Although jealousy and envy form a reasonably important part of everyday life, they have not often drawn the attention of psychologists. They tend to receive passing attention in discussion of the negative side of loving and liking and there are attempts made to distinguish between them. However, a useful discussion is made by Smith, Kim and Parrott (1988).
Jealousy is the reaction to the threat that we might lose the affections of someone important to us and that these affections be directed toward someone else. Envy is more simply a desire to have what someone else has, whether this be a possession or a personal attribute or characteristic. So jealousy is based on the possibility of losing an existing relationship and envy is based on the possibility of possessing some thing that another person has. Generally, jealousy is more powerful and more intense than envy.
Smith et al. draw attention to the fact that although these distinctions are reasonable, in everyday life there is considerable overlap between these two emotions. Their research and theory show that the overlap is due to the ambiguity of the word jealousy, which is used to mean both envy and jealousy, envy meanwhile being more restricted. Moreover, the feelings associated with the two are different. Jealousy is linked to feelings of suspiciousness, rejection, hostility, anger, fear of loss, hurt and soon. Envy is linked to feelings of inferiority, dissatisfaction, wishfulness, longing and self criticism. They argue that envy should be used as a useful label for discontented feelings that stem from social comparisons, whereas jealousy remains ambiguous in its use, sometimes referring to what more properly should be termed envy. Elster (1991) makes a penetrating analysis of envy from a part psychological, part economic perspective. He distinguishes between envy about transferable and non-transferable goods; for example, envying people either for what they have or for what they are. He also points out that we tend to envy those who are close to us rather than those who are more remote, perhaps because any sense of unfairness or injustice is more obvious close up. Generally, envy seems to increase with equality, which is perhaps also to do with closeness.
From Elster's perspective, envy can be controlled by either destroying or setting aside the object of envy, or by choosing one's associates carefully, by expressing sour grapes, or, most interestingly, by devaluing other things. For example, to end on a light note, it may be that it is those who envy blondes who characterize them as dumb.
