Seven Sins: Envy is a sort of residual emotion, says Andrew Oswald

Down To Earth (DTE) speaks to scientists and authors to take stock of what we know so far about the emotions of pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth; the historical debates around them and the critical gaps in our understanding.

In the ninth part, DTE speaks to Andrew Oswald, a professor of economics and behavioural science at the University of Warwick, UK. Oswald has investigated the role of envy in economic success and well-being.

Q. Is envy innate to humans?

A. I guess, it is innate. We want high economical and social status. We see comparisons all around us in the human world, and it is easy to believe that it is innate. One might hypothesise that it comes from the animal world in a broad sense, where different kinds of animals have to struggle to be high up in the status ranking to get mates, resources and so on.

I would view it as very natural, possibly not the most admirable of human emotions. We, no doubt, share this with chimpanzees and orangutans and probably lots of other kinds of animals. I think, it is important to study envy because it is a basic human emotion. And it has policy implications as well. Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher, said envy must be diminished to make a nation happier. The evidence we have got, consistent with a lot of common sense, is that envy is a kind of corrosive emotion that eats away at people. It probably does not have many benefits and comes with a lot of costs.

My own view is that many of the institutions we see in the modern world, as you do in India and I do in mine, probably exacerbate envy. This is a problem for society. It would be better to have institutions that reduce envy and comparisons with others.

Q. Your research talks about the modern society developing institutions such as social media and advertising that make people feel inadequate and envious of others. Since when have you started seeing this trend?

A. In some of my works, I have documented evidence that shows that rise in advertising has been followed by declines in happiness later. The whole point of the vast advertising industry in the world is to make you feel inadequate. Advertisers are not in the business to make people feel happier immediately because if we were all content, we would not be buying the stuff they want to sell.

Therefore, I view advertising as a bad thing, and think we should ban advertising for anything costing more than US$ 10, for example. I do not think it matters too much for advertising butter or grapes. But it is relevant for motor cars, fashion. Probably these have social costs, in my view.

Q. What about arguments that envy and advertising could drive the market?

A. Advertisers are in the business of saying advertising is an excellent thing because we are showing the consumers how much better our automobile is, our fashion jacket is and so on. By and large, I do not believe that. And a lot of modern things that are advertised do not seem very much different from the other items being advertised by the rival automobile companies and so on.

I think, it is much more a status race that they are engendering, rather than a kind of increase in information in a genuinely valuable way to consumers.

Q. There are arguments that competition driven by envy could motivate people to work harder or achieve bigger things in life.

A. Yes, that is a sensible hypothesis to think about. It is a scientific possibility that envy is valuable because it encourages people to work harder. But we could not find any evidence for that in our data. We follow through time nearly 20,000 adults and we measure their envy at different life stages. Then we can measure if their income rises. Later on, we can compare the envious people with the non-envious people.

We find that a high level of envy is not predictive of doing well financially in the future. But it is a strong predictor of doing worse in terms of mental well-being.

I do view it as a scientific possibility that envy has a valuable role by stimulating effort. But I cannot find any evidence in our data for that. I do not know of any real evidence. I would be open to evidence, but I have not seen it.

Like envy, competitiveness is a natural human emotion. At work, I have observed my colleagues over my lifetime. They work hard and I work hard. I am part of the competition as a researcher. I have been in universities all over the world and have seen very talented people. Being aware of competition and working hard is not the same as being envious.

Q. Why do you think envy does not work?

A. I suspect because it is a sort of residual emotion, and it goes along with a kind of disappointment. So it seems to me that the envy comes at the end after experiencing failure, leading to resentment.

So, perhaps, it is too late in a way to be a motivator. These competitive emotions are needed at the beginning of everything so that they produce greater effort. Envy, I believe, is what is left at the end. It reduces the happiness of the envier and probably it provokes bad behaviour that reduces the happiness of people around the envious individual as well.

Q. Does envy lead to hate?

A. We see that very extreme envy could look like a form of hate. I think that would be unnatural. In our data, about 1 per cent of people put themselves in the top envy category. Everyone is asked: Would you view yourself as an envious person? And they are asked to give a number from one to seven, where seven is the most envious. Half the people give a score of one or a two, but one per cent of the population put themselves in the extremely envious category.

Even then, I am hoping that most of those people do not hate anyone for it. I would think, in general, that is too extreme a connection. The world is full of envy, we know that, but thank goodness there is not too much hate that is connected with envy. Unfortunately, a lot of hate, when we look at the world in 2024, is connected to territory and religion, and to ethnic differences and so on, but not envy as commonly defined.

Q. So why does envy exist if there are no benefits?

A. This is an important scientific question. I do not know the answer to that question. But I cannot find any evidence that envy has a good side. When we began our project, we had an open mind. You know, we did not have an axe to grind; we did not know how the numbers would come out. I suppose because my PhD is in economics, I am hard-hearted because of my training and I thought there must be a good side to this thing. Especially thinking of it as a motivator to work harder. But I am pessimistic about the value of envy because I do not see the evidence.

Q. What are the other gaps in our understanding of envy and the consequences or the impacts it has on people and the society at large?

A. I would say the scientific gaps are still considerable and I would very much like to see them filled in my lifetime.

Perhaps the most fundamental one is: What is it that causes some people to be highly envious and not others? Is it something dramatic that has happened in their childhood? Are there different genetic components for envy? Has something happened to them in their workplace? Have they seen something in their parents? Is it something to do with the culture and religion in which they have been brought up? That seems important.

Again, going back to Bertrand Russell, if envy causes a huge psychological penalty to a whole society, then we need to think about how to reduce it. But that is just shorthand for what caused it in the first place. If we are going to reverse something, we need to know the cause.

(as told to Rohini Krishnamurthy)

This is the tenth of an 18-part series.

This was first published as part of the cover story of the 16-31 May, 2024 Print edition of Down To Earth