The Effects of Envy In Joint Decision Making: How Feeling Envious Affects Integrative Negotiations

Researchers from a wide range of disciplines share a consensus that envy is among the most powerful emotional forces in humans. Given the importance of envy as a social phenomenon, the current research seeks to investigate how envy affects interpersonal interactions in joint decision-making situations. We propose that due to the painful feelings of being envious, envy will decrease the interpersonal trust between the envious and envied actor and ultimately harm their negotiations. Moreover, we explored how if-then plans (i.e., implementation intentions) can help the envious actors to increase their trust in the envy situation, and thereby mitigate the negative effects of envy in negotiations. Integrating the literature on negotiation and envy, we aim to highlight whether, how, and why envy impacts negotiators’ perceptions, behaviors, and achieved outcomes.