The causal role of counterfactual thinking in envy

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Envy is a negative emotion that may arise when people compare unfavorably with other people. Much research has documented the important psychological, interpersonal, and societal consequences of this emotion: Envy can be a powerful motivator. It can spur people to improve themselves, but it can also go along with socially destructive consequences. Despite its importance, little is known about the cognitive processes that link envy-eliciting situations with their behavioral outcomes. The proposed research program will attempt to fill this gap by investigating the role of counterfactual thinking in envy.When people engage in counterfactual thinking, they contrast reality with imagined alternatives. Envy has often been portrayed as an emotion in which counterfactuals such as "It could have been me" dominate thinking. Furthermore, upward comparisons seem to be particularly painful if such counterfactuals are highly salient. Nevertheless, little research has been devoted to investigating counterfactual thinking in envy.Here, I suggest that counterfactuals not only contribute to the intensity of envy, but also that the content of counterfactuals contributes to the quality of envious responding. Recent research has shown that envy episodes can take occur in two qualitatively distinct forms: benign envy, which is aimed at leveling a comparative disadvantage by moving upward, and malicious envy, which is aimed at leveling superior others down. Combining an emerging functional account of envy with research on counterfactual thinking, I argue that different counterfactuals contribute to envious responding by serving important self-regulatory needs. In particular, given that benign (as compared to malicious) envy entails the appraisal that the superior position is deserved and that improvement is feasible, the upward motivating character of additive, self-focused counterfactuals should underlie episodes of benign envy. In contrast, self-protective other-focused counterfactuals should underlie malicious envy. The proposed research program will investigate whether benign and malicious enviers spontaneously generate counterfactuals that differ in content, whether changing the salience and the content of counterfactual thinking will alter envious responding, and whether the content of counterfactual thoughts mediates the different behavioral consequences of envy-eliciting situations. The results of such an investigation may carry significant implications: not only could they provide insight into the inner workings of envy and allow to connect future envy research with other important outcomes of counterfactual thought, they could also offer a way to transform malicious tendencies in envy into upward motivation.