Benign Envy in Nursing: A Qualitative Exploration of Perceived Triggers and Drivers

Benign envy, a constructive form of upward social comparison, has received limited attention in nursing despite its potential relevance to professional learning, motivation, and growth. Although quantitative research has highlighted the potentially constructive aspects of benign envy, qualitative understanding of how nurses experience, interpret, and respond to benign envy within professional contexts remains limited.

This qualitative exploratory study sought to explore the perceptions benign envy within clinical and professional contexts. The research specifically focused on the perceived triggers and drivers described in participants' accounts and how nurses interpreted and responded to these experiences within clinical and professional contexts.

Semistructured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 purposively selected nurses from three hospitals in Golestan Province, Iran. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis.

The analysis developed eight themes concerning participants' perceived triggers of benign envy and three themes concerning perceived drivers of their responses to the experience. The eight themes for triggers were outstanding professional competencies; financial benefits and income; career advancement and position; leadership and personality qualities; positive moral and behavioral virtues; existential-spiritual awareness; proactive striving for advancement; and effective therapeutic communication skills. These themes reflected the diverse professional, interpersonal, moral, material, and existential qualities that participants associated with experiences of benign envy. Three further themes concerned drivers of participants' constructive responses were self-evaluation coupled with intrinsic motivation; professional modeling coupled with constructive competition; and ethically and spiritually rooted influences.

Benign envy was described as a multifaceted experience embedded in nurses' professional, relational, moral, and existential contexts. It is sustained by strong ethical frameworks and self-regulatory processes, enabling nurses to transform upward comparisons into motivation rather than distress. The findings provide a contextual account of how nurses make sense of benign envy and how this experience may be associated with professional growth and constructive responses.

The findings suggest several areas through which nurse managers may support constructive responses to upward comparison in nursing workplaces: Transparent career pathways, structured mentorship programs, and recognition of professional, interpersonal, and moral excellence may provide contexts in which nurses can learn from colleagues they admire. Managers may also consider incorporating opportunities for reflective discussion and peer learning to help nurses interpret professional comparison as an opportunity for development rather than interpersonal threat. Attention to nurses' ethical and professional values may further support the environments in which constructive competition and professional modeling can occur without raising conflicts in relationships. These implications are derived from participants' accounts and should be considered as practice considerations for further evaluation rather than as tested interventions.