The influence of self/other concepts and vertical motor action on two types of envy

Abstract

When we realize others are superior to us, we may feel two types of envy: malicious and benign. Research suggests that benign envy is related to “catching up” to superior others, whereas malicious envy is connected to “bringing them down” to our own level. In accordance to theories of embodied metaphor, we investigated whether two types of envy would associate with self/other concepts, and vertical motor action. Participants were shown the word “other” placed above the word “self.” They were instructed to either repeatedly shift “self” up to “other” (the self-up condition) or shift “other” down to “self” (the other-down condition). They then read a scenario in which they would lose a contest to their competitor, and were asked to rate benign and malicious envy toward him/her. Two experiments showed that participants in the self-up condition felt more benign envy than malicious envy, and those in the other-down condition exhibited the opposite. Additionally, participants in the self-up condition decreased their self-defensive attribution more than those in the other-down condition did. We discussed the role of metaphor in the two types of envy.