The Worst Form of Envy? In the Future Tense

It is better to be envied than to be pitied, wrote the Greek historian Herodotus, and in our use of social media it’s clear that most of us agree. After all, why post selfies of yourself and your sweetheart lifting champagne flutes en route to Thailand if not to induce an eat-your-heart-out response in your friends?

Ubiquitous public displays of everyone’s happy moments—with the low points edited out—are one reason, according to a 2017 study, that most of us believe other people lead richer social lives than we do. Research shows that most of us think we are better looking, smarter, more competent and of course less biased than other people. But our perspectives do a 180 when it comes to our social lives.

When we hear about our friends’ plans to share a summer cottage on the seashore, for example, we may feel green with envy. We imagine that they’ll have a blast—the group dinners on the screened-in porch, swimming together at the pond, the bike rides to get ice cream. The idyllic possibilities are enough to make a working stiff with one week of holiday gag.

Now a new study, published last month in the journal Psychological Science, adds a counterintuitive twist to this familiar story: Other people’s plans for the future irritate us much more than experiences they’ve had in the past. At first this idea might seem strange. Don’t we feel envy for people’s accomplishments and possessions, such as their expensive cars? We do, but the study shows that jealousy stings even more when we think about the good things that lie in their future. In fact, our envious feelings ramp up as someone else’s fortunate occasion gets closer—and plummet once the event is over. Apparently envy is time-stamped, like an email or a tray of raw chicken from the supermarket.

Read the whole story (subscription may be required): The Wall Street Journal