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The temporal association between envy and depression symptoms over 6 months: A Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Study

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Abstract

Social rank theory posits people with depression experience feelings of inferiority in relation to others. These feelings of inferiority and their associated processes in depression bear a striking resemblance to the experience of envy; however, the direction of the association between depression and envy remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the longitudinal associations between dispositional envy and depressive symptoms over six months. Three waves of data were collected through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) in 2018. A total of n = 644 American community adults (Mage=39.7, SD= 12.8; 41.3 % female) provided responses to study measures at baseline. We performed random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) to test the relationships between the variables. The correlations between dispositional envy and depression across three-time points were significant. The cross-lagged analyses revealed that baseline depression (T0) predicted higher dispositional envy at three months (T1), and greater envy at three months predicted higher depression at six months (T2). However, greater envy at baseline (T0) did not predict higher depression at three months later (T1), and higher depression at three months (T1) did not predict greater envy at six months (T2). These results suggest a dynamic and asymmetric relationship between envy and depression over six months. Public health interventions and policy strategies with the goal of reducing depression symptoms should consider the impact of dispositional envy and the environmental context wherein envy is likely (e.g., societal inequality). Future longitudinal studies should assess the relationships between envy and depressive symptoms, considering the potential role of social status.

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Data availability

The dataset analyzed during the current study are publicly available at the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/9N8R5).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Regina, 3737 Wascana Parkway, Regina, SK, S4S0A2, Canada

    Fereshteh Mehrabi & Shadi Beshai

  2. Department of Psychology, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, 11549-1350, USA

    Adam Iskric

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  1. Fereshteh Mehrabi
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  2. Adam Iskric
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Correspondence to Fereshteh Mehrabi.

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Mehrabi, F., Iskric, A. & Beshai, S. The temporal association between envy and depression symptoms over 6 months: A Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Study. Curr Psychol 43, 10122–10131 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05170-3

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