Envy is called one of the seven deadly sins. This unpleasant feeling usually occurs when we feel that the other person is seriously superior to us in some way. In youth, we are worried about someone else’s successful personal life, and with age – finances.
Not all people who are superior to us in something or more successful than us cause envy. Some theories indicate that we tend to envy people who are generally similar to us in all respects, but who are more successful in some area that is important to us.
However, these conclusions were made on the basis of studies conducted mainly among students. That is, the question of how the feeling of envy changes with age has not been studied enough.
Psychologists Nicole Henniger and Christine Harris from the University of California at San Diego (USA) decided to correct this mistake. They conducted a large-scale study in order to find out who, how, to whom and why envies and how the manifestations of this feeling depend on various factors, such as gender or age. To do this, they interviewed a total of almost 2000 people aged 18 to 80.1.
Young people were mostly envious of the appearance, social status and success in the personal lives of their peers. More specifically, about 40% of respondents under the age of 30 said that they happened to feel envious looking at the happy romantic relationships of other people.
After 30, such feelings begin to fade away, only 24% of participants aged 30 to 40 experienced envy of other people’s relationships, among respondents over 40 there were already 16% of them.
People aged 30-50 were also less likely than young people to envy the appearance and social status of others.
The authors of the study believe that at this age people’s ability to establish and maintain friendships has already stabilized and they have recognized and accepted their own social status.
On the contrary, envy of other people’s financial and career success only increases with age. Among the youngest participants in the survey, 28% experienced it, but among respondents who have already turned 50, there were almost 40% of them.
It is noteworthy that the majority of respondents of all age groups predominantly experienced envy towards people of their own sex and approximately the same age (young people mostly envied only other young people, the objects of envy of older respondents differed more by age).
Women, especially younger ones, were more likely to be jealous of the beauty of other women, and men of all ages were generally jealous of the career success of other men. The authors of the study suggest that such gender differences may have evolutionary roots.
It is also interesting that the “choice” of the object of envy practically did not depend on how close the relationship he maintained with the envious person. The only exception was that family members were less likely to be envied, perhaps because respondents could feel pride in the success of their relatives instead of envy.
1 N. Henniger, С. Harris «Envy Across Adulthood: The What and the Who», Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 2015, vol. 37, № 6.