research paper about envy

HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

The evolutionary psychology of envy and jealousy.

• 1 Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States
• 2 Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

The old dogma has always been that the most complex aspects of human emotions are driven by culture; Germans and English are thought to be straight-laced whereas Italians and Indians are effusive. Yet in the last two decades there has been a growing realization that even though culture plays a major role in the final expression of human nature, there must be a basic scaffolding specified by genes. While this is recognized to be true for simple emotions like anger, fear, and joy, the relevance of evolutionary arguments for more complex nuances of emotion have been inadequately explored. In this paper, we consider envy or jealousy as an example; the feeling evoked when someone is better off than you. Our approach is broadly consistent with traditional evolutionary psychology (EP) approaches, but takes it further by exploring the complexity and functional logic of the emotion – and the precise social triggers that elicit them – by using deliberately farfetched, and contrived “thought experiments” that the subject is asked to participate in. When common sense (e.g., we should be jealous of Bill Gates – not of our slightly richer neighbor) appears to contradict observed behavior (i.e., we are more envious of our neighbor) the paradox can often be resolved by evolutionary considerations which h predict the latter. Many – but not all – EP approaches fail because evolution and common sense do not make contradictory predictions. Finally, we briefly raise the possibility that gaining deeper insight into the evolutionary origins of certain undesirable emotions or behaviors can help shake them off, and may therefore have therapeutic utility. Such an approach would complement current therapies (such as cognitive behavior therapies, psychoanalysis, psychopharmacologies, and hypnotherapy), rather than negate them.

Human emotions are very poorly understood even though there is a long venerable tradition of research pertaining to them, going all the way back to Darwin’s “Expression of Emotions in Animals and Men” ( Darwin, 1872 ; on emotions see also Ekman and Friesen, 1971 ; Izard, 1977 ; Wierzbicka, 1986 ; Russell, 1994 ; Oatley and Jenkins, 1996 ; Fredrickson, 1998 ; Lewis, 2000 ; Panksepp and Biven, 2012 ). This is in stark contrast to research on such arcane topics as – say, apparent motion perception which has been studied in excruciating – sometimes pointless – detail. In truth our “common sense” understanding of emotions is probably closer to the mark than the insights offered by specialists working on the subject (just read a good Jane Austen novel).

One problem is that physiologists and psychologists who study emotions do not look at them enough from an evolutionary standpoint (for exceptions, see Nesse, 1990 ; Ekman and Davidson, 1994 ; Johnston, 1999 ; Cosmides and Tooby, 2000 ; Tooby and Cosmides, 2008 ). This is unfortunate because as Dobzhansky famously said, “Nothing in biology makes any sense except in the light of evolution.” This may seem obvious but even though people often pay lip-service to it, it is an attitude that has yet to permeate mainstream neurology and psychology [as championed eloquently by Tooby and Cosmides (1990) ].

In evolutionary terms, emotions are adaptive responses to the environment that increase my chances of survival. But unlike simple adaptations – say the sensation of pain when my hand is pocked with a hot rod motivating me to withdraw it – emotions are much more complex. They orchestrate a more organized response. If I suspect a tiger is nearby, a fight/flight reaction (mediated by limbic structures) will activate several aspects of my physiology and cognition, each recursively feeding on the other – influencing my behavior (e.g., Nesse and Ellsworth, 2009 ).

It is of course possible to swing to the other extreme and assume that every little quirk of human behavior must have a module devoted to it that has direct survival value that was honed by natural selection; a view perpetuated by media accounts of evolutionary psychology (EP) (although the main proponents of this approach are usually careful to avoid such pitfalls, including David Buss, Donald Symons, John Tooby, Leda Cosmides, Melvin Connor, Christine Harris, and Steven Pinker). There are four pitfalls to watch out for in taking this approach: (1) Not everything is adaptive; many quirks of mind may be incidental byproducts or atavistic remnants of things that were once useful (the psychological equivalent of the vermiform appendix). (2) The second pitfall is that many so-called universal psychological traits may be learned; people may have “converged” on the same solution to similar environmental challenges; e.g., cooking is almost universal but we do not postulate a cooking-module in the brain hardwired through natural selection. It was probably based on the accidental discovery of game roasted by forest fires. (3) Both the observed trait and its explanation are banal; obvious even to your grandmother. For example, men like young women with clear skin and big breasts because they are more fertile; so the genes that predispose to such preference would multiply. Is there anyone who doesn’t know this? (4) When the explanation is not banal then it is often very difficult – almost impossible – to test experimentally or refute. It fails to fulfill the falsifiability criterion of Popper. A good example is the satirical theory one of us proposed to account for why “gentlemen prefer blondes” ( Ramachandran, 1998 ), suggesting that they do so because it allows them to detect early signs of parasitic infestation and aging – both which reduce fertility. In addition, reciprocity of sexual interest is more obvious in blondes because of the dilatation of dark pupils against a pale iris; as is the pink flush of orgasm in a light skin – which lowers the chances of cuckoldry and increases likelihood of implantation. (Blushing, too, is more obvious in blondes who in effect is sending an involuntary “truth in advertising” signal conveying that she can’t cucold with impunity without the blush of embarrassment giving her away.) This account was taken seriously by some members of the EP community; indeed, we concede the possibility that what began as a satire may have more than a grain of truth in it! An even more far-fetched theory was proposed jocularly by my colleague JA Deutsch (personal communication). Deutsch suggests that the reason women experience nausea and vomiting early in pregnancy is because “the odor of vomitus” would discourage the husband from having sexual intercourse with her. This makes evolutionary sense given the known risk of abortion resulting from intercourse in such cases. As a final example, let us suggest that the reason we flock to aquaria is that our Devonian piscine ancestors were attracted to other fish and we have remnants of this affinity fossilized in our brains. It is easy to see the absurdity of these three examples, but some EP arguments have the same form.

Where EP is on firm ground is when it avoids as many of these pitfalls as possible. Then it becomes fun to explore. The name of the game is to make observations of human psychology that initially seem surprising, counterintuitive, and apparently non-adaptive and then go on to show there might be a hidden evolutionary agenda. This strategy does not necessarily prove the theory but it makes it more credible than if the pitfalls had not been avoided. We would like to illustrate this approach by considering the very simple example of jealousy or envy. These two words are used interchangeably in the United States, but in the United Kingdom the former is more often used in a sexual context, the latter in other contexts. In either case the “target” is usually someone who is perceived to be better off in some respect than you or whose access to resources is better than yours. Jealousy also has a possessive component; I want to actually deprive the other person’s resource and claim it as my own. It is a negative emotion. Envy is not quite as negative – it does not have the same sharp edge and it motivates emulation to gain independent access to similar or even better resources. The extreme along the same spectrum would be pure admiration of someone, who, through inborn talent and intense effort, is better off than you. I am envious of my neighbor who got an award from the local mayor, but I admire Francis Crick.

Jealousy is a motive of immense potency. Although you are often consciously aware of being jealous or envious of someone, sometimes the actual reasons for the envy are buried in your unconscious and disguised by rationalizations. Ironically, what you really value in life is more often revealed by asking yourself who you are jealous of rather than asking yourself directly “what do I value.” The latter often taps into what society expects you to value; your “superego” takes over – and you are aware only of what you should want rather than what you really want. Envy and jealousy, on the other hand, kick in as a gut reaction in your emotional/evaluative system long before you become conscious of it.

Introspection is unfashionable in contemporary psychology largely due to the lingering effects of behaviorism. Contrary to this view, we will argue (and demonstrate in this paper) that introspection (if accompanied by cross-validation across other thoughtful subjects) can be a valuable source of insights into the internal logic and evolutionary rationale of certain complex emotions like envy. Obviously, objections can be rightfully raised against the – purely subjective – exercise of introspection, which is why it is imperative to eventually test these conjectures by making counterintuitive predictions that can be empirically falsified (using a rigorous scientific approach). But meanwhile one can have fun speculating on possibilities.

The central argument in this paper is that one can achieve a deeper understanding of emotions by introspective “thought experiments”; asking yourself – and others – which social situation (A or B) would make you more prone to that emotion and what the environmental triggers are. One can then construct meaningful evolutionary scenarios as to why a particular trigger (A) might have evolved to produce a given emotion even though common sense might dictate that another trigger (B) should be more effective. For the more flagrant emotions (like aggression) the triggers and their evolutionary rationale are obvious and probably mediated by limbic structures in the brain. But more complex emotions require more complex triggers (or combinations of them) to elicit them. The evolutionary logic of these emotional triggers may not be obvious at first but can be teased apart – by imagining yourself in certain situations and simply asking yourself how you would feel. Most complex emotions may depend strongly on social interactions, context, self-worth evaluation, and a sense of who you are as perceived by others. Examples would include pride, arrogance, superciliousness, ambition, guilt, gratitude, and jealousy (the topic of this article). Unlike basic emotions like aggression and fear – mediated mainly by the limbic fight/flight response, these more complex emotions probably require interactions with the orbitofrontal cortex. Such emotions, including the ability to introspect on them (“I am jealous because, etc.”) are probably unique to humans or especially well developed in us. They may require the construction of a “meta-representation” – a representation of earlier representations in the brain (knowing that you know, or knowing that you are jealous).

It raises an important issue. Do the subtler emotions (like pride, ambition, envy, and guilt) each have a peculiar flavor. For example, does jealousy have its own unique subjective qualia or is it a vague nebulously negative feeling that becomes either tinged with its unique “flavor of jealousy,” or is it merely inferred post hoc , based on social context? Unlike (say) the quale of red which kicks in right away independent of social context? Introspection suggest the former; for we often catch ourselves experiencing a twinge of jealousy of a friend – often with surprise and embarrassment – before inferring the reasons, context, etc.

We would venture that a frontal patient may still be capable of aggression, fear, and lust but not of envy or romantic love (which have complex and subtle social dimensions). Such a patient will have great difficulty introspecting on his own emotions – not just expressing them. In evolutionary terms, it is worth noting that even though emotions are privately experienced almost all of them are meaningless except in relation to others; i.e., in a social context (e.g., envy, pride, jealousy, and kindness). This is partially true even of the more basic emotions such as fear, lust, anger, and pain; for instance, we shout “ouch” to attract attention.

What triggers jealousy, beyond the obvious of someone who is better off? And can the functional logic of these triggers (or peculiar combination of social cues) be explained in evolutionary terms; i.e., what might be their survival value? Through introspecting on ourselves and through informally surveying friends, students, colleagues, etc., we composed the following list. For each item on the list, we will try to come up with a plausible evolutionary scenario. Especially important is the question of why you make a particular choice even though common sense might favor the other choice. We would emphasize that these are at this stage merely preliminary informal surveys, whose goal is to prompt further inquiry using rigorous methodology to collect formal data. (In the study of visual perception, analogously visual illusions have a long and venerable tradition in making important points long before detailed measurements were made to confirm those points).

(1) Are you more envious of: (A) someone who is similar to you in most respects but is a bit wealthier (say 50% wealthier) or (B) more envious of Bill Gates? Is a beggar jealous of a slightly more successful beggar or of Bill Gates?

The answer is almost always the former (10 out of 11 people we surveyed chose A). This does not make sense. One usually expects the strength of an emotion to be directly proportional to the resource being sought after; e.g., blood glucose determines the degree of hunger. Following this argument, shouldn’t you be more envious of Bill Gates? Common sense might dictate that the better off someone is than you are, the more envious you should be. But counterintuitively this isn’t true. “Common sense” (the logical or reasoning part of the brain) of course also arose through evolution – but arguably for different needs; i.e., abstract generalizations such as rules of logical inference – which have only limited access to the “laws of emotions” (keeping in mind the modular architecture of the human brain). You ought – logically – to be more jealous of Bill Gates because he has more resources. But the “emotion module” is wired-up for immediate “gut-reactions” like jealousy, sometimes overriding logical inferences. In general, gut-reactions and the “rationality faculty” deliver consistent answers – but not always.

Where conventional EP theories sometimes fall short is that they aren’t always counterintuitive. For example, they “explain” that men prefer younger women because they are more fertile. Neither the phenomenon itself (the choice of younger women) nor the standard explanation (“they are fertile”) is counterintuitive. They fail to fulfill what we call the “grandmother test” – what your grandmother might have deduced from the mere application of common sense. The trouble is that in many scenarios commonly considered in EP, these two (common sense vs. hidden evolutionary agenda) make the same prediction; the only way to dissociate them is to create highly contrived scenarios; which we shall attempt, in this paper.

What is the evolutionary logic that drives envy; e.g., the fact that you envy your neighbor more than Bill Gates? The answer is that the whole purpose of envy is to motivate you into action either by independently trying harder (envy) or by coveting and stealing what the other has (jealousy). This is why jealousy has an aggressive component, but envy is more positive sometimes even being tinged with admiration.

Turning to Bill Gates vs. a more prosperous beggar, we believe this can be explained quite readily by the axiom that envy evolved to motivate access to resources that are in demand by others in your group. If I am the poor beggar my brain quickly computes that in all likelihood the very rich Gates is either deservedly much richer (i.e., he is far smarter), or just extremely lucky. Evolutionarily speaking, there is no point in being jealous of him because he is “off scale” either in ability or luck, so no amount of effort by me can result in reaching his level of prosperity; envy would motivate an inappropriate and futile waste of resources. The richer beggar, on the other hand, may be only slightly smarter, luckier, or more hardworking than me, so there is some chance, at least, that envy might motivate me to exceed his access to resources (or jealousy might make me steal it away from him with impunity).

(2) Are you more envious of (A) someone equal to you in talent, effort, etc., but he/she gets undeservedly promoted over you or (B) of someone who is genuinely better than you, who is rewarded?

The answer is almost always “A” (11 out of 11 people we surveyed chose A). Again, note that this makes no obvious sense; if you want to be as rich as your neighbor, what does it matter whether he was undeservedly rewarded or legitimately rewarded. This can be teased apart further. For example, does it matter whether the other guy got rewarded by the boss, (A) because he is (naturally) genetically more intellectually gifted than you, (B) more hard working, or (C) arbitrarily for no reason? EP would predict that you would be most envious of “B” because the envy would motivate you to do something about it, whereas competing with “A” might be futile; you cannot over-ride genetic endowments. (You might be angry at the boss for being unfair, but not jealous of the recipient.) “C” would make you envious too if “doing something about it” includes complaining to your boss. The greater envy for “B” over “A” should be especially true if “A” is vastly better endowed than you genetically; if he is only slightly better endowed then some envy would be useful – motivated hard work can help you to overcome genetic limitations. This would be analogous to the beggar vs. the other beggar scenario provided above. The third scenario (C) would not provoke envy; it would provoke anger toward the person who unfairly rewards your neighbor. In short, we can show that even though a surface-level analysis of a human psychological propensity makes it seem maladaptive, there is often an evolutionary hidden agenda that drives that propensity, and makes it comprehensible. We are not making a definitive argument here but hopefully providing food for thought.

(3) Let us say I were to prove by brain scans or some other reliable measure (e.g., mood/affect inventory) that (A) the Dalai Lama was vastly happier on some abstract, but very real, scale than (B) someone (say Hugh Heffner) who has limitless access to attractive women. Who are you more envious of?

Most men are more envious of the latter (9 out of 9 males we surveyed chose B). In other words, you are more jealous of what the other person has access to (in relation to what you desire), than of the final overall state of joy and happiness. This is true even though common sense might dictate the opposite. Put differently, evolution has programmed into you an emotion (jealousy) that is triggered by certain very specific “releasers” or social cues; it is largely insensitive to what the other person’s final state of happiness is. The final state of happiness is too abstract to have evolved as a trigger of envy or jealousy.

For similar reasons, if you are starving it makes more sense that you would be more jealous (at least temporarily) of someone enjoying a fine meal than someone having sex with a beautiful woman or man. If you are only slightly hungry, however, you might pick sex. This is because there is an unconscious metric in your brain that computes the probability of finding food in the near future vs. finding a nubile, available mate; and of the urgency of your need for food over the urgency of mating. If you are starving to death and have one last fling, you have only that single mating opportunity whereas if you eat and live you will have plenty of mating opportunities in the future.

(4) Imagine a scenario (A) in which you see another guy/girl making love to a woman/man you are attracted to and desire. You are jealous. But what if (scenario B) you see the same guy/girl having even more passionate sex with a woman/man you are not attracted to.

Surprisingly, you are more jealous of him/her in “A” (13 out of 15), even though one might expect the answer to be “B” – i.e., you should be jealous of and strive to achieve – his final pleasurable state (B) than what leads up to it (A). Again evolution prevails over common sense in a very specific manner. You have a metric in your head (your assessment of your own attractiveness constructed unconsciously by monitoring the frequency and “objective beauty” of other women who were attracted to you in the past) of what you want and are capable of. These triggers determine who or what you are jealous of, even though it doesn’t make any sense. The situation is not fundamentally different from you eating cotton candy. Even though you know rationally it is not good for you, these “carbohydrate binges” were wired into your brain during prehistoric times when food was scarce to help tide over dry spells of famine. In the case of food preference, this idea might seem obvious (although it wasn’t obvious to us until Steven Pinker spelled it out). But in the case of more complex emotions like jealousy, the idea has not been adequately explored in the manner attempted in this article. The general idea is that even complex and subtle nuances of a certain emotion can be analyzed in this manner.

(5) Another example also illustrates how some emotions despite being counterintuitive and seemingly illogical initially reveal a hidden evolutionary agenda. (A) You see your neighbor (who is similar to you in most respects) having moderately enjoyable sex with a woman whom you moderately covet; (B) you see two ugly tramps having intensely pleasurable sex with each other. Who would elicit more envy?

Again, for reasons already alluded to, most people are more envious of “A” (12 out of 15 people we surveyed chose A). This is another example of being envious, not of the final level of intense pleasure (as one might naively expect) but of someone having access to – and only slightly enjoying – something for which you have a modest desire and will only modestly enjoy (but access is denied). Thus, we see that what triggers envy are certain social cues; “happiness” is too abstract to be envious of. All this seems plausible but – once again – we emphasize the need for caution in interpreting such data. You might avoid choosing the tramps not because of the evolutionary reasons alluded to above but because any association with tramps elicits avoidance.

In general, the less complicated or contrived the thought experiment, the more straightforward the result and the interpretation. The simplest example of the genre of thought experiments discussed so far would be; would you be more jealous of (A) your neighbor who is slightly smarter than you who gets a huge raise and award for her performance – or (B) you and she each buy a lottery ticket and she ends up winning 500,000 dollars? If you introspect, your answer like that of most people might be that you would be less jealous in the second scenario (lottery) because you recognize that no amount of extra motivation from you (driven by jealousy) could repeat a fluke accident.

We now introduce the concept of “relevant social circle”:

(6) Imagine you are a first generation Indian immigrant in the United States; (A) your neighbor is also an Indian immigrant of comparable talent; (B) a Chinese immigrant; (C) an American local. Say “A” has something you covet and you envy him; “B” has the same thing and “C” does too. Who would you be most envious (jealous) of? Let us say for the sake of argument that what all of you covet is a woman or man.

Most would envy “A” more than “B” or “C” (11 out of 11 we surveyed chose A). It is the unconscious metric again. Your brain says (in effect), “A” has had the same privileges, opportunities, status, etc. as me, so there is some point in my being envious of him in order to motivate me, since I have at least some chance of gaining access to the same resources; he provides an “existence proof” that someone who is very similar to me can have access to the same resource. “B”, on the other hand, is a complete unknown. Finally, “C” may be favored for completely arbitrary reasons such as racism and xenophobia against a member of the more privileged majority White American culture. Unlike “A”, “C” has most likely had more privileges and opportunities throughout his life, so there is not much motivation for you to compete, as you don’t have a chance of gaining access to his resources – thus envy would lead to a futile waste of resources and time. Instead, the evolutionary consequence might be anger toward “C”, rather than an attempt to compete and balance the inequity through personal effort (you wouldn’t be jealous). Obviously, in many situations the two emotions overlap.

(7) Geographic proximity; this is, a special case of the “relevant social circle” effect: Compare the two cases: (A) Joe lives in Timbuktu. He is very similar to you in talent, looks, capacity for work, etc. but he is twice as wealthy as you; (B) Joe is your neighbor and twice as wealthy.

Most people would be envious of “B” more so than “A” (11 out of 11 we surveyed chose B). Again this makes evolutionary sense. There are millions of people who are like “A” and even though I have assured you logically that they are identical to “B”, your brain requires more direct triggers. On the other hand, you see and interact with “B”, and this is a direct trigger for envy to kick in. “A” is simply too abstract to relate to and, more importantly, is not competing for the same resources as you (and is, in any event, too far from you to do anything about). There would be no motivation to work harder since even if you did, you would not gain access to resources in Timbuktu. You might admire him – even emulate him – from a distance, but it would be futile to be envious.

(8) There is a very attractive woman (or man) you have your eye on and have reason to believe that you are within her range of acceptability and is attracted to you. But another man walks in and she is instantly attracted to him and walks off with him. He is one of three people: (A) he is stunningly handsome and wealthy and walks off with her; (B) only slightly better looking and handsome or even identical to you in most respects; and (C) an ugly old poor tramp. Who would you be most jealous of?

Most people are jealous of “B” (8 out of 11 people we surveyed chose B). After “B” we suggest that people would be jealous of “A” and then “C.” The reason we suggest this is that as a motivator of action, jealousy would be most likely to be effective in situation “B.” Jealousy might be futile in “A,” and you can’t blame him (or her) in succeeding in tempting her away. Lastly, the behavior of your potential target mate in “C” – her choice of an ugly tramp – suggests that her choices are completely idiosyncratic and unpredictable. So there is not much point in even trying.

Jealousy for siblings is a special case. Since a sibling [whether identified correctly or misjudged to be a sibling as a result of close proximity from early childhood (i.e., “the kibbutz effect”)] shares half your genes you should theoretically be less jealous of his access to resources than you would be of a complete stranger. But this is complicated by the fact that you are in direct competition for the same food resources (e.g., during weaning) delivered by parents and by the “relevant social circle” phenomenon predicted above. The net result would be a complex hybrid of emotions, as is often indeed the case with siblings. For the same reason, we would predict that jealousy of parents should be a rarity.

We reiterate that the data presented here are merely preliminary surveys rather than derived from formal research. While introspection can be a valuable source of insight as a starting point, these conjectures must eventually be tested using empirically sound methods. What we have introduced is just the bare skeleton outline of the evolutionary logic that might be driving jealousy. There are bound to be other complex contextual and personality variables that influence any particular individual’s choice in each of these far-fetched scenarios. Nevertheless, these speculations might provide a starting point for a more sophisticated understanding of jealousy than has been hitherto possible, taking us well beyond our “common sense” understanding of this complex human emotion. We believe a similar strategy could be applied for understanding other equally complex human emotions. The goal is to seek the “ulterior motive” in strictly evolutionary terms, of forms of behavior that might initially seem inexplicable. Conversely, pointing out that men like big breasts of young women simply doesn’t cut it; EP does not tell you anything that common sense doesn’t [see Konner (2015) for an elegant exception].

We have considered only one example, namely, jealousy – to illustrate our strategy but, obviously, one could apply it to other emotions. Consider embarrassment, for example. If you are a man buying an adult erotic DVD, would you be more embarrassed if the sales clerk at the cash register was: (A) a handsome young man; (B) a beautiful woman; (C) an old lady; and (D) an ugly old man? The answer is usually “B” or “C” (11 out of 13 males chose either “B” or “C”) but why? And might not the answer give us novel insights into the evolutionary origins of embarrassment?

Another intriguing question is what kinds of triggers (or combinations) elicit jealousy (which has a sharp edge) as opposed to admiration, other than the fact that the latter elicits emulation without malice, whereas the former motivates depriving the target or resources you wish to acquire. If there are two prizes being offered in a competitive game of skill – one of which the target person has acquired – the result might be admiration motivating parallel acquisition of the remaining prize. On the other hand, if there is only one resource, aggressive acquisition requires motivation via jealousy.

A recurring theme, throughout this essay is the contrast between the “rational” or intuitively “obvious” view, on the one hand, and the actual emotion experienced, on the other; e.g., we suggest that based on common sense, beggar “A” should be more jealous of Bill Gates than of beggar “B.” One might initially expect that since jealousy is motivated by the discrepancy of resource, the larger the discrepancy the more the jealousy, but as we have seen that is not the case. The reason for this again is that it would be a poor strategy, evolutionarily, for a beggar to seriously allocate resources of time and energy to become equal to Bill Gates, when the same resources could be more profitably allocated to the more realistic goal of competing successfully against a neighboring beggar.

As another analogy of the difficulty disentangling different threads of culture, genes, emotion, logic, etc., consider the case of you being jealous of your girlfriend having a fling with a man vs. a woman (assuming she is not a habitual lesbian). Most men in our experience would be more upset by the former. This could be for the obvious reason that a man does not want her to be accidentally inseminated and cuckolded, whereas there is no danger of this with a lesbian fling (again, common sense ought to predict that you ought only to be jealous of the fling that produced more pleasure; the gender of the fling-partner should be irrelevant). An alternative to the EP counter-cuckolding argument would be that the male is regarded as being in an “equivalent class” and elicits a bigger competitive jolt – hence jealousy – than a fling with a woman.

Given how primitive our knowledge of the subtle nuances of human emotions is, it is hardly surprising that our insight into the causes of mental illness – which are primarily disturbances of emotions – is equally primitive. It can hardly be true that all the diverse emotional disturbances of a complex organ like the human brain fall into a handful of categories; mood disorders, psychotic disorders, dissociative disorders, etc. (leaving aside the many hundreds of bogus disorders fabricated to be included in the DSM for insurance purposes).

We believe that a deeper understanding of the functional logic and emotional disturbances that underlie mental illness could be obtained by adopting an evolutionary perspective. As we have discussed in more details elsewhere (see Jalal and Ramachandran, in preparation), we propose that gaining deeper insight into the evolutionary rationale of negative emotions and behaviors (including primitive psychological defense mechanisms) could have therapeutic utility. This approach places emphasis on the evolutionary origins of mental quirks – including pathologically amplified ones – which makes it different from conventional therapeutic techniques. It merges elements of psychoanalysis (by stressing the role of primordial drives and defense mechanisms) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT; in that it takes the patient step by step through logical “what if” questions) – embedded in an overarching evolutionary theme. Among other strategies, it uses the approach of posing absurdly farfetched dilemmas to get to the axiomatic system of values (and their derangements) that drive your behavior. A striking example is the observation that noticing what or who you are jealous of is often a more “honest” and accurate indicator of what you truly value than simply asking the same question directly to yourself. Once such a deeper understanding is gained you can begin to shake off emotions and behaviors that are overall maladaptive in the current context. This therapeutic approach would supplement rather than negate current psychotherapies and pharmacological approaches.

Ethics Statement

The study included informal surveying of friends and colleagues, and as such was exempt from ethical approval.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank Paul McGeoch and David Brang for stimulating discussions. Data were obtained by the second author of this manuscript prior to joining his current institution (University of Cambridge). As the data included informal surveys (opinions), ethical approval or written informed consent was not required in accordance with the national guidelines in Denmark – that is, the country where the data were collected.

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Keywords : evolutionary psychology, envy, jealousy, emotion, novel thereperutic technique, thought experiments

Citation: Ramachandran VS and Jalal B (2017) The Evolutionary Psychology of Envy and Jealousy. Front. Psychol. 8:1619. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01619

Received: 01 May 2017; Accepted: 04 September 2017; Published: 19 September 2017.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2017 Ramachandran and Jalal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Baland Jalal, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Envy: Theory and Research

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For centuries, scholars have argued that envy is the source of much aggressive behavior as well as the root cause of much unhappiness, but it is only recently that there have been attempts to examine the emotion from an empirical perspective. This book is the first of its kind to offer a comprehensive summary of current theoretical and empirical work on envy, provided by scholars from a range of disciplines. The first section of the book focuses on the rich theological, philosophical, and evolutionary foundations of scholarly thinking on envy. The second section covers the social psychological work on envy and includes chapters on social comparison processes, definitional challenges, the link between envy and schadenfreude , inter-group envy, and fear of envy. The third section covers research on envy from organizational psychology, experimental economics, marketing, neuroscience, and anthropology. The fourth section focuses on the implications of understanding envy for physical and mental health, with chapters on psychoanalytic conceptions of envy, health psychology, and the challenges of coping with envy. A final chapter consists of reflective comments on all the chapters, and brings together recurring themes, making suggestions for future research on envy.

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Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Envy

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• Published: 29 July 2020
• Volume 45 , pages 418–427, ( 2021 )

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• Robert L. Leahy   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4226-5675 1  

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Envy is a ubiquitous social emotion often associated with depression, hostility and shame. Often confused with jealousy which involves the fear or anger that a primary relationship is threatened by a third party, envy is an emotion focused on threats to status such that another person’s “gain” is viewed as a “loss” for the self. There is very little in the cognitive behavioral literature on the nature and treatment of envy. In this article I outline the research on the nature of envy, the evolutionary model of envy, the relevance of an integrative CBT model that draws on Beck’s Generic Cognitive Model and Emotional Schema Therapy, and the implications for case conceptualization and treatment.

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Introduction

As the pundit Alice Roosevelt Longworth commented, "If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." Envy and its cousin Schadenfreude are emotions and thoughts that many of us can recognize, but about which we may feel both shame and guilt. How can you wish ill of someone who has success? The answer may be, “Because we are human”. Envy is a social emotion focused on problematic comparisons with others where the self is viewed as performing poorly compared to a specific individual. We can see envy in a wide range of social contexts—envy between professional colleagues, siblings, and friends. Although envy and jealousy are often confused, envy is best described as competition within a hierarchy perceived by the individual as important, whereas jealousy is always about three people—that is, jealousy involves the perception that a valued relationship is threatened by a third party. Further, it is possible to feel envious of someone who activates one’s jealousy. For example, a man might be envious of another man who is more successful and whose success is perceived as an attractive temptation to his partner.

Emotion theorists have proposed that there are primary or basic emotions—for example, Ekman ( 1992 , 2003 ) posited six basic emotions (fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, and surprise) while Plutchik ( 2001 ) posited eight primary emotions (anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy). Other emotions— “secondary emotions”—are presumed to be derived from these primary emotions. We can view envy as a secondary, “superordinate” or complex emotion that can be manifested in a wide range of other emotions, such as shame, guilt, resentment, anxiety, sadness, anxiety, and anger. Envy is not “reducible” to these other emotions, but rather is manifested in different ways by individuals. For example, an individual can feel envious, but not feel shame or anger over their envy, although many other envious people will feel these other emotions. Envy can take various forms and the individual can evaluate their envy in a number of ways.

Ekman ( 1992 , 2003 ) does describe envy and jealousy as universal emotions but suggests that there are no universal facial expressions that reflect these emotions. Other emotion theorists emphasize cognitive aspects of emotion, such as Frijda ( 1988 ) who views emotions in terms of goals and action tendencies, Oatley and Johnson-Laird ( 1987 ) who view emotions as coordinating actions and plans, and Izard ( 2009 ) who specifically mentions emotional schemas, but uses this term to refer to how these more complex emotions are compounded out of basic emotions and often involve complex appraisals. Other emotion theorists have proposed a constructivist model of emotion such that the individual “conceptualizes” their affective state as a specific emotion (Lindquist and Barrett 2008 ; Barrett et al. 2007 ) based on the context and expectations that they bring to the experience. The current emotional schema model is not inconsistent with the constructivist model advanced by Barrett et al. Rather, the emphasis in the proposed emotional schema model is on the evaluations, explanations, and strategies that are used once an emotion arises (Leahy 2015 ).

Envy is related to social comparison processes which Festinger ( 1954 ) described as a universal motive (1954). Social comparisons (e.g. “How am I doing compared to others on this task?”) are presumed to underlie information about how to succeed, a proxy for self-esteem, and as providing motivational information. Envy is a status anxiety emotion that draws on a near universal positive evaluation of the importance of status across age groups, gender, social classes, and cultures with individuals at higher status enjoying greater physical and emotional health, higher self-esteem and subjective well-being (Anderson et al. 2015 ). (See Lindholm ( 2008 ) for a discussion of cultural differences in envy). Individuals are more likely to experience envy when the target behavior is valued by them, they believe it is possible that they might achieve these goals, they view the target of envy as “undeserving”, and they value status and recognition (Van Dijk et al. 2006 ; Cohen-Charash and Mueller 2007 ). For example, a person is not likely to be envious of an Olympic athlete in gymnastics if they do not think it is relevant to their goals of being a successful academic psychologist. It is also less likely that one will be envious if they view themselves as lacking any skill in gymnastics. Envy is magnified if the target of envy is viewed as achieving their status through cheating or unfair advantage, such as nepotism. Finally, those individuals who place considerable value on approval or status are more likely to experience envy, viewing the achievements of others as reflecting negatively on one’s own status (Fiske 2011 ). Envy can lead to taking pleasure in the misfortune of someone who is competing in a realm of behavior relevant to self-evaluation ( Schadenfreude ), with people exhibiting more envy and schadenfreude about people of similar gender and comparison level (Van Dijk et al. 2006 ). Envy also has implications for cognitive processing with individuals whose envy has been primed attending to and recalling more information about the individuals who are envied (Hill et al. 2011 ).

Envy is associated with depression, anger, anxiety, rumination, and interpersonal hostility (Appel et al. 2016 ). Research on envy has identified three styles of emotional response—hostile (malicious), depressive and benign envy. In each case the “envious” person has an emotional response to the perceived status of another person, with “benign envy” reflecting an adaptive response, including the ability to learn from and emulate the envied person (Parrott 1991 ; Van den Ven et al 2011 ). Dryden ( 2003 ) describes how envy can be both destructive and motivating, depending on how the individual responds to their emotion. This is consistent with the current formulation. One might reasonably argue that this is not how people think about envy, but it does suggest that whatever discomfort one might feel toward the envied person could serve an adaptive function by leading to emulation or motivation to work harder.

Hostile envy is reflected in the experience of Schadenfreude where the individual takes pleasure in hearing of the problems of the target of envy. For example, an academic colleague may take pleasure in hearing that a competitor in their field has had their work strongly criticized. Another form of hostile envy is seen in the hostile, belittling comments that are directed toward the target of envy, often suggesting that the individual did not deserve the recognition that they gained. Depressive envy involves feelings of inferiority, defeat, humiliation, and helplessness when comparing oneself with the envied person. In some cases, the individual may withdraw entirely from the “field of competition”—giving up the pursuits of goals that are related to the envy. Depressive envy can also be seen in withdrawal and disengagement from the envied person, thereby reducing the opportunity for “reminders” of one’s “defeat” and “inferiority”. Depression is often associated with envy, as evidenced in the relationship between envious observations on Facebook with depression and low self-esteem (Appel et al. 2016 ). Benign envy entails positive admiration of the envied person, often with the recognition that the other person justly deserved their status (Van den Ven et al. 2015 ). Lange and Crusius ( 2015 ) developed a brief scale that assesses malicious and benign envy—the Benign and Malicious Envy Scale (BeMaS). Examples of items that tap into Malicious Envy include “I wish that superior people lose their advantage” and “If other people have something that I want for myself, I wish to take it away from them.” Examples of Benign Envy include the following items: “Envying others motivates me to accomplish my goals” and “I strive to reach other people’s superior achievements”. Lange and Crusius ( 2015 ) found that Dispositional Benign Envy was related to Hope for Success (an aspirational motive) while Malicious Envy was related to Fear of Failure (an avoidant motive). There are no specific cutoff points on this scale defining thresholds, but scores on these subscales are related to other variables. The clinician and client can evaluate whether the envy is “functional” (for example, motivating) or “unhelpful” (for example, leading to rumination, hopelessness, and humiliation).

Benign envy is associated with the view that positive outcomes for the other were deserved and controllable whereas malicious envy was more often expressed when positive outcomes were viewed as undeserved (van de Ven et al. 2012 ). Envy can motivate one to try harder to move up in the status hierarchy (van de Ven et al. 2009 ). Malicious envy (angry and hostile feelings toward an individual performing better than the self) led to decrements of performance (van de Ven et al. 2011 ). Envy up is associated with anger, shame, humiliation, lowered self-esteem and a sense of unfairness, whereas “scorn down” –which is often associated with contempt—focuses more on the self and decreases the ability to understand or have empathy for those of lower status (Fiske 2010 ).

An Integrative Cognitive Behavioral Model of Envy

I review the evolutionary adaptive value of envy (dominance hierarchies, social rank theory), the fundamental concern for fairness, schemas related to status, maladaptive “coping” (undermining the “competition” and avoidance of competitors), rumination, complaining, and self-critical thinking. The integrative clinical model includes the following: normalizing envy, validating envy to decrease shame and guilt, relating envy to positive values, focusing on turning envy into admiration and emulation, differentiating the self-concept beyond a focus on one dimension, and acceptance of envy while acting on valued goals. In addition, we will examine how we can modify dysfunctional beliefs about social comparison: Labeling (“He’s a winner, I am a loser”); Fortune-telling (“She will continue to advance, I will fall behind”); Dichotomous thinking (“You either win or lose”); Discounting positives (“The only thing that counts is getting ahead”); and Catastrophizing (“It’s awful not to be ahead of others”). Finally, we will review a case conceptualization of a case of depressive and anxious envy.

The Evolutionary Model of envy suggests that members of groups compete for higher status and dominance. Higher status is associated with greater access to food, mates, procreative success, nesting sites, less depression, less anxiety, better health, better life prospects, lower cortisol, and longevity and status often can be passed down across generations (Sapolsky 2004 , 2005 ). Based on the assumption that ancestral humans competed for limited resources, competitive motivation for higher status can be seen as a universal motive. Moreover, in order to reduce unnecessary and failed attempts to challenge status, individuals utilize behavioral gestures that communicate higher or lower status—that is, status signaling (Mazur 1985 ). Further, the Social Rank model of depression proposes that withdrawal, avoidance and subservience serve the function of reducing pointless challenges to higher status, thereby preserving some survival value for those at lower status (Gilbert and Allen 1998 ). Thus, one response to defeat or loss of status can be depressive subservience and avoidance. Envy may have much in common with anger as a “negotiating strategy” (for example, Sell et al. ( 2009 ) “recalibration of anger model”). However, envy does not always involve anger and may be directed toward individuals with whom the person has no contact and, therefore, no position to negotiate. However, it is plausible that envy and concomitant anger in some contexts may help negotiate more desired distribution of resources and power.

An opposing system in groups argues for the value of altruism and fairness such that hoarding of resources to the disadvantage of other group members will lead to alliances forming to challenge the dominant figures. This “fairness” and emphasis on “sharing” resources suggests that group members might confer higher status on individuals who show generosity —a kind of “distributive justice” motive. Evidence of preferences for fair distributions or “deservingness” of rewards can be seen in animals and humans (Anderson et al. 2017 ; Brosnan and de Waal 2014 ). Concepts of fairness or distributive justice appear to prevail over absolute level of consequences (Hill and Buss 2006 , 2008 ). Thus, envy may be viewed as reflecting two motivational systems—pursuit of dominance and emphasis on fairness.

The Emotional Schema Therapy Model (EST) is similar to Beck’s generic cognitive model (Beck and Haigh 2014 ) in proposing that emotions comprise synthesized “modes” that systematically integrate thoughts, assumptions, schemas, behavioral tendencies, interpersonal strategies and emotional regulation strategies (Leahy 2015 ). Additionally, the EST model proposes that implicit theories about envy include beliefs about the legitimacy, normalcy, pervasiveness, shamefulness, duration, control, and acceptability of envy. This integrative CBT model proposes that the Envy Mode can be viewed from an evolutionary, socialization, cultural and cognitive perspective. The evolutionary processes include competition within dominance hierarchies, attempts to displace others viewed as having higher status, and the advantages in terms of procreation, survival and access to resources conferred on those of higher status, and standards of fairness and just distribution. Cultural factors contribute to the vulnerability to envy, with some cultures placing more emphasis on status, the ability to achieve higher status, the legitimacy of status, and the specific content that reflects status (Schoeck 1969 ; Quintanilla and de Lopez 2013 ). Cultural factors include emphasis on specific standards and content of evaluation, such as materialism and appearance, positive views of fairness, challenges to the legitimacy of status, and perceived status within valued reference groups. Socialization factors that give rise to envy include emphasis on doing better, linking praise from others with achievement or admired qualities (such as beauty, physical prowess), conditional love, humiliation, and perfectionistic standards (“never being good enough”). In addition, it may be that envy is more commonly found in individuals who are competitive, engage in excessive social comparison, or endorse narcissistic beliefs of uniqueness and superiority. Each of these contribute to envy and are thereby reflected in the cognitive system of automatic thoughts, maladaptive assumptions, and personal and interpersonal schemas.

The Standard Cognitive Model advanced by Beck suggests that envy, like many other emotions, reflects levels of cognitive processing and biases that lead to vulnerability and persistence of envy. These include negative automatic thoughts, maladaptive assumptions or rules, and personal and interpersonal schemas. Examples of personal schemas related to envy are the following: Special Person (“I need to be viewed as special, superior, and admired by others”), Defective (“Their success proves how inferior I am”), Incompetent (“They can do anything that they want to do but I cannot do anything. I am weak and unable to take care of myself”), and Conscientious/ Responsible (“I work so hard, but they get the rewards. I am either lazy or this isn’t fair”). The cognitive content of envy and alternative challenges or responses are shown in Tables 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 for these different levels of thinking and responding to one’s envy.

The Emotional Schema Model of Envy

The Emotional Schema Model draws on the generic cognitive model, but also recognizes the cultural and socialization factors that contribute to beliefs about emotions and strategies of adaptation and communication of those emotions. In this section we will review the assumptions underlying the idealization of status, the tendency to focus on status to exclusion of other sources of emotional enrichment, beliefs about the emotional experience of envy, and problematic coping strategies. Finally, we will examine a case conceptualization of envy that can inform an integrative cognitive behavioral approach.

Idealizing Status

Just as the envious person may derogate their own success or life experiences, envy is often associated with idealizing the presumed lives of people who have obtained some status. We see this in the admiration and idealization that people often confer on celebrities or people with wealth, although we seldom have access to the real-life experiences of these people. This reinforces the maladaptive assumption, “The way to be happier in life is to gain status”. The idealization of the lives of others is usually based on fantasy rather than facts. Do we really know how celebrities or other “successful” people experience their daily lives? Are we able to determine how their “status” in one domain translates to fulfillment and satisfaction in other areas such as personal relationships, family life, health, or personal happiness? Perhaps, because of the tendency to idealize celebrities it is easy to see how this “envy” of those with higher status gives rise to an interest in learning about their problems and personal tragedies. Schadenfreude is usually focused on those with higher status. We love to hear about people falling from the heights, especially if they crash and burn.

Deconstructing Status

An alternative to this view is to “deconstruct” status. We can think of “status” as reflecting different perceived domains of value. For example, there may be people who may be viewed as having status in the arts, law, academics, or sports. However, within each of these domains there are segments of the hierarchy that may strongly disagree about the status of an individual. For example, in academics within the field of psychology individuals in neuroscience may view achievements in social psychology as having less value, whereas people in social psychology might view achievements in neuroscience as not relevant to valued concerns in their own field. Moreover, since status domains are “local”—we only know what we know- we may have no idea what the other person’s work is or how to evaluate it. Thus, status is always “local”, “arbitrary” and dependent on the views of others. All of these factors are either transitory or unknowable—that is, status is often a temporary “position” in a local hierarchy and, in fact, one can never be quite sure about how one is viewed by others. The status of someone in one career may not be viewed as of no status by someone who is not in that same career path. Moreover, we can never be quite sure how others are evaluating our status. The foregoing model of deconstructing status may be incorporated as a model of clinical intervention for the envious individual. Too often “status” is a concept that may go under-examined, leaving the patient with the belief that it is essential to one’s well-being.

Range of Valued Action

Just as the envious person idealizes the target of envy and may over-value the benefits of status, they also ignore or discount the range of valued action available to them. It is as if one’s meaning in life is reduced to a level of success on one dimension. An alternative to this myopic vision is to expand awareness of other valued goals. Two techniques are helpful. First, the client is asked to consider all the things that they can still do even if they do not have this higher status. For example, a business executive who had become focused on his lower status compared to someone promoted above him, was able to list a wide range of behaviors that he could still pursue—in fact, everything that he had always been able to do. When asked to list what he was no longer able to do because someone had higher status, he could not identify a single behavior. Secondly, the therapist introduced the idea of a Life Portfolio . With this technique a “Life-Space Pie” is represented by a circle with ten “pieces”. The client is asked to identify what other things in their life have meaning and to label those pieces of their life portfolio. Then, they are asked what per cent of their focus they wish to give to each of these pieces. This technique assists in detaching from a single focus on arbitrary status to an awareness of other valued action. In some case, this assists in redirecting the individual to areas of their lives that have gone ignored. In the case of the business executive it led to his awareness that he was not giving enough attention to his son and to his wife.

Emotional Schema Beliefs and Envy

Cognitive factors not only give rise to the emotion of envy, but they are also implicated in the individual’s interpretations, tolerance, and strategies for coping with envy. The Emotional Schema Model proposes that a variety of beliefs can add to the difficulty in coping with envy. These include beliefs that “My envy goes on and on” (Duration), “I can’t control my envy” (Controllability), “I shouldn’t feel this way” (Shame/Guilt), “Other people don’t feel this way” (Lack of consensus), “My envy doesn’t make sense” (Incomprehensible), “I am an envious person” (Labeling Self as Emotion), “I can’t accept the fact that I feel envious”( Low acceptance), “I can never tell anyone about this” (Low expression), “No one could validate or understand the way I feel” (Low validation), “How can I feel envious when I also like this person?” (inability to accept ambivalence), “It’s irrational, so I shouldn’t feel this way” (Overemphasis on rationality) and “I am an envious person” (Identifying self with the emotion).

Accordingly, the EST model attempts to reverse many of these negative interpretations of the emotion of envy. These responses are shown in Table 3 (“Beliefs About the Emotion of Envy and Adaptive Alternative Beliefs”) and Table 4 (“Maladaptive Strategies and Alternative Perspectives”).

Case Conceptualization

The integrative CBT model can provide the clinician with a framework for conceptualizing an individual case of envy. (See Fig. 1  for a Generic Case Conceptualization of envy.) For example, the client was a married man with children who has been passed over for a promotion. His envy was focused on a colleague who was promoted ahead of him. Although the colleague was someone he viewed as competent, he also viewed himself as competent and deserving of promotion. The therapist provided an overview of envy based on the ideas outlined in this article. Although his primary presenting complaint was depression and rumination, the therapist identified his envy as a central vulnerability. The evolutionary model was explained, balancing the universal desire for higher status in a dominance hierarchy with a “fairness motive” that rewards should be equitable. In addition, the therapist normalized his envy, indicating that a universal emotion is not something that one should feel guilty or ashamed about. Moreover, the experience of being passed over, which gave rise to envy and a sense of defeat, was related to his early childhood experience of feeling humiliated and left out of groups of other children, which was now interpreted as based on the fact that the other children thought he was smarter and, ironically, because of their hostile envy, excluded him from the group. His core schema was that he was not good enough to be included and his schema about others was that they were rejecting.

Cognitive behavioral therapy for envy

Rather than reduce his identity to “I am an envious person”, we differentiated his self-concept as one of many emotions, thoughts, achievements, values and possible action. We identified several of his maladaptive strategies including rumination, self-criticism, and avoidance and targeted each for treatment. Rumination was treated with meta-cognitive techniques (setting aside time for rumination, attentional training, detached mindfulness), self-criticism was addressed with standard cognitive techniques (evidence for and against, double-standard, examining discounting the positives, over-generalizing and labeling), “unfairness” was treated with acceptance and commitment to positive goals such as forming alliances, obtaining feedback for how to improve his performance, using the target of envy as a role-model of success (turning envy into emulation), and developing a “business plan” for success by using problem solving, focus on positive goals, and managing upwards. Each of his emotional schema beliefs were examined and challenged including beliefs about duration (his envy was fluid and came and went during the day), controllability (he could both accept the envy for now but realize that his envy could be abated if he challenged his negative thoughts, accepted the situation for now, and focused on other goals. His shame about the emotion was addressed by normalizing envy, relating envy to evolutionary factors and socialization, and reframing envy as an emotion that could be turned into a positive (that is, emulation, motivation to improve, learning). Finally, he was able to step away from an over-focus on “status” within the system to develop a complex “Life Portfolio” of valued action including being a father, husband, son, member of a charitable organization, someone who was constantly learning, hobbies that he valued, and other valued action.

Conclusions

Despite the widespread experience of envy and its often debilitating depression, anxiety, hostility and ruminative qualities, this troubling emotion has gained little attention in the cognitive behavioral literature. In this article we have reviewed the factors that give rise to a range of envious responses—including depressive, hostile and benign envy- and have examined how envy is related to evolutionary factors that have been important for ancestral humans. These include the many advantages for survival and procreation conferred by higher status and, in conflict with dominance, the countervailing motives to seek fair distribution. Moreover, while recognizing the universality of envy, this emotion can be normalized, rather than reduced to a symptom of pathological narcissism.

An integrative cognitive behavioral model provides the clinician with a systematic roadmap for case conceptualization and strategic interventions. This includes assisting clients in recognizing the sources of envy that are beyond one’s control including evolutionary, cultural and socialization factors, the advantage in accepting the experience of envy rather than attempt to suppress it or feel ashamed about it, a method to develop a plan to turn envy into admiration and even into emulation, strategies to reduce avoidance, sabotaging others, or giving up, techniques to address the ruminative aspects of envy, methods to identify and modify automatic thoughts, maladaptive assumptions and personal and interpersonal schemas, and techniques to examine and address unhelpful beliefs about the emotion of envy.

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Leahy, R.L. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Envy. Cogn Ther Res 45 , 418–427 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10135-y

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Relationship of leadership and envy: how to resolve workplace envy with leadership—a bibliometric review study.

1. Introduction

• From the conceptual level: (1) To further clarify the difference between envy and jealousy, the work environment and workplace climate are clarified to shape the particular concept of envy ( Salovey and Rodin 1984 ). (2) A clear conceptualization of leading and leadership, extending the noun attribute of the concept to the verb state, i.e., an analysis of leadership activities in dynamic behavior and their impact on the work environment ( Hupka 1984 ). (3) To pay particular attention to the workplace, identify its specific properties and heterogeneity with other social environments ( Silver and Sabini 1978 ).
• At the theoretical level, the essential theoretical foundations and empirical thinking on envy, leadership, and the workplace are sorted out and summarized by previous authors, from which the potential relationships between the three are summarized, and the intersection areas or interweaving points of findings are clarified. Ultimately, this paper lays the foundation for the literature synthesis and the organization of ideas utilizing measurement.
• At the relational level, the literature on the relationship between leadership and envy is summarized using bibliometric methods to form a lineage and evolutionary history of literature research. The relationship between leadership and envy in the workplace environment was analyzed in real-life and historical frameworks and different years. It is concluded that the relationship between leadership and envy has evolved from isolation to a potential single influence (envy stemming from the non-benign distribution or role of leadership), to a potential two-way influence (too much workplace envy putting demands on leadership), to a direct control mechanism (through the role of leadership, the transformation of benign envy can be achieved, and the formation of a large amount of positive envy can contribute to rapid corporate development ( Leach and Spears 2008 )).
• This paper proposes a two-track theoretical hypothesis model for the adjustment of envy-leadership relationships through the preceding work and the path developed in the literature. On the one hand, this theoretical model can pave the way for empirical work in subsequent studies, and other scholars can test the stimulus–organism–response path in turn based on this paper’s model of ideas ( Klein 2011 ). It clarifies the trajectory of leadership interventions and guiding ideas for envy adjustment (pursuing decision performance or fairness, guiding organizational practice or effectuation), analyses the trajectory of the role of envy in the workplace (single element role of perceptions, attitudes on envy; or mediating, moderating model of perceptions-attitudes-envy), and finally obtains specific adjustment measures. On the other hand, the model creatively points out the role of leadership in the workplace on employee or organizational envy, i.e., it integrates the two sides of envy and leadership while forming a new direction of research under a unified research framework.

2. The Theoretical Basis of the Relationship between Envy and Leadership

2.1. concept definition, 2.1.1. envy, 2.1.2. leadership, 2.1.3. the relationship between jealousy and leadership, 2.2. theoretical research, 2.3. empirical research, 2.3.1. antecedents of envy, 2.3.2. consequences of envy, 2.3.3. envy and leadership, 3. the main content of the research on the relationship between leadership and envy, 3.1. introduction to the method, 3.2. literature search, 3.3. the developmental stage of the research on the relationship between leadership and envy, 3.3.1. formation stage: leadership and envy in the story (1995–2007).

• Proposal of the Concept
• Development of Relationship Research

3.3.2. Development Stage: Leadership and Envy in the Interpersonal Field (2007–2013)

3.3.3. maturity stage: multiple envy and multiple leadership (2013–present), 3.4. analysis of content, 3.4.1. research topics on the relationship between leadership and envy, 3.4.2. the focus of previous literature research and the relationship between mutual citations, 4. core word mining and model construction, 5. conclusions, shortcomings and outlook, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Liu, H.; Geng, J.; Yao, P. Relationship of Leadership and Envy: How to Resolve Workplace Envy with Leadership—A Bibliometric Review Study. J. Intell. 2021 , 9 , 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence9030044

Liu H, Geng J, Yao P. Relationship of Leadership and Envy: How to Resolve Workplace Envy with Leadership—A Bibliometric Review Study. Journal of Intelligence . 2021; 9(3):44. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence9030044

Liu, Hongda, Jiejun Geng, and Pinbo Yao. 2021. "Relationship of Leadership and Envy: How to Resolve Workplace Envy with Leadership—A Bibliometric Review Study" Journal of Intelligence 9, no. 3: 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence9030044

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Envy in the Workplace: A Systematic Review of the Past Five Years

2020, Revista Psicologia: Organizações & Trabalho

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Cyberbullying and its influence on academic, social, and emotional development of undergraduate students

This study investigated the influence of cyberbullying on the academic, social, and emotional development of undergraduate students. It's objective is to provides additional data and understanding of the influence of cyberbullying on various variables affecting undergraduate students. The survey sample consisted of 638 Israeli undergraduate students. The data were collected using the Revised Cyber Bullying Survey, which evaluates the frequency and media used to perpetrate cyberbullying, and the College Adjustment Scales, which evaluate three aspects of development in college students. It was found that 57% of the students had experienced cyberbullying at least once or twice through different types of media. Three variables were found to have significant influences on the research variables: gender, religion and sexual preferences. Correlation analyses were conducted and confirmed significant relationships between cyberbullying, mainly through instant messaging, and the academic, social and emotional development of undergraduate students. Instant messaging (IM) was found to be the most common means of cyberbullying among the students.

The main conclusions are that although cyberbullying existence has been proven, studies of cyberbullying among undergraduate students have not been fully developed. This particular population needs special attention in future research. The results of this study indicate that cyberbullying has an influence on the academic, social, and emotional development of undergraduate students. Additional Implications of the findings are discussed.

1. Introduction

Cyberbullying is defined as the electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person (such as a student) often done anonymously ( Merriam-Webster, 2017 ). Most of the investigations of cyberbullying have been conducted with students in elementary, middle and high school who were between 9 and 18 years old. Those studies focused on examining the prevalence and frequency of cyberbullying. Using “cyberbullying” and “higher-education” as key words in Google scholar (January, 2019) (all in title) yields only twenty one articles. In 2009, 2012 and 2013 one article appeared each year, since 2014 each year there were few publications. Of these articles only seven relates to effect of cyberbullying on the students, thus a gap in the literature exists in that it only minimally reports on studies involving undergraduate students. Given their relationship and access to technology, it is likely that cyberbullying occurs frequently among undergraduates. The purpose of this study is to examine the frequency and media used to perpetrate cyberbullying, as well as the relationship that it has with the academic, social and emotional development of undergraduate students.

Undergraduate students use the Internet for a wide variety of purposes. Those purposes include recreation, such as communicating in online groups or playing games; academics, such as doing assignments, researching scholarships or completing online applications; and practical, such as preparing for job interviews by researching companies. Students also use the Internet for social communication with increasing frequency.

The literature suggests that cyberbullied victims generally manifest psychological problems such as depression, loneliness, low self-esteem, school phobias and social anxiety ( Grene, 2003 ; Juvonen et al., 2003 ; Akcil, 2018 ). Moreover, research findings have shown that cyberbullying causes emotional and physiological damage to defenseless victims ( Akbulut and Eristi, 2011 ) as well as psychosocial difficulties including behavior problems ( Ybarra and Mitchell, 2007 ), drinking alcohol ( Selkie et al., 2015 ), smoking, depression, and low commitment to academics ( Ybarra and Mitchell, 2007 ).

Under great emotional stress, victims of cyberbullying are unable to concentrate on their studies, and thus their academic progress is adversely affected ( Akcil, 2018 ). Since the victims are often hurt psychologically, the depressive effect of cyberbullying prevents students from excelling in their studies ( Faryadi, 2011 ). The overall presence of cyberbullying victimization among undergraduate college students was found to be significantly related to the experience of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, low self-esteem, interpersonal problems, family tensions and academic underperformance ( Beebe, 2010 ).

1.1. Cyberbullying and internet

The Internet has been the most useful technology of modern times, which has enabled entirely new forms of social interaction, activities, and organizing. This has been possible thanks to its basic features such as widespread usability and access. However, it also causes undesirable behaviors that are offensive or threatening to others, such as cyberbullying. This is a relatively new phenomenon.

According to Belsey (2006, p.1) , “Cyberbullying involves the use of information and communication technologies such as e-mail, cell-phone and pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal web sites, blogs, online games and defamatory online personal polling web sites, to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group that is intended to harm others.” Characteristics like anonymity, accessibility to electronic communication, and rapid audience spread, result in a limitless number of individuals that can be affected by cyberbullying.

Different studies suggest that undergraduate students' use of the Internet is more significant and frequent than any other demographic group. A 2014 survey of 1006 participants in the U.S. conducted by the Pew Research Center revealed that 97% of young adults aged from 18 to 29 years use the Internet, email, or access the Internet via a mobile device. Among them, 91% were college students.

1.2. Mediums to perpetrate cyberbullying

The most frequent and common media within which cyberbullying can occur are:

Electronic mail (email): a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients.

Instant messaging: a type of online chat that offers real-time text transmission between two parties.

Chat rooms: a real-time online interaction with strangers with a shared interest or other similar connection.

Text messaging (SMS): the act of composing and sending a brief electronic message between two or more mobile phones.

Social networking sites: a platform to build social networks or social relations among people who share interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.

Web sites : a platform that provides service for personal, commercial, or government purpose.

Studies indicate that undergraduate students are cyberbullied most frequently through email, and least often in chat rooms ( Beebe, 2010 ). Other studies suggest that instant messaging is the most common electronic medium used to perpetrate cyberbullying ( Kowalski et al., 2018 ).

1.3. Types of cyberbullying

Watts et al. (2017) Describe 7 types of cyberbullying: flaming, online harassment, cyberstalking, denigration, masquerading, trickery and outing, and exclusion. Flaming involves sending angry, rude, or vulgar messages via text or email about a person either to that person privately or to an online group.

Harassment involves repeatedly sending offensive messages, and cyberstalking moves harassment online, with the offender sending threatening messages to his or her victim. Denigration occurs when the cyberbully sends untrue or hurtful messages about a person to others. Masquerading takes elements of harassment and denigration where the cyberbully pretends to be someone else and sends or posts threatening or harmful information about one person to other people. Trickery and outing occur when the cyberbully tricks an individual into providing embarrassing, private, or sensitive information and posts or sends the information for others to view. Exclusion is deliberately leaving individuals out of an online group, thereby automatically stigmatizing the excluded individuals.

Additional types of cyberbullying are: Fraping - where a person accesses the victim's social media account and impersonates them in an attempt to be funny or to ruin their reputation. Dissing - share or post cruel information online to ruin one's reputation or friendships with others. Trolling - is insulting an individual online to provoke them enough to get a response. Catfishing - steals one's online identity to re-creates social networking profiles for deceptive purposes. Such as signing up for services in the victim's name so that the victim receives emails or other offers for potentially embarrassing things such as gay-rights newsletters or incontinence treatment. Phishing - a tactic that requires tricking, persuading or manipulating the target into revealing personal and/or financial information about themselves and/or their loved ones. Stalking – Online stalking when a person shares her personal information publicly through social networking websites. With this information, stalkers can send them personal messages, send mysterious gifts to someone's home address and more. Blackmail – Anonymous e-mails, phone-calls and private messages are often done to a person who bear secrets. Photographs & video - Threaten to share them publicly unless the victim complies with a particular demand; Distribute them via text or email, making it impossible for the victim to control who sees the picture; Publish the pictures on the Internet for anyone to view. Shunning - persistently avoid, ignore, or reject someone mainly from participating in social networks. Sexting - send sexually explicit photographs or messages via mobile phone.

1.4. Prevalence of cyberbullying

Previous studies have found that cyberbullying incidents among college students can range from 9% to 34% ( Baldasare et al., 2012 ).

Beebe (2010) conducted a study with 202 college students in United States. Results indicated that 50.7% of the undergraduate students represented in the sample reported experiencing cyberbullying victimization once or twice during their time in college. Additionally, 36.3% reported cyberbullying victimization on a monthly basis while in college. According to Dılmaç (2009) , 22.5% of 666 students at Selcuk University in Turkey reported cyberbullying another person at least once and 55.35% reported being a victim of cyberbullying at least once in their lifetimes. In a study of 131 students from seven undergraduate classes in United States, 11% of the respondents indicated having experienced cyberbullying at the university ( Walker et al., 2011 ). Of those, Facebook (64%), cell phones (43%) and instant messaging (43%) were the most frequent technologies used. Students indicated that 50% of the cyberbullies were classmates, 57% were individuals outside of the university, and 43% did not know who was cyberbullying them.

Data from the last two years (2017–18) is similar to the above. A research, of 187 undergraduate students matriculated at a large U.S. Northeastern metropolitan Roman Catholic university ( Webber and Ovedovitz, 2018 ), found that 4.3% indicated that they were victims of cyberbullying at the university level and a total of 7.5% students acknowledged having participated in bullying at that level while A survey (N = 338) at a large midwestern university conducted by Varghese and Pistole (2017) , showed that frequency counts indicated that 15.1% undergraduate students were cyberbully victims during college, and 8.0% were cyberbully offenders during college.

A study of 201 students from sixteen different colleges across the United States found a prevalence rate of 85.2% for college students who reported being victims of cyberbullying out of the total 201 responses recorded. This ranged from only occasional incidents to almost daily experiences with cyberbullying victimization ( Poole, 2017 ).

In A research of international students, 20.7% reported that they have been cyberbullied in the last 30 days once to many times ( Akcil, 2018 ).

1.5. Psychological impact of cyberbullying

Cyberbullying literature suggests that victims generally manifest psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem, social exclusion, school phobias and poor academic performance ( DeHue et al., 2008 ; Juvonen and Gross, 2008 ; Kowalski and Limber, 2007 ; Grene, 2003 ; Juvonen et al., 2003 ; Rivituso, 2012 ; Varghese and Pistole, 2017 ; Na, 2014 ; Akcil, 2018 ), low self-esteem, family problems, school violence and delinquent behavior ( Webber and Ovedovitz, 2018 ), which brings them to experience suicidal thoughts as a means of escaping the torture ( Ghadampour et al., 2017 ).

Moreover, research findings have shown that cyberbullying causes emotional and physiological damage to defenseless victims ( Faryadi, 2011 ) as well as psychosocial problems including inappropriate behaviors, drinking alcohol, smoking, depression and low commitment to academics ( Walker et al., 2011 ).

The victims of cyberbullying, under great emotional stress, are unable to concentrate on their studies, and thus their academic progress is adversely affected ( Faryadi, 2011 ). Since the victims are often hurt psychologically, the depressive effect of cyberbullying prevents students from excelling in their studies ( Faryadi, 2011 ).

In a Malaysian university study with 365 first year students, the majority of the participants (85%) interviewed indicated that cyberbullying affected their academic performance, specifically their grades ( Faryadi, 2011 ). Also, 85% of the respondents agreed that bullying caused a devastating impact on students' emotions and equally caused unimaginable psychological problems among the victims. Heiman and Olenik-Shemesh (2018) report that for students with learning disabilities, predictors of cybervictimization were low social support, low self-perception, and being female, whereas for students without learning disabilities, the predictors were low social support, low well-being, and low body perception.

1.6. Academic, social, and emotional development of undergraduate students

The transition to academic institutions is marked by complex challenges in emotional, social, and academic adjustment ( Gerdes and Mallinckrodt, 1994 ; Parker et al., 2004 ).

The adaptation to a new environment is an important factor in academic performance and future achievement. Undergraduate students are not only developing academically and intellectually, they are also establishing and maintaining personal relationships, developing an identity, deciding about a career and lifestyle, and maintaining personal health and wellness. Many students are interacting with people from diverse backgrounds who hold different values and making new friends. Some are also adapting to living away from home for the very first time ( Inkelas et al., 2007 ).

The concept of academic development involves not only academic abilities, but motivational factors, and institutional commitment. Motivation to learn, taking actions to meet academic demands, a clear sense of purpose, and general satisfaction with the academic environment are also important components of the academic field ( Lau, 2003 ).

A second dimension, the social field, may be as important as academic factors. Writers have emphasized integration into the social environment as a crucial element in commitment to a particular academic institution ( Tinto, 1975 ). Becoming integrated into the social life of college, forming a support network, and managing new social freedoms are some important elements of social development. Crises in the social field include conflict in a living situation, starting or maintaining relationships, interpersonal conflicts, family issues, and financial issues ( McGrath, 2005 ), which are manifested as feelings of loneliness ( Clark et al., 2015 ).

In the emotional field, students commonly question their relationships, direction in life, and self-worth ( Rey et al., 2011 ). A balanced personality is one which is emotionally adjusted. Emotional adjustment is essential for creating a sound personality. physical, intellectual mental and esthetical adjustments are possible when emotional adjustment is made ( Ziapour et al., 2018 ). Inner disorders may result from questions about identity and can sometimes lead to personal crises ( Gerdes and Mallinckrodt, 1994 ). Emotional problems may be manifested as global psychological distress, somatic distress, anxiety, low self-esteem, or depression. Impediments to success in emotional development include depression and anxiety, stress, substance abuse, and relationship problems ( Beebe, 2010 ).

The current study is designed to address two research questions: (1) does cyberbullying affect college students' emotional state, as measured by the nine factors of the College Adjustment Scales ( Anton and Reed, 1991 ); (2) which mode of cyberbullying most affects students' emotional state?

2.1. Research settings and participants

The present study is set in Israeli higher education colleges. These, function as: (1) institutions offering undergraduate programs in a limited number of disciplinary fields (mainly the social sciences), (2) centers for training studies (i.e.: teacher training curricula), as well as (3) as creators of access to higher education. The general student population is heterogeneous, coming from the Western Galilee. In this study, 638 Israeli undergraduate students participated. The sample is a representative of the population of the Western galilee in Israel. The sample was 76% female, 70% single, 51% Jewish, 27% Arabs, 7% Druze, and 15% other ethnicity. On the dimension of religiosity, 47% were secular, 37% traditional, 12% religious, 0.5% very religious, and 3.5% other. On the dimension of sexual orientation, 71% were straight women, 23.5% straight men, 4% bisexual, 1% lesbians, and 0.5% gay males (note: according to the Williams Institute, approximately 4% of the population in the US are LGBT, [ Gates, 2011 ], while 6% of the EU population are LGBT, [ Dalia, 2016 ]).

2.2. Instrumentation

Two instruments were used to collect data: The Revised Cyber Bullying Survey (RCBS), with a Cronbach's alpha ranging from .74 to .91 ( Kowalski and Limber, 2007 ), designed to measure incidence, frequency and medium used to perpetrate cyberbullying. The survey is a 32-item questionnaire. The frequency was investigated using a 5-item scale with anchors ranging from ‘it has never happened to me’ to ‘several times a week’. Five different media were explored: email, instant messaging, chat room, text messaging, and social networking sites. Each medium was examined with the same six questions related to cases of cyberbullying (see Table 1 ).

Description of the Revised Cyber Bullying Survey (RCBS) variables.

Note: the theoretical range is between zero to twenty-four.

Table 1 shows the five variables that composed the RCBS questionnaire (all of the variables are composed of 6 statements). The results indicate that the levels of all the variables is very low, which means that the respondents experienced cyberbullying once or twice. The internal consistency reliability estimate based on the current sample suggested that most of the variables have an adequate to high level of reliability, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.68–0.87.

The College Adjustment Scales (CAS) ( Anton and Reed, 1991 ), evaluated the academic, social, and emotional development of college students. Values were standardized and validated for use with college students. The validity for each subscale ranged from .64 to .80, noting high correlations among scales. Reliability of the scales ranged from .80 to .92, with a mean of .86. The instrument included 128 items, divided into 10 scales: anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, self-esteem problems, interpersonal problems, family problems, academic problems, career problems, and regular activities (see Table 2 ). Students responded to each item using a four-point scale.

Description of CAS variables.

Anxiety: A measure of clinical anxiety, focusing on common affective, cognitive, and physiological symptoms.

Depression: A measure of clinical depression, focusing on common affective, cognitive, and physiological symptoms.

Suicidal Ideation: A measure of the extent of recent ideation reflecting suicide, including thoughts of suicide, hopelessness, and resignation.

Substance Abuse: A measure of the extent of disruption in interpersonal, social, academic, and vocational functioning as a result of substance use and abuse.

Self-esteem Problems: A measure of global self-esteem which taps negative self-evaluations and dissatisfaction with personal achievement.

Interpersonal Problems: A measure of the extent of problems in relating to others in the campus environment.

Family Problems: A measure of difficulties experienced in relationships with family members.

Academic Problems: A measure of the extent of problems related to academic performance.

Career Problems: A measure of the extent of problems related to career choice.

Participants also responded to a demographic questionnaire that included items on gender, birth year, marital status, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. As sexual orientation is a major cause for bullying ( Pollock, 2006 ; Cahill and Makadon, 2014 ), it was included in the background information.

Convenience sampling and purposive sampling were used for this study. Surveys with written instructions were administered in classrooms, libraries and online via Google Docs at the end of the semester.

The surveys were translated to Hebrew and back translated four times until sufficient translation was achieved. The research was approved by the Western Galilee College Research and Ethic Committee.

A sizeable percentage, 57.4% (366), of the respondents reported being cyber bullied at least once and 3.4% (22) reported being cyber bullied at least once a week. The types of bullies can be seen in Fig. 1 .

Types of bullies.

Three variables were found to have significant influences on the research variables: (1) gender (see Table 3 ); (2) religion (see Table 4 ); and (3) sexual preferences (see Table 5 ).

Results of independent t-tests for research variables by gender.

Note: n male = 127, n female = 510, *p < .05.

Results of independent t-tests for research variables by level of religion.

Note: n religious = 345, n secular = 293, ∗ p < .05, ∗∗ p < .01, ∗∗∗ p < .001.

Results of independent t-tests for research variables by sexual preference.

Note: n heterosexual = 596, n other = 42, ∗ p < .05, ∗∗ p < .01, ∗∗∗ p < .001.

Independent t-tests between the CAS variables and gender show significant differences between females and males (see Table 3 ).

Independent t-tests between the CAS variables and level of religiosity show significant differences between secular and religious persons, i.e., observant believers (see Table 4 ).

Independent t-tests between the CAS variables and sexual preference show significant differences between heterosexual individuals and others (see Table 5 ).

The research population was divided into three age groups having five year intervals. One respondent who was 14 years old was removed from the population.

For the variable “career problems” it was found that there was a significant difference between the 26–30 year age group [p < .05, F(2,5815) = 3.49, M = 56.55] and the 31–35 (M = 56.07) as well as the 20–25 (M = 54.58) age groups.

For the variable "depression" it was found that there was a significant difference between the 20–25 year age group [p < .05, F(2,5815) = 3.84, M = 54.56] and the 31–35 (M = 51.61) as well as the 26–30 (M = 52.83) age groups.

For the variable “interpersonal problems” it was found that there was a significant difference between the 20–25 year age group [p < .06, F(2,5815) = 3.84, M = 53.85] and the 31–35 (M = 51.29) as well as the 26–30 (M = 52.19) age groups.

For the variable “suicidal ideation” it was found that there was a significant difference between the 20–25 year age group [p < .06, F(2,5815) = 3.84, M = 55.45] and the 31–35 (M = 49.71) as well as the 26–30 (M = 50.13) age groups (see Table 6 ).

Results of one way Anova for research variables by age.

Note: n 20-25 = 216, n 26-30 = 287, n 31-35 = 82, ∗ p < .05, ∗∗ p < .01, ∗∗∗ p < .001.

To confirm that there was no effect among the independent variables, a Pearson correlation analysis of cyberbullying with CAS variables was run. As the correlations between the independent variables are weak, no multicollinearity between them was noted (see Table 7 ).

Pearson correlation of cyberbullying with CAS variables.

Note: n = 638, ∼ p < .06, ∗ p < .05, ∗∗ p < .01, ∗∗∗ p < .001.

Regression analyses on the effect of the cyberbullying variables on the CAS variables (see Fig. 2 ) show that an increase in cyberbullying by social networking and IM increases the academic problems variable. The model explained 6.1% of the variance (F (13,585) = 2.94, p < .001) and shows an increase in the suicidal ideation variable. There is also a marginal effect of cyberbullying by SMS on suicidal ideation, revealing that an increase in cyberbullying by SMS causes a decrease in suicidal ideation. The explained variance of the model is 24.8% (F (11,584) = 14.80, p < .001). Higher cyberbullying by social networking results in an increase in the anxiety variable. The explained variance of the model is 8.8% (F (13,584) = 4.32, p < .001). An increase in cyberbullying by chat and IM shows an increase in the substance abuse variable. The model explains 13% of the variance (F (13,584) = 6.71, p < .001). Increasing cyberbullying by social networking and IM increases the self-esteem problems variable. The explained variance of the model is 9% (F (13,584) = 4.43, p < .001). An increase of cyberbullying by email increases the problems students have with regular activities. The explained variance of the model is 5.2% (F (13,575) = 2.44, p < .01). Heightened cyberbullying by social networking and IM increases students' interpersonal problems. There is also an effect of cyberbullying by IM on suicidal ideation, such that an increase in cyberbullying by IM causes a decrease in interpersonal problems. The explained variance of the model is 8% (F (13,584) = 3.89, p < .001). An increase in cyberbullying by SMS decreases the family problems variable. The explained variance of the model is 11.4% (F (13,584) = 5.76, p < .001). And finally, heightened cyberbullying by IM and social networking decreases the depression variable. The variance explained by the model is 11.9% (F (13,584) = 6.04, p < .001).

The influence of academic cyberbullying variables on the CAS variables.

4. Discussion

The objective of this study was to fill an existing gap in the literature regarding the influence of cyberbullying on the academic, social, and emotional development of undergraduate students.

As has been presented, cyberbullying continues to be a disturbing trend not only among adolescents but also undergraduate students. Cyberbullying exists in colleges and universities, and it has an influence on the development of students. Fifty seven percent of the undergraduate students who participated in this study had experienced cyberbullying at least once during their time in college. As previous studies have found that cyberbullying incidents among college students can range from 9% to 50% ( Baldasare et al., 2012 ; Beebe, 2010 ) it seems that 57% is high. Considering the effect of smartphone abundance on one hand and on the other the increasing use of online services and activities by young-adults can explain that percentage.

Considering the effect of such an encounter on the academic, social and emotional development of undergraduate students, policy makers face a formidable task to address the relevant issues and to take corrective action as Myers and Cowie (2017) point out that due to the fact that universities are in the business of education, it is a fine balancing act between addressing the problem, in this case cyberbullying, and maintaining a duty of care to both the victim and the perpetrator to ensure they get their degrees. There is a clear tension for university authorities between acknowledging that university students are independent young adults, each responsible for his or her own actions, on one hand, and providing supervision and monitoring to ensure students' safety in educational and leisure contexts.

Although there are increasing reports on connections between cyberbullying and social-networks (see: Gahagan et al., 2016 ), sending SMS or MMS messages through Internet gateways ensures anonymity, thus indirectly supporting cyberbullying. A lot of websites require only login or a phone number that can also be made up ( Gálik et al., 2018 ) which can explain the fact that instant-messaging (IM) was found to be the most common means of cyberbullying among undergraduate students with a negative influence on academic, family, and emotional development (depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation). A possible interpretation of the higher frequency of cyberbullying through IM may be that young adults have a need to be connected.

This medium allows for being online in ‘real time’ with many peers or groups. With the possibility of remaining anonymous (by creating an avatar – a fake profile) and the possibility of exposing private information that remains recorded, students who use instant messaging become easy targets for cyberbullying. IM apps such as WhatsApp are extremely popular as they allow messages, photos, videos, and recordings to be shared and spread widely and in real time.

Students use the Internet as a medium and use it with great frequency in their everyday lives. As more aspects of students' lives and daily affairs are conducted online, coupled with the fact that excessive use may have consequences, it is important for researchers and academic policy makers to study the phenomenon of cyberbullying more deeply.

Sexual orientation is also a significant factor that increases the risk of victimization. Similarly, Rivers (2016) documented the rising incidence of homophobic and transphobic bullying at university and argues strongly for universities to be more active in promoting tolerance and inclusion on campus. It is worth noting that relationships and sexual orientation probably play a huge role in bullying among university students due to their age and the fact that the majority of students are away from home and experiencing different forms of relationships for the first time. Faucher et al. (2014) actually found that same sex cyberbullying was more common at university level than at school. Nonetheless, the research is just not there yet to make firm conclusions.

Finally, cyberbullying is not only an adolescent issue. Although its existence has been proven, studies of cyberbullying among undergraduate students have not been fully developed. This particular population needs special attention in future research.

The results of this study indicate that cyberbullying has an influence on the academic, social, and emotional development of undergraduate students.

In the academic field, findings revealed a statistically significant correlation between cyberbullying perpetrated by email and academic problems. Relationships between academic problems and cyberbullying perpetrated by other media were not found. This suggests that cyberbullying through instant messaging, chat room, text messaging, and social networking sites, have not influenced academic abilities, motivation to learn, and general satisfaction with the academic environment. However, cyberbullying perpetrated by email has an influence on academics, perhaps because of the high use of this medium among undergraduate students.

With regard to career problems, correlations with cyberbullying were not found. This indicates that cyberbullying has no influence on career problems, perhaps because these kinds of problems are related to future career inspirations, and not to the day-to-day aspects of a student's life.

In the social field, it was found that interpersonal problems such as integration into the social environment, forming a support network, and managing new social freedoms, were related to cyberbullying via social networking sites. This finding is consistent with the high use of social networking sites, the purpose of the medium, and the reported episodes of cyberbullying in that medium.

Family problems were also related to cyberbullying perpetrated by all kinds of media. This may indicate that as cyberbullying through the use of email, instant messaging, chat rooms, text messaging, and social networking sites increases, so do family problems. This could be due to the strong influence that cyberbullying generates in all the frameworks of students, including their families.

Finally, in the emotional field, correlations between cyberbullying perpetrated by all kinds of media and substance abuse were found. This may indicate that as cyberbullying through the use of email, instant messaging, chat rooms, text messaging, and social networking sites increases, so does substance abuse. This is important because cyberbullying may be another risk factor for increasing the probability of substance abuse.

Depression and suicidal ideation were significantly related to the same media – email instant messaging and chat cyberbullying – suggesting that depression may lead to a decision of suicide as a solution to the problem. Previous findings support the above that being an undergraduate student – a victim of cyberbullying emerges as an additional risk factor for the development of depressive symptoms ( Myers and Cowie, 2017 ). Also Selkie et al. (2015) reported among 265 female college students, being engaged in cyberbullying as bullies, victims, or both led to higher rates of depression and alcohol use.

Relationships between anxiety and cyberbullying, through all the media, were not found although Schenk and Fremouw (2012) found that college student victims of cyberbullying scored higher than matched controls on measures of depression, anxiety, phobic anxiety, and paranoia. This may be because it was demonstrated that anxiety is one of the most common reported mental health problems in all undergraduate students, cyberbullied or not.

Self-esteem problems were significantly related to cyberbullying via instant messaging, social networking sites, and text messaging. This may suggest that as cyberbullying through instant messaging, social networking sites, and text messaging increases, so do self-esteem problems. This is an important finding, given that these were the media with more reported episodes of cyberbullying.

5. Conclusions

This findings of this study revealed that cyberbullying exists in colleges and universities, and it has an influence on the academic, social, and emotional development of undergraduate students.

It was shown that cyberbullying is perpetrated through multiple electronic media such as email, instant messaging, chat rooms, text messaging, and social networking sites. Also, it was demonstrated that students exposed to cyberbullying experience academic problems, interpersonal problems, family problems, depression, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, and self-esteem problems.

Students have exhibited clear preferences towards using the Internet as a medium and utilize it with great frequency in their everyday lives. As more and more aspects of students' lives are conducted online, and with the knowledge that excessive use may have consequences for them, it is important to study the phenomenon of cyberbullying more deeply.

Because college students are preparing to enter the workforce, and several studies have indicated a trend of cyberbullying behavior and victimization throughout a person's lifetime ( Watts et al., 2017 ), the concern is these young adults are bringing these attitudes into the workplace.

Finally, cyberbullying is not only an adolescent issue. Given that studies of cyberbullying among undergraduate students are not fully developed, although existence of the phenomenon is proven, we conclude that the college and university population needs special attention in future areas of research. As it has been indicated by Peled et al. (2012) that firm policy in regard to academic cheating reduces its occurrence, colleges should draw clear guidelines to deal with the problem of cyberbullying, part of it should be a safe and if needed anonymous report system as well as clear punishing policy for perpetrators.

As there's very little research on the effect of cyberbullying on undergraduates students, especially in light of the availability of hand held devices (mainly smartphones) and the dependence on the internet for basically every and any activity, the additional data provided in this research adds to the understanding of the effect of cyberbullying on the welfare of undergraduate students.

Declarations

Author contribution statement.

Yehuda Peled: Conceived and designed the experiments; Performed the experiments; Analyzed and interpreted the data; Contributed reagents, materials, analysis tools or data; Wrote the paper.

Funding statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

No additional information is available for this paper.

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Library > Achieving Envy-Freeness through Items Sale

Achieving Envy-Freeness through Items Sale

September/2024 , ESA '24

GAME-THEORY

We consider a fair division setting of allocating indivisible items to a set of agents. In order to cope with the well-known impossibility results related to the non-existence of envy-free allocations, we allow the option of selling some of the items so as to compensate envious agents with monetary rewards. In fact, this approach is not new in practice, as it is applied in some countries in inheritance or divorce cases. A drawback of this approach is that it may create a value loss, since the market value derived by selling an item can be less than the value perceived by the agents. Therefore, given the market values of all items, a natural goal is to identify which items to sell so as to arrive at an envy-free allocation, while at the same time maximizing the overall social welfare. Our work is focused on the algorithmic study of this problem, and we provide both positive and negative results on its approximability. When the agents have a commonly accepted value for each item, our results show a sharp separation between the cases of two or more agents. In particular, we establish a PTAS for two agents, and we complement this with a hardness result, that for three or more agents, the best approximation guarantee is provided by essentially selling all items. This hardness barrier, however, is relieved when the number of distinct item values is constant, as we provide an efficient algorithm for any number of agents. We also explore the generalization to heterogeneous valuations, where the hardness result continues to hold, and where we provide positive results for certain special cases.

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