Department of Social Psychology and TIBER (Tilburg Institute for Behavioral Economics Research), Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000LE Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2011 Jun;37(6):784-95. doi: 10.1177/0146167211400421. Epub 2011 Mar 7.
Four studies tested the hypothesis that the emotion of benign envy, but not the emotions of admiration or malicious envy, motivates people to improve themselves. Studies 1 to 3 found that only benign envy was related to the motivation to study more (Study 1) and to actual performance on the Remote Associates Task (which measures intelligence and creativity; Studies 2 and 3). Study 4 found that an upward social comparison triggered benign envy and subsequent better performance only when people thought self-improvement was attainable. When participants thought self-improvement was hard, an upward social comparison led to more admiration and no motivation to do better. Implications of these findings for theories of social emotions such as envy, social comparisons, and for understanding the influence of role models are discussed.
四项研究检验了这样一个假设，即良性嫉妒的情绪，而不是钦佩或恶意嫉妒的情绪，激励人们提高自己。研究 1 至 3 发现，只有良性嫉妒与学习更多的动机（研究 1）和实际完成远程联想任务（测量智力和创造力；研究 2 和 3）有关。研究 4 发现，只有当人们认为自我提升是可行的时候，向上的社会比较才会引发良性嫉妒和随后更好的表现。当参与者认为自我提升很难时，向上的社会比较会导致更多的钦佩，而没有动力做得更好。这些发现对社会情感理论（如嫉妒、社会比较）以及对理解榜样的影响具有启示意义。
