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Effects of resource divisibility and expectations of sharing on envy

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Abstract

In three experiments, we provide evidence that resource divisibility and expectations of sharing influence the degree to which envy arises in response to another’s superior resources. We manipulated the resource divisibility (e.g., 2 coins worth approximately $5.50 each vs. a single note worth approximately $11) and expectations of sharing were measured (Experiments 1 and 2) and manipulated (Experiment 3). Findings in these three experiments supported our hypothesis that envy would be most strongly experienced in response to others who had highly divisible resources that participants did not believe would be shared. These findings offer novel insights into the adaptive function of envy, which may promote sharing of divisible resources.

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Notes

  1. When we included the data from the three participants who talked to a confederate, the results did not change.

  2. When participants were asked about any suspicions they might have regarding the experiment, some participants, particularly those in the high divisibility condition, wondered why only one could receive the reward, but no one pointed out our predictions or the true purpose of the experiment. This was also the case in Experiments 2 and 3. Future researchers might therefore devise a different, more naturalistic method to experimentally manipulate resource divisibility.

  3. The General Trust Scale’s use as a measure of a person’s tendency to assume others have benign intentions and good will toward others has been well-validated with previous research (Yamagishi, 1998/2011; Yamagishi et al. 1998; Yamagishi et al. under review). Given this past research, it was used as an indirect measure of sharing expectations in Experiment 1, as sharing a resource would be a behavioral manifestation of this expected good will and benign intent. The level of general trust reported by participants did not differ between conditions, t(63) = 1.14, p = .26.

  4. In terms of the percentage of questions answered correctly in the filler task (M = 0.54, SD = 0.15), there was no main effect of divisibility condition, F(1, 61) = 0.02, p = .89, or trust, F(1, 61) = 0.04, p = .85, and no interaction, F(1, 61) = 0.53, p = .47.

  5. The participants rated 7 items (3 envy items, jealousy, lucky, resentment, unfair) toward the confederate in all. These items were also used in Studies 2 and 3. The correlations of all measures are shown in Tables 1, 2 and 3 included in the “Appendix." Although the 3 envy items were closely related to jealousy, and Japanese and English speakers alike often use jealousy synonymously with envy, we did not include jealousy as part of the envy items because envy and jealousy are actually quite different qualitatively. Jealousy is an emotion characterized by fear of losing something or someone one already has, rather than an awareness of lacking the desirable possession or quality of another (e.g., Parrott and Smith 1993; Smith et al. 1988).

  6. As the resentment scores were positively skewed, we conducted a logarithmic transformation of these scores. Using transformed scores, the significance level of statistical results did not change. Such was also the case for Studies 2 and 3.

  7. When we included a participant who talked to a confederate in the data, results were essentially identical to those reported.

  8. In terms of the percentage of questions answered correctly in the filler task (M = 0.58, SD = 0.18), there was no main effect of divisibility condition, F(1, 35) = 0.33, p = .57, a marginal main effect of sharing expectations whereby higher sharing expectations were associated with higher performance, F(1, 35) = 3.75, p = .06, η 2 p  = .10, and no interaction, F(1, 61) = 1.01, p = .32.

  9. In terms of the percentage of questions answered correctly in the filler task (M = 0.93, SD = 0.20), there was no significant main effect of divisibility condition, F(1, 43) = 2.26, p = .14, or sharing expectations, F(1, 43) = 2.39, p = .13, and no interaction, F(1, 43) = 1.53, p = .22.

  10. A reviewer noted that finding moderated mediation whereby the effect of sharing condition on envy was mediated via sharing expectations (which was moderated by resource divisibility), would provide particularly strong evidence that sharing expectations per se were driving the effect. We conducted the suggested analysis with 10,000 bias-corrected bootstrap resamples. Results indicated no significant conditional indirect effect of the sharing manipulation on envy via sharing expectations at high divisibility [b = −.17, SE = .24, 95 % CI (−.97, .12)], or at low divisibility [b = −.78, SE = .48, 95 % CI (−1.79, .10)]. Given our modest sample size, these null results were possibly due to low statistical power.

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Acknowledgments

This research was financially supported by The Japanese Group Dynamics Association. We would like to thank Erik M. Lund for helpful comments on a draft of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University, 2-1 Naka, Kunitachishi, Tokyo, 186-8601, Japan

    Yumi Inoue & Koji Murata

  2. University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Charles E. Hoogland

  3. Tokyo Future University, Adachi, Tokyo, Japan

    Hiroki Takehashi

Authors
  1. Yumi Inoue
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  2. Charles E. Hoogland
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  3. Hiroki Takehashi
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  4. Koji Murata
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yumi Inoue.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 1, 2 and 3.

Table 1 Correlations among all measures in Experiment 1
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Table 2 Correlations among all measures in Experiment 2
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Table 3 Correlations among all measures in Experiment 3
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Inoue, Y., Hoogland, C.E., Takehashi, H. et al. Effects of resource divisibility and expectations of sharing on envy. Motiv Emot 39, 961–972 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9498-6

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