Dispositional envy

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Citation:

Smith, R. H., Parrott, W. G., Diener, E., Hoyle, R. H., & Kim, S.-H. (1999). Dispositional envy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(8), 1007-1020.

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Abstract:

Although many scholars have argued that individual differences in proneness to envy can have wide-ranging implications for social interactions, the empirical testing of these claims is largely undeveloped. We created a single-factor Dispositional Envy Scale (DES) to measure individual differences in tendencies to envy, and examined some of the implications of such differences. Study 1 indicated that the DES is a reliable, stable measure, containing items suiting theoretical criteria for the makeup of dispositional envy. Study 2 supported the construct validity of the DES by showing that it is correlated with other individual difference measures in theoretically compatible ways. Studies 3 and 4 supplied diverse ways of establishing the criterion-related validity of the DES by showing that it moderated envious responses to another person’s superiority and that it predicted envy beyond other correlated individual measures of neuroticism, self-esteem, cynical hostility, and socially desirable responding.

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