SUBJECTIVE UNFAIRNESS AND ENVIOUS HOSTILITY

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The aim of the proposed research is to test the empirically unexamined hypothesis that the hostile feelings typically part of strong envy result from the envious person believing that the unflattering difference is unfair. As hostile feelings are a spontaneous response to felt injustice, the presence of such unfairness beliefs can explain these feelings. It will be argued that the kind of unfairness beliefs occurring in cases of envious hostility, unlike the unsanctioned character, although the envious person may nonetheless feel justified in these beliefs. In addition, it will be argued that without such unfairness beliefs, envious feelings will have a depressive rather than hostile quality. First, using correlational methods, subjects' assessments of the salient affective and situational aspects of their experiences, will be analyzed in terms of the factors related to the hostile and depressive aspects of these experiences. Second, subjects hostile responses to manipulated envy-evoking stimuli are hypothesized to depend on their prior beliefs about the fairness of unflattering social comparisons. Depressive responses, in contrast, are hypothesized to depend on beliefs of personal inferiority. The proposed research is part of a larger research program aimed at furthering an understanding of social comparison processes in general. Envy is a particularly important emotion to study because it signifies how successfully people are coping with unflattering social comparisons. Such coping appears highly predictive of a person's mental health, as is suggested by recent work on the social comparison determinants of self- esteem and depression. In particular, the problem of explaining the hostile component of envy is important because these kinds of feelings have great potential to hamper social interaction and to create personal unhappiness. Understanding how some individuals can use unflattering social comparisons as a basis for more constructive, emulative impulses whereas others seem overcome by destructive, hateful feelings is an important theoretical and applied social problem.