The envious brain: The neural basis of social comparison
Open accessAbstract
Humans have a drive to evaluate themselves by examining their abilities and outcomes in comparison to others. The present study examined the emotional and neural correlates of upward social comparison (comparison with those who have more) and downward social comparison (comparison with those who have less). Two experiments were conducted with volunteers in an interactive game of chance, in which a putative player won or lost more money than the participant. The results showed that even when participants lost money, they expressed joy and schadenfreude (gloating) if the other player had lost more money. On the other hand when they actually won money, but the other player had won more they expressed envy. This pattern was also demonstrated in a differential BOLD response in the ventral striatum. Comparing the activations between an actual gain and a relative gain indicated that even when a person loses money, merely adding information about another person's greater loss may increase ventral striatum activations to a point where these activations are similar to those of an actual gain. We suggest that the ventral striatum plays a role in mediating the emotional consequences of social comparison. Hum Brain Mapp, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
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Ventral striatum activity is greater when we gain a larger reward than someone else or even lose less than someone else.
“Ventral striatum activity is greater when we gain a larger reward than someone else or even lose less than someone else 82–84.”
From The social brain and reward: Social information processing in the human striatum (2014) · cites this paper as [82]
Reward signals in the striatum are sensitive to comparisons of our own reward outcomes and status with those of other people.
“Research has suggested that reward signals in the striatum are sensitive to comparisons of our own reward outcomes and status with those of other people.”
From The social brain and reward: Social information processing in the human striatum (2014) · cites this paper as [82]
We make decisions to try to gain better outcomes than someone else.
“Even when our own outcomes do not depend on other people, we prefer when our own outcomes are better than someone else's and we make decisions to try to gain better outcomes than someone else 82, 83.”
From The social brain and reward: Social information processing in the human striatum (2014) · cites this paper as [82]
Even when our own outcomes do not depend on other people, we prefer when our own outcomes are better than someone else's.
“Even when our own outcomes do not depend on other people, we prefer when our own outcomes are better than someone else's and we make decisions to try to gain better outcomes than someone else 82, 83.”
From The social brain and reward: Social information processing in the human striatum (2014) · cites this paper as [82]
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- Authors
- Dvash, J., Gilam, G., Ben‐Ze'ev, A., Hendler, T., & Shamay‐Tsoory, S. G.
- Affiliations
- University of Haifa (IL)
- Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (IL)
- Venue
- Human Brain Mapping
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-03-04
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1741-1750
- ISSN
- 1065-9471 (ISSN-L)
- 1097-0193
- PMC
- PMC6871018
- OpenAlex
- W1979614846
- Cited by
- 132
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 8.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Human Brain Mapping (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Israel Science Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- social comparison, envy, schadenfreude, upward social comparison, downward social comparison, ventral striatum, neural correlates of emotion, relative gains, games of chance, BOLD signal
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Analysis of Variance, Basal Ganglia, Brain Mapping, Female, Games, Experimental, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Jealousy, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Social Behavior, Social Perception
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