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By Paul Latimer
Dr. Paul Latimer
It is an unfortunate fact of human nature that we envy others who are perceived to have superior quality, achievement, or possessions. Envy is an irrational, unpleasant feeling characterized by feelings of inferiority and resentment. There is a related positive feeling when the envied person falls from grace. We take satisfaction in their failure. When we feel envy we want what the other person has or desire the envied person to lose their advantage. When misfortune occurs to envied people we may experience a rewarding feeling in response to their misfortune. Now there has been a study looking at the brain mechanisms underlying these unflattering emotions.
Envy was induced by having participants read information about others that depicted them as superior in some domain that was significant to the participant. Envy is experienced when the other is perceived as superior and similar. If the other is superior in some characteristic that is not particularly relevant to us, envy is not experienced.
We have everyday experience of this when we think of how often the news herald’s the fall from grace of some person of fame or power; a recent example of this might be Lord Black. We also see examples of this in the listening to and telling of gossip.
In the recent study of these phenomenon brain scans were used to examine what areas of the brain were activated when these emotions were experienced and how this activation was affected by the level of superiority of the other person to whom the participants were comparing themselves. The investigators also looked at the relevance of the domains of superiority.
Healthy volunteers were presented with scenarios in which they and three other target people appeared. The participants were asked to read and understand these thoroughly and to imagine themselves in the scenario depicted. The degree of superiority and the degree of similarity between individuals was varied to look at the effects of these two variables. Envy was found to be proportional to the degree of superiority of the other person and the degree to which they saw themselves as similar to that person. Envy was also related to the feeling of satisfaction in the other’s misfortune. In other words, we tend to feel this satisfaction in another’s pain with respect to the same people that we envy.
Discomfort arising from others outperforming us in our cherished skills can be resolved by reducing the relevance of their accomplishments or by improving our own performance. Thus we can see that envy can enhance performance or cause us to sabotage those we envy. Envy seemed to be associated with activation of the anterior cingulate cortex and stronger striatum activation was associated with misfortune happening to envied people. Stronger activation of the anterior Cingular cortex induced by the most envied student in one study predicted stronger ventral striatum activation when misfortune occurred to that student in the next study.
Most of us have been taught that envy is undesirable, if not sinful. It can certainly be destructive. We see the effects of envy and the taking of satisfaction in the failure of others most nakedly in the realm of politics. It is often more about who is coming out on top than what is best for the country or the constituents.
Paul Latimer- psychiatrist, medical researcher, and writer has recently published a book entitled MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS. This is a compilation of articles, written with his daughter Megan, to inform the public about common psychiatric issues. For more information about Dr Latimer and his work visit www.okanaganclinicaltrials.com.
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