Why Some People Think They Have to Bring Others Down to Get Ahead

When confronted with people who seem to be more successful than you, how do you react? Are you filled with admiration, or do you pour your emotional energy into picking out their flaws?

Perhaps you have a friend who happens to be extremely creative, who's won awards (that you'd like to have yourself) for their many outstanding achievements. As much as you'd like to grab the brass ring yourself, it doesn't bother you that your friend got there instead. In fact, you find yourself continuing to try to learn from your friend, hoping to pick up pointers that will lead you on the pathway toward greater accomplishment.

However, what if you really couldn’t stand being near this person because they only remind you of your failings? Rather than try to become more accomplished yourself, what if you expended your emotional energy on trying to level the difference between the two of you by making disparaging remarks to others in your social circle?

Benign and Malicious Envy

These two scenarios illustrate the two distinctive forms of envy: benign and malicious. New research by Florida State University’s Connor Hasty and colleagues (2024) proposes that the type of envy someone experiences isn’t a function of the qualities of those higher in the pecking order but instead the personalities of the underlings. Previous research on envy proposes that it’s the behavior of the person at the top that influences the type of envy people down below tend to display. The FSU authors suggest the alternative; that envy is in the eye of the beholder.

Part of what faces the envious as they ponder their higher-ups is whether they see the eminence as earned by talent ("prestige," in the words of the authors) or granted through sheer force of coercion. The maliciously envious will try to take anyone down, no matter how the higher-ups rose to their position of prominence. The fire that feeds their venom comes from their own orientation toward success. If they have a dominance orientation, they see the world in terms of rungs on a ladder that they must climb, even if they have to throw others off to do so. The prestige-oriented, those who view success as earned through talent, should be more likely to show benign envy, applauding rather than disparaging those who are in better positions than they are.

Power, Prestige, and the Behavior of the Envious

Across a set of four studies, two questionnaire-based and two experimental, Hasty and his collaborators set up scenarios in which people’s orientations toward either dominance or prestige could be tested as predictors of malicious versus benign envy. Before getting started on the manipulation, here are sample items from the dominance-prestige and malicious-benign envy measures, See which you agree with:

• Dominance: I am willing to use aggressive tactics to get my way.
• Prestige: Others always expect me to be successful.
• Benign envy: When I envy others, I focus on how I can become equally successful in the future.
• Malicious envy: Seeing other people’s achievements makes me resent them.

Questionnaire studies testing the dominance-prestige × malicious-benign relationship supported the study’s prediction that those with a dominance orientation were more likely to experience malicious and those with a prestige orientation benign envy. In the experimental studies, the research team put participants in the position of reacting to a leader who either treated employees with respect (prestige condition) or instead tried to subjugate them to their will (dominance condition).

In general, the experimental studies showed that leaders described in the scenario as having gotten there through talent were more likely to be viewed by participants from the standpoint of benign envy. Thus, subordinates whose leaders rose to power through the exercise of skills are more likely to try to learn from those leaders to get ahead. The converse was also true. Leaders who exerted their dominance over subordinates were more likely to stimulate malicious envy.

There was one slight crossover effect showing a small but measurable relationship between a dominance orientation and benign envy. As the authors inferred, this “could reflect a desire among dominant people to advance themselves by any means necessary, through undermining the leader in some circumstances or by modeling their behavior after the leader in other circumstances.” The maliciously envious, in other words, may put on a false front of modesty to make their own moves to get ahead.

What Type of Envious Person Are You, and Why Does It Matter?

Manipulation of the conditions under which leaders assumed their positions proved, in the FSU study, to be associated with the development of benign versus malicious envy. However, not everyone in subordinate positions reacts the same way toward their leaders. All of those “people at the bottom” have individual personalities that set the stage for how they’ll try to equalize an imbalance of position.

Jealousy Essential Reads

The Surprising Benefits of Jealousy and Envy

How Jealousy Can Lead to Risky Behavior

If you’re the type who tries to bring others down to advance your own interests, these findings suggest that you may want to take a page from the benign envy playbook. Thinking about the astonishing abilities of your lauded friend, do you really want to try to seem more talented yourself by pointing out their flaws? When confronted with the products of their work, how do you think other people will regard you? It’s unlikely they’ll be convinced of your greatness.

Instead of bringing someone down, then, try to change your own orientation to one that will actually help you get ahead. Few people in a position of prominence want to try to help a complainer or a detractor. Positive vibes will get you much further.

To sum up, envy is not a particularly comfortable state, but it doesn’t have to take a malicious form. Adapting your orientation toward a healthier appreciation can ultimately help you get the respect you’d like to earn yourself.

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