Power self-centers people (Keltner, Gruenfeld, amp Anderson, 2003), so power can desensitize the high status to the needs of others. Envy correlates with depression, unhap-piness, and low self-esteem. Those who succeeded must have had unfair advantages. Envy also makes people angry at the injustice of their low-status positions.
If a peer can succeed, then people feel inadequate for not doing equally well. Feeling below someone makes people feel ashamed at their own inadequacy. Envy humiliates and angers people (see Smith, 2008, for recently collected research). Envy says, “I wish I had what you have,” but it implies “And I wish you did not have it.” Scorn says, “You are unworthy of my attention, but I know you are down there somewhere.”Ĭomparison emotions can corrupt the comparer. Comparison at least can be adaptive, providing information and motivation, but the feelings that follow can be poisonous. If comparison contaminates, envy and scorn are worse, but for better reasons. People compare to evaluate themselves, to improve their standing, and to enhance their self-esteem (e.g., Taylor amp Lobel, 1989 Wood, 1989). To be sure, people differ in their proclivity, but comparison is pervasive. People do not always admit to comparison with friends, family, and colleagues, but we all do it. As in our political life, so too do envy and scorn invade our social lives. Psychological science is especially suited to address interpersonal side effects of comparison. Social class is just one example of social comparison. If we believe in meritocracy, why is being elite a liability in election years? Perhaps upward comparison breeds envious resentment because people think elites look down on them with scorn. The irony is that if we think people get the social class they deserve, then we should value elites. In a meritocracy, people get what they deserve. Our collective belief is that America offers opportunity, so the system is fair. Although people’s ability to move above their parents’ social class is limited and no better than it is in other places, we all endorse the American dream ( Kluegel amp Smith, 1986). Mostly, we split evenly between working class and middle class, leaving 10%–20% to the upper and lower extremes. Received wisdom claims that most Americans feel middle class, but this has not held true since some of the first Gallup polls in 1939 ( Gallup Poll News Service, 1939 Hout, 2008). Unfortunately, these cultural myths are less true than we would like to believe. We often hear that Americans mostly identify as middle class, that we offer exceptional opportunity, and that hard work pays off ( Correspondents of The New York Times, 2005 Lareau & Conley, 2008). Americans like to think that we are beyond social class, that only Europeans make class distinctions, as a remnant of feudalism or maybe a byproduct of restricted mobility.
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