Masato Sawada

The purpose of this study was to develop the Japanese version of the Dispositional Greed Scale (J-DGS), and to examine its reliability and validity. The participants in this study were Japanese university students (N = 856). The principal component analysis indicated that the J-DGS had a unidimensional structure and adequate internal consistency. There were positive associations between the J-DGS and envy, psychological entitlement, materialism, impulsive buying behavior, extravagance, and neuroticism. Conversely, J-DGS scores were negatively correlated with self-control, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and agreeableness. These results, which are consistent with previous studies, confirmed the concurrent validity of the J-DGS.

This study focused on the differences between two subtypes of envy known as "benign envy" and "malicious envy" as personality traits, and examined the effects of these traits on academic achievement. Two hundred fifty-one university students participated in the study. Both benign envy and malicious envy were found to be independent as also found in a previous study by Lange & Crusius (2015), and a high criterion-related validity was revealed by an association with characteristic variables such as dispositional envy and self-esteem. The students with higher levels of benign envy were found to set goals higher, and as a result, achieved higher levels of academic performance. In contrast, no such effect was found for malicious envy. The importance of focusing more attention on the positive aspects of the emotion of envy is discussed.

The aim of this study was to construct a model of the elicitation of schadenfreude through vengeance, envy, and trait anger. Japanese undergraduates (239 men, 284 women) completed questionnaires assessing dispositional vengeance, trait anger, and empathy. Then, participants read two scenarios: one about a target person's success and one about his or her misfortune. After reading the first scenario, the participants were asked to rate their envy toward the target person, then their feelings of schadenfreude after the second. A Japanese version of the Vengeance Scale was developed, and its construct validity and test-retest reliability were confirmed. Structural equation modeling was applied to examine how dispositional vengeance, trait anger, and envy were related to schadenfreude. The results indicated that envy and dispositional vengeance were significantly related to scores on the schadenfreude scale, with no gender effect, whereas vengeance was associated with envy only for women.

The present study examined the effect of envy and personality traits on the elicitation of Schadenfreude — pleasure at another's misfortune. The participants were 201 Japanese undergraduates. They responded to scenarios in which the target person was similar to them in terms of gender, and was made to appear either superior or average. The epilogue of scenarios informed participants that the target person had suffered a misfortune. Factor analysis of data indicated dual factors for the 13 items on the scale — Schadenfreude and sympathy. Analysis of variance revealed that the rating for Schadenfreude was higher for men than women, and that score was higer in the scenario in which the target person was superior than average. In addition, path analysis indicated that participants who had low self-seteem tended to feel envy, and this envy also mediated subsequent Schadenfreude. On the other hand, reported guilt of women predicted positively to sympathy, and that score predicted negatively to Schadenfreude.This finding suggested that guilt was the key variable that made gender differences of Schadenfreude and sympathy.

The purpose of the present study was to identify emotions that are related to envy. In Study 1, using interviews in which participants responded to 13 emotion-arousing questions, 172 experiences that resulted in feelings of envy were collected from 92 elementary and junior high school pupils. These data revealed that envy is composed of 3 groups of emotions. In Study 2, another 535 pupils were asked to rate 12 items in hypothetical stories covering 8 domains. Regardless of domain differences, both explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed 3 causal factors: antagonistic feelings, anguished feelings, and feelings of inadequacy. Analysis of variance revealed that the rating for antagonistic feelings were higher for boys than for girls in ability-related domains, and that scores in certain domains increased with increasing grade for both anguished feelings and feelings of inadequacy. These findings suggest that feelings of envy are dependent on age as well as on the nature of the domain.

The present study examined the effect of dispositional envy, domain importance, and the obtainability of desired objects on the selection of coping strategies. In Study 1, a dispositional envy scale for children (DESC) was constructed. Factor analysis of data from 879 elementary and junior high school pupils indicated a single factor for the 8 items on the scale. Reliability, construct validity, and concurrent validity of the scale were confirmed. In Study 2,915 elementary and junior high school pupils completed a questionaire. Factor analysis of coping strategies revealed 3 factors: "constructive solution," "destructive engagement," and "intenional avoidance." Path analysis indicated that those who believed that desired objects could very likely be obtained tended to feel envy and to use a "constructive solution" coping strategy, while those who indicated that both obtainability and domain importance were low tended to use an "intentional avoidance" coping strategy. The perception of domain importance evoked greater situational envy in junior high school pupils than in elementary school pupils.