The Relationship Between Upward Social Comparison And Self-esteem: The Mediating Role Of Jealous

Upward social comparison,jealousy and self-esteem are the main aspects that affect individual mental health.Upward social comparison means that when individuals make social comparison,their comparison objects are generally those who are better than themselves,and at the same time,they use this standard to measure their own value.Self-esteem is a kind of positive emotional experience perceived by individuals,which is usually obtained in social practice.It is the result of interaction between individual subjective consciousness and object environment.Envy is a negative emotion caused by the desire to possess another person’s status,wealth,or good qualities that the individual lacks,and the subsequent desire to possess it or the wish that the other person lacks these advantages.Envy can be divided into benign envy and malicious envy.Although both are negative emotions,benign envy encourages individuals to improve themselves,while malicious envy will make individuals hope that the comparative object will lose its advantages,and they will not take actions to change the distance between them and the target.At this point,the malicious envious person will belittle himself while complaining about the comparator,thus lowering the level of individual self-esteem.In this study,270 questionnaires were collected from college students to explore the relationship between upward social comparison,envy and self-esteem,as well as the influence of types of envy(benign envy and malicious envy)on self-esteem.In the first study,questionnaire was used to explore the relationship between upward social comparison and self-esteem,the mechanism of envy,and the relationship between envy type and self-esteem.The results showed that upward social comparison significantly positively predicted self-esteem and envy;Envy negatively predicted self-esteem;Benign envy positively predicted self-esteem;Malicious envy negatively predicted self-esteem;Envy plays a mediating role between upward social comparison and self-esteem.Study 2 took college students as the research object,activated malicious envy through the upward social comparison situation,collected 188 questionnaires in total,and explored the differences between malicious envy and self-esteem between the malicious envy group and the control group,as well as the mediating effect of malicious envy between upward social comparison and self-esteem.The results showed that the level of malicious envy in the malicious envy group was significantly higher than that in the control group,and the level of self-esteem was significantly lower than that in the control group.Malicious envy has mediating effect between upward social comparison and self-esteem.