WHY DOES HUMAN ENVY, AND WHY DO WE IDOLIZE BILL GATES AND ENVY OUR NEIGHBOR?
Envy can sometimes become the manual for admiration. When we learn that someone possesses more qualities or assets than us, we do not always feel envy; instead, we are more likely to admire and succumb to them.
Envy can be simply understood as the satisfaction at other people’s misfortune and, in turn, this discontentment at their fortune. Sometimes envy can be accompanied by the thought: “Hey! That should’ve been mine!”. One thing to note is, envy is quite different from jealousy despite how these two terms are often mistaken for each other. Jealousy is often felt toward something that we already had in possession (like the love of parents, a romantic partner, etc.) while envy is felt over something we don’t have (success, status, admiration, etc.). The closer synonym for ‘envy’ is ‘schadenfreude’, a German word to describe “the excitement, joy or contentment one feels when seeing another suffer troubles, failures or humiliation” [1].
So what exactly has driven humans to develop this asshole-ish emotion? Why do we laugh out loud when we see our friend trip and fall before we even feel worried knowing that it may cause them some serious injuries?
This article will work to find out the origin of human envy, and whether or not the emotion is necessary for society, by employing the viewpoint of Evolutionary Psychology and a couple of other social sciences.
1. The evolutionary origin and merit of envy
Envy was among the ranks of the seven deadly sins in Christian morality. In Buddhism, irshya (envy) is seen as an unwholesome factor by various teachings in any of its sects; for example, Mahayana Buddhism considered it one of the 5 poisons. For Islam, ḥasad (envy) is an impurity of the heart. But despite how pretty much every religion in the world teaches people against it, humans seem completely enslaved by this not-so-nice emotion and always fall victim to its impulsively surfacing in the least expected moments. To explain this phenomenon, religions denote it as the work of devils or of some evil gods. Envy, as a result, has always existed in the public consciousness as something bad, like a sin. In the meantime, having broken out of the box created by morality, the scientific meaning has been able to reveal for us more about envy without devilizing anyone for having it. However, just like for many other human behaviors, the Theory of Evolution, while does provide scientists some clues to work with, has yet been able to help them formulate an exhaustive answer, and thus we are still somewhat in the dark.
In general, studies have shown that children are quick to develop the feeling of envy or schadenfreude [2]. As such, children fighting each other over a toy or a prize from their parents, things like that, is very popular and in fact much more obvious than the signs of envy in adults (because adults are better at concealing them). So then why are these children — the so-called “white canvas” — can develop so sharply this so-labeled negative emotion even before a full awareness of the world?
Evolutionary psychologists believe that the envy mechanism is developed quickly to ensure that the children are always sensitive to inequality and do not get distracted from it, while also sharpening their attention toward the things they desire (with it being that desire is also a mechanism to navigate humans toward critical survival needs) [3]. Fundamentally, a child would not know what he really needs without noticing other children. In such times, envy shall act as a guiding instinct that guides the kid to pursue what’s being provided to other kids around him. This insurance instinct helps the child to mitigate his own risk because it would at least encourage him to strive to be equally provided to other kids. It’s like an incentive to navigate an option in a statistics problem: if everyone else is given this much, then I should at least be given as much as they did. Therefore, even though a newborn child doesn’t know what good a toy will be for them, envy will urge them to pursue those toys once they notice that other children are given one of those. Without envy, the child would be happy with whatever he’s provided with and will not compare his circumstance to other children around him, and thus will run the risk of not being as well-provided as the rest of the community.
So, from an individual perspective, envy helps provide us a quick answer to statistics problems: I don’t know what I have to do, but I have to have whatever they have first. To not go astray from the community, humans need an incredibly powerful emotion like envy, to quickly attract their attention toward what the others have and realize that we want that too. That emotion has to be so strong that it warps our behavior and thoughts, as well as involves any other feeling related to survival, such as hunger, pain, tiredness, etc. The brain has to make us feel pained and irritated when seeing someone else’s success, in order to urge us to act. In reality, some researchers had shown that when envy is activated, the brain becomes better at memorizing, sharper and more focused [4]. For that reason, we remember the one we envy better than anyone else, and also become very resourceful when trying to bring them down, and might as well scheme under the guidance of envy.
With that being known, scientists have divided envy into two types: benign and malicious envy (both are negative emotions). In which, malicious envy would spur people to spare no effort to destroy each other, while benign envy provides motivation for a person to achieve what they desire from someone else. Benign envy causes you to admire people and desire things (wondering why do I envy this neighbor and not the other). So, for individuals, envy acts as a driving force that drives them to take actions, which could be good or bad.
One thing to notice is that, a major reason for envy’s devilization as an emotion was the agricultural revolution; the process was then indoctrinated by religions. The characteristics of a post-agricultural society are the division of social classes and the obedience of rules. For example, the obedience to religious rites or the law, or the feudalistic social order, etc. which was there from the start. A hierarchical order is the perfect environment to incubate envy, while also having envy as one of its prime threats that gives birth to conflict, hostility and overthrow of society. In the previous hunting-gathering society, envy had proven to be effective in the equitable social structure (where everyone was expected to receive the same share) — and it was precisely why envy was developed and retained by evolution. Envy ensures that you will try not to seize for yourself a bigger slice of meat than the one next to you when the herd is gathering around the fire for a feast, knowing that the others may as well skewer you for doing so — this helps to ensure that the economic resources are always equally distributed.
Envy is powerful in the sense that everyone knows that everyone else has it, and can become extremely dangerous and obnoxious with it, and as a result, we will try to avoid spurring envy in our fellowmen. So, in addition to not allowing others from your herd to take a bigger share of meat or possess more mating partners than yourself, you also become clearly aware that you should not commit those ‘sins’ if you wish to stay out of danger; especially in a condition where none of the individuals has more advantages than others. The unreasonable impulsiveness of envy, like how it spurs a person to get in a fight with another just because he felt his share is slightly smaller than that of his herd mate, helps to highlight the economic problem: you should not eat more meat than the rest because it doesn’t worth getting beaten over it. And with that, it is a given for everyone to maintain equality to avoid risking themselves — and do so with perfect voluntarism and rationality. Meaning that, if the consequence promised by envy was just benign glares from others, the circumstance where one takes a bigger share than others would most likely happen; but if that consequence is instead a stab in the back, then the opposite would be true. It can be said that envy is unlimited, unpredictable, and virtually unreasonable.
However, this mutual weariness and control were quick to dissipate in the post-agricultural society; as within this society, the accumulation of assets had caused galloping inflation in the imbalance of power between entities. A landlord surely did know that he was stirring envy in his slaves and farmhands, but he was no longer in the position to fear them like how the hunter-gatherers feared each other. Thus, envy now only created pain, conflict, hostility and tragedies, while no longer able to champion economic equality. The institutions to sustain order, such as religions, which either seek to even further reinforce the social hierarchy or simply see problems in human’s envy spurring them to revolt against inequality, had developed themselves to teach people to curb envy. Nowadays, most of us will agree that envy is not good even if it exists in every one of us, without exception.
Bertrand Russell shared that opinion; he said envy was a major root of misfortune: It seeded inside the envier not only discontentment but also insecurity. Furthermore, the envier would then be led to commit wrongdoings, with the envied being the victim. But, on the other hand, Russell was also convinced that envy was a motivation that helped propel the economy and maintain democracy as an absolute system [5]. So the ideal situation is when everyone becomes aware of their own and others’ envy, and works together to find the best solution, which is fundamentally a part of democracy, in theory. So, generally speaking, despite joining Greed in the ranks of the Seven deadly sins, Envy is also a mechanism to curb greed, as everyone has to refrain from embezzling and stirring discontentment.
But then question is, in modern society, is envy still so powerful it could inspire revolutions, keep people beware of each other, or remind them to ensure equality for all? Or has it been localized and became a tool to even further reinforce the macro social order?
2. Why do we envy our siblings, friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, etc. and admire Bill Gates
Envy can sometimes become the manual for admiration. When we learn that someone possesses more qualities or assets than us, we do not always feel envy; instead, we are more likely to admire and succumb to them. By logic, you are supposed to be extremely envious of millionaires like Bill Gates, as well as the actors, models, singers and other excelled celebrities. But then we don’t, because it would be stupid to envy Elon Musk; in such circumstances, envy would only cause us grieves and make us look dumb to others. A survey helped to reconfirm a common sense that we don’t feel envious or jealous toward Bill Gates, but do feel so to people with circumstances similar to us [6].
Specifically, people are more likely to envy their colleagues than their bosses, their neighbors than their distant friends, their peers than their seniors, and their family than strangers. We don’t mind when Bill Gates owns a 131-billion-USD fortune, but we do feel upset when we suddenly learn that our buddy just got himself a PS5 on its release date. What is going on here?
There’s a term called “frenemy”, that describes the relation between friends where envy can always easily emerge. This relationship isn’t simply two people already hating each other trying to play friend to seek opportunity to destroy each other; instead, it is friendship emerging naturally and hand-in-hand with envy. Sara Protasi, Assoc. Prof. of Philosophy at Puget Sound University, Washington, made a rather interesting argument about this “frenemy” relation, which I thought might be worth sharing [7]. Sara said that she had once felt extremely envious toward her female best friend, who possesses a tall, slender and pretty build, a long silky ebony hair and angelic pearl-like skin, while also being extremely witty, intelligent, romantically confident and, obviously, widely admired. Sara said she loved the friend, admired her, and shared more times and memories and helped each other more than anyone else did. But all that could not eliminate within Sara the envy she felt toward her best friend, something that almost sometimes spurred her toward doing a prank on that friend.
In the same essay, Sara revealed her own answer to that phenomenon; she believed that the emergence of envy within such intimate relationships was reasonable despite how counterintuitive it seemed. As intimacy is the foundation for healthy relationships, and also for negative emotions. For example, we try to get close to this person and not that person because from the very beginning we noticed that the person has certain things in common with us, such as social background, environment, personality, interests. Thus, as we have many things in common, we are also more likely to envy these people than others. We envy our friend for buying a PS5 because it’s what we desire as well. The studies in link No, [6] also showed that a hungry man would more likely feel envious for food than for a sexual partner, but when he isn’t so hungry, he would focus on sex.
Thus, among siblings or close friend circles, we are more likely to like the same type of toys, pursue the same goals or even share the same romantic preference, and thus are more prone to envy among ourselves when someone among us gets what we all desire. Thus, according to Sara, we are more likely to envy our loved ones; envy is a dark side to love and when we feel envy toward someone, keep in mind that it’s also the sign that it is possible for you and that person to develop a healthy relationship. And thus, while envy does tend to be toxic and destructive and capable of ruining everything, it is also a common part of our life spent with our intimate relationships: we maintain love by putting a rein on envy, not by denying it).
But then, there are also relationships where the lots of common ground and interest shared by parties doesn’t guarantee to turn it into intimate ones; for example, our colleagues. Always be aware that it’s precisely because they are your colleagues that they are prone to envy you (instead of having the corny romantic expectation that it’s because you’re colleagues that they won’t be envious of you), and that you might have not become their target, had you been stranger to them. When sharing the same possibility (same ranks in the same office) and the same goals (pay raise, bonus, promotion), for someone to get closer to those goals more than others obviously would trigger the emotion that’s deeply connected with our consciousness of inequality (regardless of that equality being real or not). Thus, what you need to do is to be cautious of it, instead of being puzzled by it.
So, all in all, in relationships where the parties have plenty in common, envy can be easily born because the inequality in such conditions becomes more visible, and it’s much easier to have the thought “that thing should’ve been mine” when the envied is more comparable to the envier. In the study [6], the participants of the survey also clearly demonstrated that they would envy the people who are like them instead of someone vastly superior or someone from another group. For example, people are easier to feel envy toward other people with comparable appearance, wealth and talent but has a much better catch of a romantic partner, instead of envying someone who also has a partner like that but is richer, more capable and better-looking. Or, for example, Monster Box would be envious of the organizations and individuals in the same line of work, while not being nearly as conscious toward other less direct competitors like fake news outlets that have much greater reach and influence.
However, as envy is more irrationality and simplicity than careful rationality, humans tend to envy more easily in internal and intimate relationships where they simply think less. Meanwhile, the equality that’s real and much deeper-rooted, after being disguised by some seemingly-wholesome justification (rich and meritorious people deserve better partners) can go completely under the radar of the public and their envy, regardless of how staggering the discrepancy can be. Instead, this discrepancy inspires from them favorable adoration in the form of admiration. Another study also showed that a person being wealthy and talented did not necessarily invite envy, instead it was the respect that some of those excelled people received that triggered envy [8]. Hence the dilemma of the most admired also being the most envied.
With that, in a sophisticatedly-segmented society, humans would just slit each other’s throat and reap the seed they sow in their own localized segment, which hurts both themselves and the group’s overall progression. And in the meantime, the equalities that are real and existing continue to grow further and further untouchable by envy, the primitive feeling which was initially made to combat inequality.
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References:
[1] “Merriam-Webster Dictionary,” Merriam-webster.com, 2021. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schadenfreude (accessed Aug. 26, 2021).
[2] “Pleasure at another’s misfortune is evident in children as young as two,” ScienceDaily, 2014. https://www.sciencedaily.com/rel.../2014/11/141126094055.htm (accessed Aug. 26, 2021).
[3] H. P. Frye, “The Relation of Envy to Distributive Justice,” Social Theory and Practice, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 501–524, 2016, Accessed: Aug. 26, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24871355.
[4] S.E. Hill, D.J. DelPriore, and P.W. Vaughan, The cognitive consequences of envy: attention, memory, and self-regulatory depletion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Doi 10.1037/a0023904
[5] Russell (1930), pp. 90–91
[6] V. S. Ramachandran and B. Jalal, “The Evolutionary Psychology of Envy and Jealousy,” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 8, Sep. 2017, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01619.
[7] “Envy can poison love, but it can also nourish growth | Aeon Essays,” Aeon, 2018. https://aeon.co/.../envy-can-poison-love-but-it-can-also... (accessed Aug. 25, 2021).
[8] H. Bolló, D. R. Háger, M. Galvan, and G. Orosz, “The Role of Subjective and Objective Social Status in the Generation of Envy,” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 11, Dec. 2020, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.513495.
