Envy is a typical negative emotion that often occurs in upward social comparison (Parrott & Smith, 1993). Previous studies have shown envy is an important predictor of depression and anxiety (Appel et al., 2016; Mujcic & Oswald, 2018; Smith et al., 1999). Thus, reducing envy is of significance. Some researchers have divided envy into two types: benign and malicious (van de Ven et al., 2012). Benign envy is related to the motivation to increase effort to narrow the gap between oneself and the superior others, whereas malicious envy entails negative thoughts (e.g., of unfairness or hostility) that represent a wish to damage the position of superiors (Crusius & Lange, 2014). Envy is affected by many factors and is positively correlated with positive adverse childhood experiences. Xiang, Wang, et al. (2018) found that in adulthood, individuals who had experienced childhood maltreatment showed lower self-esteem than their peers did, and frequently felt envy. Furthermore, previous studies have shown that childhood maltreatment can negatively predict benign envy and positively predict malicious envy (Li & Xiang, 2020; J. Zhao et al., 2020). Thus, there may be other potential mechanisms between childhood maltreatment and envy. Moreover, maltreatment of children includes emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, and emotional and physical neglect (Bernstein et al., 1997). Each type of maltreatment has different effects on the child’s emotional and cognitive development (Gibb et al., 2007). However, no studies have investigated the associations between these different forms of childhood maltreatment and the two kinds of envy. Therefore, we explored the effects of different forms of maltreatment in childhood on benign/malicious envy in young adults, and the moderating role of psychological resilience in these associations.

Scholars have found that childhood emotional maltreatment (CEM)—which consists of emotional abuse and emotional neglect—is a critical variable in predicting depression, hopelessness, and low self-control of adults, whereas childhood physical maltreatment (CPM)—which comprises physical abuse and physical neglect—does not have a significant impact on these variables (Gibb et al., 2001; Gross & Keller, 1992). Self-control is a key factor in distinguishing between benign and malicious envy; individuals with low self-control tend to feel malicious envy, whereas those with high self-control tend to feel benign envy (van de Ven et al., 2012). Hence, we assumed that CEM could negatively predict benign envy and positively predict malicious envy, whereas CPM might not predict either type of envy.

Psychological resilience refers to the ability to overcome difficulties and adapt to adversity (Connor & Davidson, 2003). In resilience framework theory (Kumpfer, 1999) it is pointed out that the interaction between psychological resilience and the environment determines the recovery result when people are facing adversity. Individuals with low (vs. high) psychological resilience find it more difficult to recover from adversity (Kumpfer, 1999). Xiang et al. (2020) found that psychological resilience acts as a mediator in the association between childhood maltreatment and envy. Specifically, people who have been maltreated show lower psychological resilience, which leads to more envy. Furthermore, Dong et al. (2019) found that psychological resilience acts a mediator in the association between mindfulness and benign/malicious envy. Specifically, mindfulness can improve individuals’ psychological resilience, and being psychologically resilient can improve benign envy and inhabit malicious envy. Although many researchers have reported finding that psychological resilience, as a protective factor, plays a mediating role in many associations, we also believed that its moderating role could not be ignored.

Gibb et al. (2001) found that emotional abuse is more likely than are either physical or sexual abuse to lead to the development of a negative cognitive style. A study based on the Implicit Association Test showed that CEM has the strongest link with automatic and explicit negative self-association (van Harmelen et al., 2010). This may be because CEM (e.g., “You are so stupid, you are worthless to me”) is more directly supplied with negative self-related associations to the child (Gibb et al., 2004). High psychological resilience can reduce individuals’ negative cognitive evaluation and improve their ability to face setbacks (Campbell-Sills & Stein, 2007). When people are disadvantaged in social comparisons, those with high (vs. low) psychological resilience are more inclined to think that they can improve themselves through their efforts to catch up with the envied person, thereby feeling benign envy frequently and malicious envy infrequently (Dong et al., 2019). However, as described above, individuals with low psychological resilience have limited resources to resist stress, so that they may not be able to effectively reduce the negative self-evaluation caused by CEM, and thus may not be able to mitigate the negative association between CEM and benign envy. Further, the positive association between CEM and malicious envy may intensify. Thus, we assumed that psychological resilience might moderate the association between CEM and benign/malicious envy.

CPM involves more direct body injuries than does CEM. Experiencing CPM has been linked to children dropping out of school earlier, engaging in more aggressive behaviors, and performing acts of violent delinquency (Lansford et al., 2007). In the literature on adverse experiences during childhood, cumulative effects are relatively commonly reported (Finkelhor et al., 2011). Therefore, because the negative effects of CPM are more severe and immediate than CPM, and CPM often interact with other kinds of abuse (Voith et al., 2020), psychological resilience might not be effective in moderating the associations between CPM and benign/malicious envy.

We proposed the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: Childhood emotional maltreatment will negatively predict benign envy and positively predict malicious envy, whereas the impact of childhood physical maltreatment will be nonsignificant.
Hypothesis 2: Psychological resilience will moderate the relationship between childhood emotional maltreatment and benign/malicious envy.
Hypothesis 3: Psychological resilience will not moderate the relationship between childhood physical maltreatment and benign/malicious envy.

Method

Participants and Procedure

We recruited 676 Chinese undergraduates (182 men, 494 women) from four universities in Mainland China, using a cluster sampling method. The age of these participants ranged from 17 to 26 years (M = 19.33 ± 1.72). All were physically and mentally healthy. The study was approved by the Academic Committee of the School of Psychology at Hunan Normal University. Psychology graduate students used unified instructions to conduct the test. The whole procedure lasted 40 minutes. This study was based on data obtained in an ongoing project (J. Zhao et al., 2020). All participants provided written informed consent before filling in the survey form and received RMB 30 (USD 4.72) on completion.

Measures

Childhood Trauma Questionnaire
This scale was developed by Bernstein et al. (1997) and consists of 28 items in five subscales (emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, physical neglect). Examples of items are “Someone in the family said mean or insulting things to me” (emotional abuse); “Someone in the family punished me with a belt, rope, board, or other hard object” (physical abuse); “Someone threatened me to make me have sex with them” (sexual abuse); “Someone in my family cared about me” (emotional neglect; reverse scored); and “No one at home cared whether or not I was cold” (physical neglect). Items are scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), so that a higher score indicates a greater severity of the maltreatment. We used a Chinese version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (X. Zhao et al., 2005). Considering the items on sexual abuse are very sensitive and many participants refused to answer such items in the Chinese sample, we focused only on the other four subscales. Xiang, Wang, et al. (2018) reported that this scale has good reliability and validity in Chinese samples. In this study Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were as follows: emotional abuse = .71, physical abuse = .78, emotional neglect = .77, physical neglect = .69.

Benign and Malicious Envy Scale
The Benign and Malicious Envy Scale was developed by Crusius and Lange (2014), and consists of 10 items, with five items for each subscale. An example of an item on benign envy is “When I envy others, I focus on how I can become equally successful in the future” and an example of an item on malicious envy is “I wish that superior people would lose their advantage.” Items are rated on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree), so that a higher score represents greater envy. Xiang, Chao, et al. (2018) indicated that these two subscales are suitable for use with a Chinese sample. In this study Cronbach’s alphas were .85 and .80 for the malicious and benign envy subscales.

Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale
The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale was developed by Connor and Davidson (2003) and refined by Campbell-Sills and Stein (2007). It consists of 10 items (e.g., “Can deal with whatever comes”). Items are scored on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 6 (completely agree). A higher score reflects high levels of psychological resilience. Kong et al. (2015) demonstrated that the scale has good internal consistency in the Chinese context. In this study Cronbach’s alpha was .90.

Data Analysis

In the context of Chinese culture, stress and adversity often combine and interact in important and different ways. Therefore, following prior studies, we combined abuse and neglect in our study. This means that we divided maltreatment into two types: emotional abuse and emotional neglect to represent CEM, and physical abuse and physical neglect to represent CPM. We used SPSS version 22.0 to analyze all data. First, we conducted a test for common method bias by using Harman’s single-factor test. The results show that the variance explained by the first factor obtained via rotation was 25.54%, which is less than the critical value of 40%. This indicates that there was no serious common method bias. Second, we performed a zero-order correlation analysis. Third, we applied hierarchical linear regression analysis to examine moderating effects. Specifically, we included the control variables (age, gender) in the model in Step 1. In Step 2, we included the independent variables (CEM, CPM) to test their direct effects on benign/malicious envy. In Step 3, we included the independent variables (CEM, CPM) and the moderator (psychological resilience) to test their direct effects on benign/malicious envy. Finally, in Step 4, the interaction terms (i.e., CEM × psychological resilience, CPM × psychological resilience) were added to the above models to examine the main effect of psychological resilience. To probe the significant moderation effect, a simple slopes test was then performed.

Results

Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Analysis

Zero-order correlations were performed to examine the relationships among the key study variables (see Table 1 for descriptive statistics and correlations). Except for the correlation between benign envy and malicious envy, the analyses revealed both significant positive correlations and significant negative correlations among the key study variables.

The Moderating Role of Psychological Resilience in the Relationship Between Childhood Maltreatment and Benign/Malicious Envy

In the next set of analyses, we first examined whether psychological resilience moderated the effects of total childhood maltreatment on benign/malicious envy. The results show that the moderating role was nonsignificant. Then, we explored whether psychological resilience moderated the link between different forms of maltreatment and benign/malicious envy. As shown in Table 2, psychological resilience moderated the relationship between CEM and benign envy but not between CPM and benign envy. The CEM–malicious envy link and CPM–malicious envy link were both moderated by psychological resilience. To probe this moderating effect of psychological resilience, we plotted the simple slopes for individuals with high (i.e., M + 1 SD) and low (i.e., M − 1 SD) psychological resilience.

As presented in Figure 1, compared to individuals with low psychological resilience, individuals with high psychological resilience felt more benign envy when they had experienced low CEM, but not when they had experienced high CEM. Further, individuals with high psychological resilience tended to feel less malicious envy when they had experienced high versus low CEM. Thus, individuals with high psychological resilience felt less malicious envy than individuals with low psychological resilience when CPM was both low and high. However, among individuals with low psychological resilience, the effect of CPM on malicious envy was negative, which was not consistent with our expectations. Therefore, Hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported but Hypothesis 3 was not.

Discussion

We examined the role of psychological resilience in the associations between two different forms of childhood maltreatment and benign/malicious envy. Consistent with our expectation, individuals who had experienced higher levels of CEM showed a low level of benign envy and a high level of malicious envy. Moreover, we identified the moderating role of psychological resilience in the CEM–benign envy, CEM–malicious envy, and CPM–malicious envy links, suggesting the importance of psychological resources in facing the negative consequences of early adverse experiences.

After controlling for gender and age, we found that of the two types of maltreatment, only CEM predicted a lower level of benign envy and a higher level of malicious envy, which was consistent with our expectation. This effect may be driven by the following reasons: First, compared with physical maltreatment, emotional maltreatment could lead to more negative cognitive styles and self-control problems (Cellini, 2004; Gibb, 2002). Self-control is one of the factors distinguishing benign envy from malicious envy, in that people with high self-control tend to feel benign envy, whereas those with low self-control tend to feel malicious envy (van de Ven et al., 2012). Therefore, that CEM could negatively predict benign envy and positively predict malicious envy may be attributable to impaired self-control. Second, many parents in China who hold traditional concepts about child-rearing believe the adage “love well and whip well.” Thus, the impact of beating education might still exist in Chinese society. Children who grow up in this family environment might think that some forms of physical punishment are normal and unimportant, and, therefore, will not have too many emotional problems or a negative cognitive style due to being physically punished by their parents. Thus, we found that CPM predicted neither low levels of benign envy nor high levels of malicious envy.

Prior research has provided evidence that psychological resilience might contribute to better stress adaptation and emotional regulation (Campbell-Sills & Stein, 2007; Vella & Pai, 2019). In line with these studies, our findings indicate that psychological resilience was predictive of increased benign envy and reduced malicious envy. It is important to note that these effects remained when controlling for age and gender, suggesting the robustness of the effects of psychological resilience on both kinds of envy.

We also examined whether psychological resilience moderates the associations between different forms of childhood maltreatment and benign/malicious envy. Our findings on psychological resilience are largely consistent with those of existing studies. For example, Liang et al. (2022) suggested that individuals with high psychological resilience show a higher level of positive emotions and a lower level of negative emotions. We demonstrated that high psychological resilience could buffer the negative effects of CEM on benign envy. This is in line with resilience framework theory (Kumpfer, 1999), in which it is posited that people with low psychological resilience have more difficulty in adapting to adversity and generate more negative emotions compared with those with high psychological resilience. Possessing high psychological resilience can also inhibit painful feelings (Connor & Davidson, 2003) and improve levels of self-control (Rutter, 1985). In addition, some researchers have shown that psychological resilience moderates the association between adverse childhood experiences and emotional dysregulation in adulthood (Poole et al., 2017). Therefore, psychological resilience could moderate the effect of CEM on benign envy in adulthood. However, our findings suggest that psychological resilience did not act as a moderator of the effect of CPM on benign envy. One possible explanation is that, as noted above, Chinese adults might view some childhood physical maltreatment as normal, so that having been disciplined physically does not have serious effects on their feelings of envy in adulthood. Benign envy is also relatively positive (van de Ven et al., 2012), so that there is no need for individuals to call on their psychological resilience to moderate the relationship between CPM and benign envy. It is also possible that other aspects of the individual’s psychological resources might moderate the negative impact of CPM on envy.

Consistent with our hypothesis, psychological resilience moderated the relationship between CEM and malicious envy. Compared with benign envy, malicious envy is a more complex and negative emotion (van de Ven et al., 2009). Having a higher level of psychological resilience indicates that individuals could use effective cognition and emotion regulation strategies to cope with the negative consequences of adverse childhood experiences (Vella & Pai, 2019). Our result suggests that psychological resilience serves as an important buffer to help individuals reduce negative emotions.

In addition, contrary to our expectations in Hypothesis 3, psychological resilience moderated the relationship between CPM and malicious envy. A surprising result was that, in individuals with low psychological resilience, the effect of CPM on their malicious envy was negative, and among those with high psychological resilience, the effect of CPM on malicious envy was positive. This result is somewhat counterintuitive. However, it is worth noting that regardless of the level of CPM, we found that those with a higher (vs. lower) level of psychological resilience felt relatively less malicious envy. To some extent, these results are consistent with a prior study (Dong et al., 2019). There are two possible reasons to explain our results that appear counterintuitive. First, CPM is more prevalent than CEM in China (Feng et al., 2019). Because some examples of CPM, such as being physically chastised for wrongdoing, is common and visible, the adult might tend to take it for granted when recalling childhood experiences. Furthermore, compared with emotional maltreatment, physical maltreatment leads to lower levels of confidence and motivation (Crawley et al., 2015). Psychological resilience might promote confidence and motivation while also increasing hostility toward others, and hostility is a prominent feature of malicious envy (van de Ven et al., 2012). Second, stress and adversity often combine and interact in important and different ways (X. Zhao et al., 2005). Similarly, many protective factors or psychological resources, such as self-esteem and positive attributions, also interact. Therefore, puzzling results emerge. Research should be conducted to examine further other aspects of psychological resources in the relationship between CPM and malicious envy.

Several limitations of our study must be mentioned. First, we did not measure participants’ self-control. In future, researchers could explore the role of self-control in the relationship between the two different types of maltreatment and the two kinds of envy. Second, our study was conducted in the context of Chinese culture. Researchers could test the validity of our results across different cultural backgrounds and populations. Third, for our study we used self-report measures, which can lead to social desirability bias. Thus, experimental or follow-up studies could be conducted to mitigate this bias.

Despite these limitations, the current study provides empirical evidence about the relationship between different forms of childhood maltreatment and benign/malicious envy, and elucidates the role of psychological resilience. Taken together, our findings highlight the important role of psychological resilience in the relationship of childhood maltreatment and envy in adulthood, which provides a theoretical reference to inhibit malicious envy and promote benign envy from the perspective of cultivating psychological resilience.

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This work was supported by a grant (18YBA324) from the Philosophy and Social Science Project of Hunan Province of China. The funding source had no influence on the study design

the collection

analysis

and interpretation of data

the writing of the report

or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Qingyin Li, Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory of Hunan Province, Hunan Normal University, People’s Republic of China, 410081. Email: [email protected]