called envy “the ulcer of the soul.”  Envy is included in the seven deadly sins.

In fact, envy is the only deadly sin that is “never fun,” according to German social psychologists Jan Crusius and Thomas Mussweiler in the journal “Scientific American Mind.”

In “Divine Comedy,” Dante describes envious souls in purgatory with eyes forcibly shut, never to view anything they might ever be envious of again.

Benefits

The description above refers to malicious envy, where we harbor resentment and ill will against others.

But envy can also be less destructive.  Benign envy is characterized by some amount of jealousy, true, but it can be mixed with or even overshadowed by positive feelings such as admiration.  Those of us with benign envy often acknowledge that others deserve their good fortune (e.g. “He really worked hard, so good for him!”), and we often strive to emulate them.

Benign envy can motivate us to do better. Students in an experiment in the Netherlands were divided into four groups.  One group was asked to think of a situation in which they felt admiration; the second group, benign envy; the third group, malicious envy; the fourth group, nothing.

Afterwards, all students attempted to solve a puzzle.  Who were most successful?  Not those who felt admiration (they were not motivated to be the best); not those who felt malicious envy (their feelings proved counter-productive).

Those who felt benign envy worked harder.  They persisted and finally succeeded in solving the puzzle more than the other groups.  Researchers quoted philosopher Soren Kierkegaard:  “Admiration is happy self-surrender; envy is unhappy self-assertion.”

“Repeatedly comparing ourselves with our neighbors could have helped us assess how we were faring in the competition for resources,” say Crusius and Mussweiler.  “The frustration and feelings of inferiority ignited by envy can act as a warning signal that alerts us to disadvantage.  Those who are motivated by envy to make up for a deficiency might then outperform those who felt indifferent.”

Inferiority feelings can lead to self-pity and despair, but they can also fuel productive envy.  In an experiment led by researchers in Texas, US college students were divided into two groups.  One group was asked to remember situations that triggered envy; the other, no particular situation.

Afterwards, all students read made-up interviews about career goals of peers.  Those who felt envy read the interviews more carefully and did significantly better in a memory test than the other group.

Control

It may be impossible to stop feeling envious of others, so we need to transform malicious envy into benign envy.  Recognize situations that can trigger envy, those that increase stress and hinder our thinking.

In family businesses, this may be analyzing performance reports, confronting payment deadlines, dealing with labor strikes.  Stress can also be triggered by a death in the family, extramarital affairs, children’s school failures.  They hamper our ability to think clearly and make decisions reasonably.  We become most vulnerable—not just to pain, anger, grief, but also to growling, malicious, heart-pounding envy.

In stressful situations, do not make major decisions (e.g. borrowing heavily to finance a new venture just because a competitor did so).  Instead, develop ways to deal with stress.  When the crisis has passed, take a deep breath and analyze how the situation can be improved.

Mr. P knows this well.  Now in his 70s, he continues innovating as much as he can.  He is the envy of competitors.

“Pain can also lead to gain,” say Crusius and Mussweiler.  “Concentrate on the aspects of the situation that are within your control.  [Or] try evoking a sense of gratitude instead.  Dwelling not on what we lack but on all that we have can help us value our own numerous … lucky breaks.”

Next week: When dictatorship works

Queena N. Lee-Chua is on the Board of Directors of Ateneo de Manila University’s Family Business Development Center.  Get her book “Successful Family Businesses” at the University Press (e-mail [email protected].)  E-mail the author at [email protected].