Benign vs Malicious Jealousy
Posted on Sep 05, 2011 by Michael Gugel in Gaming, Psychology
Benign vs Malicious Jealousy
People expect the world to be fair. If you work hard, you’ll be rewarded for your efforts. If you’re lazy, you won’t get much. You can be jealous of both the hard-worker and lazy luckbox, but it’s quite useful to classify that jealousy into two types:
- Benign Envy: You feel benign envy when you see someone you admire and you think their possessions / status are well deserved (e.g. a person who accumulated their wealth from a lifetime of hard work).
- Malicious Envy: You feel malicious envy when you think someone doesn’t deserve their possessions / status (e.g. a lottery winner).
Gamers feel benign and malicious envy too. They’re resentful of the players that pay a lot of money to get to the top. They respect the person that grinded out countless hours to get to the highest level and have the best gear.
Practical Advice: Don’t make it easy for users to spot the people that spent money in your game and the people that grinded their way to the top.
Subscribe
