The purpose of this study is to explore the emotional responses of being envied and its boundary conditions. Previous studies have focused more on negative emotions that are triggered by being envied. This study investigates the influence of being envied on employees’ positive emotions and the possible boundary effect of age.

Based on social comparison theory, this study proposes that employee being envied would experience positive emotions due to self-enhancement brought by “passive” downward social comparison. Thus, this study first hypothesizes that being envied would trigger employees’ positive emotions (Hypothesis 1). This study then argues that being envied would interact with employee age to affect positive emotion (Hypothesis 2). The underlying logic is that being envied especially satisfies relatively young employees’ need for social self-esteem. Instead, employees at the late stage of their career would experience fewer positive emotions because of their different career development needs. Relatively senior employees pay more attention to the factors that "can really bring stability to them", and they prefer the stable state instead of the focus of attention. In contrast, young employees have higher career aspirations and stronger demand for social status. Thus, when young workers receive positive feedback in social comparisons (being envied by colleagues), they experience more positive emotions as an exhibition of their achievements.

One survey and two experiments are conducted to collect data to test the hypotheses. Specifically, in Study 1, 504 participants report their perceptions of being envied and positive emotions. The results support Hypotheses 1. In Study 2, 224 volunteers participate an online experiment. Activating the perception of being envied, we find that employees experience more positive emotion. Controlling for pre-test positive emotion and post-test negative emotion, Study 3 replicates the findings in Study 1 and Study 2. Study 3 also finds the evidence supporting H2 that being envied would interact with employee age to affect positive emotion. For the younger employees, the feeling of being envied is positively correlated with their positive emotions, while for older workers, the effect is weaker.

In summary, this study finds that (1) Being envied boosts employees’ positive emotions and (2)Compared with more senior employees, young employees experience more positive emotions when they are envied. These findings have extended the literature in three ways. First, our findings enrich the envy literature by highlighting the positive emotion as its consequence. The previous studies have mainly focused on the aspect of envy instead of being envied. Within the few studies investigating being envied, they emphasized the negative consequences of being envied. Second, our findings also extend the career development literature via adding new empirical findings from the perspective of being envied. Third, these findings enlighten social comparison theory by pinpointing age as a possible boundary condition in the context of being envied.

The promising managerial implications are also discussed. First, organizational policies and practices that hinder the generation of being envied should be reexamined. For instance, confidential compensation policies are widely used in organizations. Although these policies may prevent the negative effects of malicious envy, they also mask the positive effects of being envied. High performers cannot perceive their "social advantage" over other coworkers, which can undermine the positive effect. Second, new incentive mechanisms consistent with our findings should be designed. It is widely used in organizations to motivate employees through unequal allocation of resources. This allocation of resources has different incentives for employees of different ages.