I want you, You can look in my eyes and you can count the ways
This paper considers what motivates people to improve themselves. Across four studies the authors find that benign envy stimulates better performance. They reveal that admiration feels good but does not lead to a motivation to improve oneself. This has been labelled happy self-surrender, a feeling that the other is so good at something that one can only look with appreciation at how good the other is.
Benign envy (not malicious envy), on the other hand, feels frustrating but it does lead to a motivation to improve.
