Mitigating malicious envy: Why successful individuals should reveal their failures

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Interpersonal Emotion Regulation

Background:

• Malicious envy is a destructive emotion arising from social comparison with successful peers.
• Individuals are often reluctant to disclose failures, preferring to present only successes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify an interpersonal strategy to mitigate malicious envy.
• To investigate the impact of revealing failures on envy and pride perceptions.

Main Methods:

• Conducted three online experiments and one field experiment involving entrepreneurs.
• Participants were exposed to disclosures of successes only versus successes and failures.
• A field experiment at an entrepreneurial pitch competition assessed envy and pride perceptions.

Main Results:

• Revealing both successes and failures decreased observers' malicious envy compared to revealing only successes.
• This effect was independent of the discloser's status and perceived status.
• Learning about a successful entrepreneur's failures reduced malicious envy and hubristic pride, while increasing benign envy and authentic pride.

Conclusions:

• Revealing failures is an effective, albeit counterintuitive, strategy for interpersonal emotion regulation.
• Sharing past failures can positively influence social perceptions and emotional responses.
• The findings contribute to understanding the social functions of envy and pride.