Envy
[5] According to researchers, benign envy can provide emulation, improvement motivation, positive thoughts about the other person, and admiration.
[10] In 1998, neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp provided data demonstrating that mammalian species are equipped with brains capable of generating emotional experiences.
[13][14] In primate research, Frans de Waal conducted long-term research demonstrating that chimpanzees as well as distantly related primates such as brown capuchin monkeys have a finely honed sense of justice within their social group, and that the key emotion used to measure and regulate fair outcomes is envy.
[15] De Waal's research leads him to argue that without envy motivating our interest in making social comparisons, there would be no reason to care about fairness and justice.
Basically, people find themselves experiencing an overwhelming emotion due to someone else owning or possessing desirable items that they do not.
Feelings of envy in this situation would occur in the forms of emotional pain, a lack of self-worth, and a lowered self-esteem and well-being.
In Old Money, Nelson W. Aldrich Jr. states:[19] Envy is so integral and painful a part of what animates human behavior in market societies that many people have forgotten the full meaning of the word, simplifying it into one of the symptoms of desire.
Invidia, Latin for envy, translates as "nonsight", and Dante had the envious plodding along under cloaks of lead, their eyes sewn shut with leaden wire.
According to the research done by Salovey and Rodin (1988), "more effective strategies for reducing initial envy appear to be stimulus-focused rather than self-focused".
[21] Salovey and Rodin (1988) also suggest "self-bolstering (e.g., "thinking about my good qualities") may be an effective strategy for moderating these self-deprecating thoughts and muting negative affective reactions".
[21] Russell believed that envy may be a driving force behind the movement of economies and must be endured to achieve the "keep up with the Joneses" system.
[8] Envy becomes apparent in children from an early stage, and adults, while equally susceptible to this emotion, demonstrate a higher level of proficiency in disguising it.
Applications such as physical attributes, material possessions, or intellectual abilities could be considered encompassing of that which would enable a tendency for comparisons of/with one another's own experiences.
As children get older they develop stronger non-materialistic envy such as romantic relationships, physical appearance, achievement, and popularity.
It is much easier to teach a child how to control their emotions while they are young rather than allowing them to develop a habit that is hard to break when they are older.
[31] The phrase "green-eyed monster" refers to an individual whose current actions appear motivated by jealousy, not envy.
Shakespeare mentions it also in The Merchant of Venice when Portia states: "How all the other passions fleet to air, as doubtful thoughts and rash embraced despair and shuddering fear and green-eyed jealousy!"
In the Japanese manga series Fullmetal Alchemist, the character Envy is one of the seven homunculi named after the seven deadly sins.
The character of Zelena on ABC's Once Upon a Time takes on the title "The Wicked Witch of the West" after envy itself dyes her skin in the episode "It's Not Easy Being Green".
In Nelson W. Aldrich Jr.'s Old Money, he states that people who suffer from a case of malicious envy are blind to what good things they already have, thinking they have nothing, causing them to feel emptiness and despair.
