The Influence Of Envy On Cooperation And Helping Behaviors Of College Students

Most psychologists believe that envy is a form of social comparison that results from an upward social comparison,in which individuals experience an unpleasant,inferiority complex when they realize that others have something they try to have but lack.In our daily life,we may be envy of the excellent students,if we study hard to get the excellent results,then it is more likely to produce benign envy;It's more likely to be malicious envy if someone get good grades by cheating.Envy affects not only the envy,but also the envied.This effect may bring negative emotional experience to the envy person,which may reduce the cooperative behavior of the envied person,but at the same time,it may also bring positive motivation to the envy person and increase the cooperation behavior of the envy individual.When the envied person realizes that they may be envied,they will take a series of measures to avoid the possible negative effects of the envy person,such as increasing their helping behavior to the envy person and showing more modesty.Previous studies have focused on the negative effects of envy,ignoring the possible positive effects of envy.The effects of different types of envy on the cooperation and helping behaviors of envy and envious people were further investigated.This study was divided into two experiments to stimulate different types of envy by manipulating the sense of entitlement.In study 1,we defined high entitlement group as benign envy group and low entitlement group as malicious envy group.In study 2,we defined the low entitlement group as the envied group and the high entitlement group as the benign envied group.Study 1: 184 college students from Henan University were recruited to explore the prisoners' Dilemma in the game of prisoners' Dilemma,using envy type(benign VS malicious VS control group)and pointing(peer vs others)as independent variables and cooperative scores as dependent variables.The effect of envy type on the cooperation of envy college students.The results showed that:(1)The type of envy affected the cooperative behavior of college students.Compared with the control group,the score of the envy group was lower than that of the control group.(2)Compared with the control group,the score of the malicious envy-directed peer group was significantly lower than that of the control group,the score of malicious envy-pointing to others group was significantly higher than that of control group.Study 2: 185 college students from Henan University were recruited.The envied type(benign vs malicious vs control group)and the point(peer vs others)were used as independent variables and the help scores as dependent variables.Explore the possible ways to cope with envied among envied college students.The results showed that:(1)The envied group had significantly higher scores on helping behavior than the control group.(2)The increase in the envied help behavior was limited to those who were envied,and only those who were envied were affected by envy,and the score of the envied group was significantly higher than that of the control group,the increase in aiding behavior caused by envy was only limited to those who would be envied.