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The purpose of this paper is to investigate, with a Pakistani sample, the destructive and constructive behavioral intentions associated with benign and malicious envy in the context of perceived opportunity to perform.

The authors conducted two cross-sectional studies to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, data were obtained from students (n=90), whereas in Study 2, the authors used an executive sample (n=83).

The primary motivation of benign envy was to bring oneself up by improving performance on the comparison dimension, whereas the primary motive of malicious envy was to pull the envied other down. The relationship between malicious envy and behavioral “pulling down” intentions of derogating envied other was conditional on perceived opportunity on the comparison dimension. Consistent with a motive to improve self-evaluation, this study also found that …