Envy is wanting what someone else has. You might see a neighbor with a new car or a coworker get a new job and desire the same. You might feel a sense of resentment toward the individual for attaining something you want but have yet to achieve. Jealousy is more about holding onto something you already have.
Envious people tend to feel hostile, resentful, angry and irritable. Such individuals are also less likely to feel grateful about their positive traits and their circumstances. Envy is also related to depression, anxiety, the development of prejudice, and personal unhappiness.
Envious means feeling, full of, or expressing envy—a mostly negative feeling of desire for something that someone else has and you do not. Envy is not a good feeling—it can be described as a mix of admiration and discontent. But it's not necessarily malicious. Envious is very similar in meaning to jealous.
According to the DSM-IV, none of the personality disorders, except the narcissistic personality, is formally associated with envy. Nevertheless, this "deadly sin" is so omnipresent in human relationships that it cannot be restricted only to the narcissistic personalities.
Envy is often rooted in low self-esteem – sometimes from very early unmet childhood needs where the person feels inherently not good enough. An envious person may frequently 'compare and despair' and find themselves wanting.
Envy is one of the diagnostic criteria of narcissistic personality disorder. Many of you may have experienced envy from the narcissist in your life.
Although many people consider “envy” and “jealousy” synonymous, they actually have distinct meanings. Envy is “the painful feeling of wanting what someone else has, like attributes or possessions.” If you're jealous, you feel “threatened, protective, or fearful of losing one's position or situation to someone else.”
Jealousy and envy both involve a feeling of desire for what another person has, but jealousy is usually thought to be more negative—it often involves resentment toward the other person. Envy is also a negative feeling—like a mix of admiration and discontent—but the word doesn't usually imply hostility.
Envy is only toxic when a person is unable to feel empathy, love, generosity or even just kindness to the other. Sometimes an envious person can be friendly to others but only direct viciousness towards the one person who triggers extremes of that feeling.
Benign Envy and Malicious Envy
Van de Ven et al. (2009) proposed that there are two distinct experiences of envy, one of which is benign and the other is malicious, and that benign envy and malicious envy lead to different behavioral expressions.
Jealousy makes you selfish, and that can be difficult to deal with from a partner's perspective. "If someone allows jealousy to take control and rule their actions, they become too selfish," Jayne Kinsman told INSIDER.
Self-Worth and Happiness Erodes
Envy is another term for being unhappy. This is when envy can take over your mind. It becomes a powerful virus that kills our confidence and self-worth. Additionally, envy means you're stuck in a rut and must dig yourself out of it.
Pathological envy and jealousy are generally considered delusional disorders because the person experiencing them is often delusional about the object of their jealousy or envy. People who live with delusional disorders can be a danger to themselves or others and may need to be treated by mental health professionals.
The relationship between envy and depression
People with high levels of envy are more concerned about self-deficiency and other people's possessions and are more likely to experience negative experiences such as inferiority and dejection as a result [4-8,20]. These feelings may subsequently lead to depression [12].
If you have an insecure attachment style or deal with personal insecurity, this may lead to feeling envious of others or unfairly comparing yourself or your life to others. You don't have to stay stuck in cycles of jealousy and insecurity, or live with shame.
Envy gives birth to hatred because an envious person does not stop with jealousy toward another, and that jealousy can lead to harming the other or wishing them harm.
Communication is key and the best way to deal with envy in romantic relationships. Trying to work through it on your own can leave you feeling isolated which may also induce resentment. Talking to your partner and letting them in on your struggle is also a great way to bond.
But like all emotions, envy is a natural and common experience. Many people are reluctant to admit their envy of others because the emotion may be seen as socially unacceptable. But like all emotions, envy is a natural and common experience.
Envy is a negative emotion experienced in response to another person's higher status. However, little is known about the composition of its most important element: status.
Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others.
When it comes to envy, the same mechanism is at play. We compare bits of information about others to ourselves, and when we feel that we do not compare well, it makes us unhappy and often angry.
Some researchers think this region also controls why envy feels so painful. The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex helps us sort out dissonances and conflicts, and also lights up when we're in pain. If it lights up when we're envious, it may make us feel that irrational, but still annoying anguish.
Shame and anxiety are experienced all over the body as well, with warm colors in the head and chest, and blue colors in the legs. Surprise doesn't look that different from shame, and envy — like surprise — shows up as red in the head and chest, and dark blue in the legs.