Dispositional Benign and Malicious Envy Scale (BeMaS)

Dispositional envy captures variation in how people deal with unflattering upward comparison. Depending on how people evaluate such situations, they react with benign envy – entailing the motivation to improve one’s situation – or malicious envy – entailing the motivation to harm the other’s superior position. The Dispositional Benign and Malicious Envy Scale (BeMaS) includes 10 items, with 5 items each measuring interindividual differences in the two envy forms. The BeMaS has been translated into at least 28 languages. Across numerous studies with different samples in several countries, both scales showed high internal consistency, unidimensionality, moderately high test–retest reliability, and at least configural measurement invariance across various groups. In confirmatory factor analyses, a model with two correlated latent factors consistently fitted the data and outperformed a model with a single latent factor. Moreover, both envy forms related to people’s propensity to compare as well as painful feelings and respective state envy following invidious comparisons. In line with theorizing, they were also predicted by the motivation to be high up in a social hierarchy, while dispositional benign envy was related to the motivation to improve one’s social rank and dispositional malicious envy was related to the motivation to harm the superior person’s social rank. Future research should investigate cross-cultural differences and the (longitudinal) relationships of both envy forms with actual social rank, well-being, and mental health.