Jealousy at Work (J)
A-Z Series at Psychology@Work
What is Jealousy?
Wait, is it the same as ENVY?
History of the word, Jealous: The word, Jealous, has two possible roots. It is believed that the word is derived from the Latin root word "Zelus", - which means "zeal and emulation". The other proposed root is "Jelus", which a 12th-century term used to define "a sense of possessiveness and suspicion in the context of romantic and sexual relationships". Now that we have laid out the history of the word's origin let us see what the modern-day dictionary says about what "Jealous" means?
Oxford dictionary definition of Jealousy: The modern-day definition of jealousy is "a feeling of anger and unhappiness because someone you like, or love is showing interest in someone else".
In many ways, the current definition has not changed too much from the 12th-century use of the word "Jelus". So, why am I going through this analysis here? Well, the reason is that we need to think before we use the word jealousy at work when we may actually be meaning to say envy.
History of the word, Envy: The term "Envy" was derived from a 10th century Latin root "Invidere/Invidia"; where "In" stands for "upon" and "Videre" stands for "to see". The word envy meant to cast an evil eye upon someone, to have hatred and ill-will towards someone who has what you desire.
Oxford dictionary definition of Envy: The modern-day definition of envy is "a feeling of wanting to be in the same situation as someone else; the feeling of wanting something that someone else has".
Is the difference between jealousy and envy meaningful?
The emotion of jealousy comes from the fear of losing something you have. It is prompted by anxiety and uneasiness of a possibly dangerous rival taking something you love and value. While envy as an emotion is evoked from a place of desire and ambition to have something you can see that others have. Envy is not about losing but about wanting to gain. Jealousy is a self-preservation emotion driven by our need to hold onto what we believe (may not be true or correct) is "ours", while envy is a self-enhancing emotional need driven by our want to accumulate and gather what we believe is valued in society just like others have.
What are the things that we do not want to lose and want to gain?
In the context of a romantic relationship and close personal connections, we are likely to feel jealousy when the person we love and like is showing attention and a desire to be with others.
An example: Just last week, my seven years old expressed that she is not feeling "good" because her best friend over the previous three years was keener to play with another classmate during lunchtime instead of her. She did not say she was feeling jealous – but she sure did show all signs of it. She was not envious of this other classmate. In a different story the same day, she described this popular girl in her class and talked about how other classmates all want to be like this popular girl, and she is the centre of attraction. But my seven years old described this popular girl while showing no apparent signs of envy or jealousy. In fact, she told me that she does not care about popularity or wanting to be popular, but instead that she is hurt and scared that she will lose her best friend.
What is more relevant in the context of work?
I believe envy is more likely to be prevalent as an emotion at work than jealousy. Psychologists have long discussed the need in humans to want attention, validation, affection, status, some form of popularity and admiration from others. We have a desire to gain respect, and that drives our ambitions to pursue success. What happens when we see others around us at work or in life, seemingly achieving these amazing things while we are falling behind? Psychologists would say that it is "likely" to trigger some form of envy in us.
Now, the word jealous and envy have a terrible reputation. They have very strong negative connotations and are rarely things we would like to confess to ourselves or publicly state that we are feeling. Wherever you stand on these emotions in terms of whether you see them as bad or good, right, or wrong, I would like you to park those judgements for a minute and think deeply about what these emotions are and how can we better understand them.
Envy can be benign or malicious!
Benign envy is envy, but it comes from a place of emulation and is without hatred or ill-will. The very word benign actually means well-born – i.e. coming from a place of kindheartedness, gentleness, and generosity. Malice, in contrast, is a desire to see the other suffer and is an active form of ill-will. Thus malicious envy is an emotion that is further away from emulation and a desire to gain and is more like a desire to hurt. When the target of your envy is more distant and possibly a role model, you are more likely to feel benign envy. However, when the target of your envy is a close friend, your own partner or someone you work closely with, there is a higher likelihood that your envy may not remain as benign. When great things happen with strangers, there is less at stake as they are not likely to be in your own comparison group or in the broad group that others may compare you to. But when your team members, close colleagues, friends, partners, family members are the ones succeeding, then you are more likely to feel the pang of envy.
We know from research that when those around us, who share broadly the same context/environment as us, are far more successful than us, we may face what is termed an "identity threat". Your identity is likely to be threatened when you believe that society and essential people in your life are likely to compare you to the target of your envy. Thus, you will be perceived as have less meaningful, successful and significant life or career than the other". Identity threat can trigger multiple reactions in us; it could make us feel fear, anxiety, uneasiness, which in turn could drive us to either reframe and rethink our identity or to find ways to undermine the value of the other to be able to balance the scale in one's favour. Which way we go has a lot to do with whether we recognize what we are feeling, know where it is coming from and consciously try to regulate our behaviours. So let us see ways to get better at managing envy – because envy as an emotion is rather primal to our existence.
How can you become aware of these emotions in yourself (and possibly in others)?
Below are some early tell-tale signs of envy. What you can do is go through the list and really reflect on how frequently you believe you feel, think and act this way towards those around you (in your life and at work). If you take the time to reflect on these early signs, you will recognize your unconscious envy for a person and thus be able to do something about it.
# Tell-tale signs of envy
Feelings
• When you see or hear about this person's success, you feel a pang of disappointment in yourself
• You find it difficult to congratulate this person authentically and personally (an algorithmic text suggestion thank you on social media may be easy 😉)
• You start to dislike the person while you earlier liked them
Thoughts
• You think that this one person's success may make you look bad, and that worries you
• You start to discount a person's success and attribute it to them being lucky or them having the privilege
• You make up excuses for their success that have to do with how the system rewards incompetence and that the true expertise and merit is never rewarded
Behaviours
• You start to review your success parameters to see if there is one dimension on which you may be doing better than this person
• You are tempted to undermine this person in a face-to-face or email conversation
• You may avoid eye contact or social interaction with this person
The above signs are just some of the thoughts, feelings and behaviours that indicate you may have some level or form of envy hidden beneath the surface. As humans, there is no learning or growth until we accept our feelings for what they are rather than suppress them and hope for them to vanish independently. We know that emotions such as envy and jealousy are consuming. They tend to take over our thoughts and feelings and colour the lens through which we see the world. These emotions can also cause significant distress and have been linked to depression, anxiety and other cardiovascular illnesses.
Like all negative emotions, envy is designed to move us and to motivate us to do something to resolve the negative distress. Whether you are in conscious control of what you do is determined by how aware you are about what you are feeling and why you are feeling that?
The worst thing you can do when you feel the early signs of envy is to ruminate and become fixated on the target of your envy by thinking more about what they have and how you always wanted to be where they are. It will only take you deeper into the feelings of distress.
How can we cope with this emotion once we have identified and accepted the presence of envy?
Coping response 1 (not ideal): Research tells us that people cope with envy by psychologically and at times physically distancing themselves from the person they envy. This is one solution where you eliminate the stimulus/trigger, but that does not take away from the fact that you will still react if another stimulus presents itself. And guess what, the closer the person is to you (a friend, a close colleague, your partner) – the more difficult it will be to distance yourself from them. So, in effect, this is a coping route that only works if your target of envy is genuinely someone you rarely see or interact with.
In addition, if you always distance yourself from the target of your envy, you also lose the opportunity to learn from them and to actually absorb the skills and knowledge that may have led them to success that could also help you get there.
Coping response 2 (better): We all have a need to be appreciated, to feel validated by other's attention and recognition. We are driven to desire status in the eyes of others and hope to be respected and admired for the person we are and our achievements. However, we do not often stop to ask ourselves the following question. If we did, we may be able to cope and reframe our envy into a more benign form of emulation that pushes us to grow.
When you feel envy, start to ask yourself the following questions.
I recommend that you write down your answers to them and take the time to reflect and reframe what it is that you want and desire from your life and your career.
Q1. What is the meaning of success for you?
What are ways in which you would want to be admired and respected?
What tokens, behaviours or accolades would qualify for you as recognition?
What is the statistical probability of these parameters given the large group?
Are you always upward comparing and forgetting to look at the whole distribution?
Q2. What do you think it takes to be successful?
How have those you envy; come to achieve what they have? How much effort was involved?
How much good fortune and privilege aided their success?
What trade-offs did these people have to make?
Are you willing to make those same trade-offs?
Do you value those success criteria the same way and with the same intensity as they value it?
How are you fundamentally different from the target of your envy in terms of your skills, abilities, values, desires and life circumstances?
Q3. How have you changed and grown today based on what you were yesterday?
Are you happy with your growth and success between the yesterday-you and the today-you?
What is the future-you you want to be, and does it involve the same steps, efforts and trade-offs that this person you envy might make?
How is your identity distinct from this person you envy?
Are there certain aspects in your definition of success, respect, status that are different from this person? Could those differences explain why you pursue one set of actions versus what they do?
I hope you will find the insights and tools useful to recognize and deal with the primal emotion of envy. Let us fight Schadenfreude (delight in others misery) and find ways to show Karuna (compassion) to ourselves and find the strength to cultivate Mudita (a conscious appreciative joy at the success and good fortune of others).