Emotional intelligence predicts whether envy leads to self-improvement or hostility

A new study published in Personality and Individual Differences reveals that a person’s ability to regulate their emotions can determine whether envy leads to self-improvement or hostility. Higher emotion regulation skills are associated with benign envy, which motivates personal growth, rather than malicious envy, which fosters hostility.

Emotion regulation refers to the capacity to select and apply the most effective strategies to achieve a desired emotional state. The research, conducted by Christophe Haag, a professor of organizational behavior at emlyon business school in France, aimed to understand the different consequences of benign and malicious envy. Haag designed the study to investigate how distinct forms of envy operate, emphasizing that envy is pervasive in social lives but its unpleasantness does not indicate whether its consequences will be constructive or destructive.

The study surveyed 442 French-speaking adults who completed a performance-based assessment of emotion regulation ability and a survey rating their tendencies to experience benign and malicious envy. The results showed that higher emotion regulation ability positively predicted benign envy, while the association with malicious envy was not statistically significant.

This suggests that emotional intelligence, particularly the ability to regulate emotions, might help channel uncomfortable feelings into constructive actions. The study highlights the importance of understanding emotions at a fine-grained level, particularly unpleasant emotions, and their different consequences for ourselves or for others.