Motivation and emotion/Book/2026/Envy in the workplace

Envy in the workplace:
What role does envy play in workplace behaviour?

Overview

Figure 1. Envy can occur in any workplace. Case study Jillian and Anna work for the same consulting firm and are at the same level. Jillian recently completed a project that received recognition from senior leaders and she continues to be praised about it. Anna and Jillian get along well, although Anna has started feeling resentful towards Jillian. Anna recently asked Jillian about the project and what tools she used that could possibly assist with her projects. Jillian mentioned she completed a project management course that really changed the way she approaches projects to ensure all milestones are delivered on time and on budget. Anna enrols in the same project management course immediately. This is an example of benign envy. By feeling envy towards Jillian, it has motivated Anna to take action to improve herself. With Anna developing her project management skills, this will impact the team and consulting firm in a positive way encouraging extraordinary results.

Envy is a powerful emotion. It can be described as the resentment you feel when others receive what you deeply desire. There are many things that can act as triggers in a workplace.

Envy is the driver for many different workplace behaviours:

• competitiveness
• unfairness
• catalyst for change
• another example

While the negative effects of envy attract the most attention, there are also positive aspects that can bring a wealth of growth and encouragement to the workplace.

Envy plays an important role in workplace behaviours. There are two types of workplace envy:

• Benign envy
• Malicious envy

Focus questions What is the role of envy in the workplace? What is the difference between malicious envy and benign envy? What causes envy and how is it linked to motivation? What is the relationship between envy and self-efficacy? What is the relationship between envy and social comparison theory?

Malicious envy vs benign envy

Malicious and benign envy both exist in workplaces.

• Malicious and benign envy exist in all workplaces.
• Malicious envy - negative behaviours will be described and how they influence the workplace.
• Benign envy - positive behaviours will be described and how they influence the workplace.

Scenario: Jon and Sam have worked together for over a year, and both applied for a promotion within the team recently, Jon was successful and Sam missed out. Other team members have noticed lately that Sam is putting Jon down in meetings and excluding him from their team lunches. The situation appears to be escalating by the day. This is an example of malicious envy.

Role of envy in the workplace

There are many causes of envy in the workplace. Through guidance and intervention, envy can be used as a workplace 'tool' to drive positive behaviour.

• Envy can be destructive or can lead to a promotion (Liu et al, 2021)
• can drive cultural change
• envy can occur when individuals compare themselves to others, they perceive to be more fortunate.

Relationship between envy and motivation?

Envy is linked to motivation. The relationship between them is:

• motivation can drive envy
• what motivates positive behaviour
• what motivates negative behaviour
• how, what and why?

Behaviours caused by self-efficacy?

Self-efficacy is the mental switch that determines whether envy will lead to a positive or negative behaviour. The two types of self-efficacy are:

• high self-efficacy
• low self-efficacy
• Example of each of the above

Relationship between workplace envy and social comparison theory?

Social comparison theory was introduced by Festinger in 1954. This model assumes that individuals tend to compare their opinions and/or abilities to others. Feeling threatened in the workplace makes people judge themselves more harshly as they believe they cannot match their colleague's social status or success.

Key points

For the topic development, for each heading and sub-heading:

• Provide at least three bullet-points, including for the Overview and Conclusion
• Include key citations

Figures

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• Figures can show photos, diagrams, graphs, video, audio, etc.
• Embed figures throughout the chapter, starting with the scenario in the Overview section
• Caption figures (use Figure #. and explain the relevance of the image to the text)
• Images must be embedded from Wikimedia Commons
• Images can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons if they are openly licensed
• Cite each figure at least once in the main text (e.g., see Figure 2)

Learning features

Interactive learning features help to bring book chapters to life and can be embedded throughout the chapter.

Scenarios

• Scenarios, case studies, or examples describe concepts in action
• Can be real or fictional; if real, provide citations
• Can be split into multiple boxes throughout a chapter (e.g., to illustrate different theories or stages)
• Present using feature boxes

Feature boxes

• Highlight key content using feature boxes, but don't overuse, otherwise they lose their effect
• Consider using feature boxes for:
  • Scenarios, case studies, or examples
  • Focus questions
  • Tips
  • Quiz questions
  • Take-home messages

Embedded links

• When key words are introduced, use interwiki links to:
  • Wikipedia articles (e.g., "An early psychological view dreams) of dreams was provided by Sigmund Freud") or
  • Related book chapters (e.g., "If you're feeling stuck, check out the chapter about writer's block")

Tables

• Use to tables to organise and summarise information
• Cite each table at least once in the main text (e.g., see Table 1)
• Tables should be captioned
• More example tables which can be adapted

Table 1

A Descriptive Caption Which Explains The Table Contents and its Relevance to the Text e.g.,

The 2 x 2 Johari Window Model Showing Knowing x Self/Other

	Known to self	Not known to self
Known to others	Open area	Blind spot
Not known to others	Hidden area	Unknown

Quizzes

• Using one or two quiz questions for each main section is better than a long quiz at the end
• Quiz conceptual understanding, rather than trivia. Ask about important information such as take-home messages
• Ask easy rather than hard questions
• Different types of quiz questions are possible; see Quiz

Example simple quiz questions. Choose your answers and click "Submit":

1

Benign envy is associated with positive emotions and encourages positive behaviour?

	True
	False

2

Malicious envy is associated with negative emotions and encourages negative behaviour?

	True
	False

Conclusion

• The Conclusion will answer the questions.
• The take home messages are that envy is an important catalyst for change in the workplace if driven in a positive way.
• Healthy competition and influence of envy.
• Role of motivation and envy in shaping workplace culture.
• Draft clear take-home message(s), even at the topic development stage
• Together, the Overview and Conclusion should summarise the problem, its significance, and how psychological science contributes to understanding and addressing it.
• Recommended length: 150 to 330 words

Suggestions for this section: What is the answer to the sub-title question based on psychological theory and research? What are the answers to the focus questions? What are the practical, take-home messages?

See also

Provide internal (wiki) links to the most relevant Wikiversity pages (esp. related motivation and emotion book chapters) and Wikipedia articles. Use sentence casing and alphabetical order. For example:

• Envy (Book Chapter, 2011) {{ic|See Tutorial 2 for how to create an internal link to a book chapter)
• Self-Efficacy (Wikipedia)

Suggestions for this section: Only select links to major internal resources about the topic Include the source in parentheses

References

doi:10.1007/s10490-021-09772-y

Crusius J., Thierhoff J., Lange J. (2021). Dispositional greed predicts benign and malicious envy. Personality and Individual Differences, 168, 110361. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110361

Erdil O., Müceldili B. (2014). The effects of envy on job engagement and turnover intention. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 150(1), 447–454. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.09.050

Jafri M. H. (2020). Moderating role of self-efficacy on benign envy—employee engagement relationship. Business Perspectives and Research, 8(2), 232–243. https://doi.org/10.1177/227853371988745

Li M., Xu X., Kwan H. K. (2021). The antecedents and consequences of workplace envy: A meta-analytic review. Asia Pacific Journal of Management. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-021-09772-y

Li M, Qin Y, Le J (2025), "Mentoring matters: decoding the impact of downward envy on interpersonal conflict, workplace ostracism, and displaced aggression". Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 40 No. 1 pp. 67–81, doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-12-2023-0768

Liu, H., Geng, J., & Yao, P. (2021). Relationship of Leadership and Envy: How to Resolve Workplace Envy with Leadership-A Bibliometric Review Study. Journal of Intelligence, 9(3), 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence9030044

Yang C and Tang R (2021) Validating the “Two Faces” of Envy: The Effect of Self-Control. Front. Psychol. 12:731451. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.731451

Suggestions for this section: Wrap the set of references in the hanging indent template: Use "Edit source" {{Hanging indent|1= the full list of references}} Important aspects of APA referencing style Author surname, followed by a comma, then the author initials separated by full stops and spaces Year of publication in parentheses Title of work in lower case (except first letter and proper names), ending in a full-stop Journal title in italics, volume number in italics, issue number in parentheses, first and last page numbers separated by an en-dash(–), followed by a full-stop doi as a URL which is a working hyperlink (i.e., clickable) The most common mistakes include: Incorrect capitalisation Incorrect italicisation dois which aren't clickable as working hyperlinks Citing sources that haven't been consulted

External links

Provide external links to highly relevant resources such as podcasts and videos, news articles, and professional sites. Use sentence casing and alphabetical order. For example:

• Six top tips for writing a great essay (University of Melbourne)
• The importance of structure (skillsyouneed.com)

Suggestions for this section: Only select links to major external resources about the topic Include the source in parentheses after the link