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Envy in Politics
How envy, spite, and the pursuit of admiration influence politics
Why do governments underspend on policies that would make their constituents better off? Why do people participate in contentious politics when they could reap benefits if they were to abstain? In Envy in Politics, Gwyneth McClendon contends that if we want to understand these and other forms of puzzling political behavior, we should pay attention to envy, spite, and the pursuit of admiration--all manifestations of our desire to maintain or enhance our status within groups. Drawing together insights from political philosophy, behavioral economics, psychology, and anthropology, McClendon explores how and under what conditions status motivations influence politics.
Through surveys, case studies, interviews, and an experiment, McClendon argues that when concerns about in-group status are unmanaged by social conventions or are explicitly primed by elites, status motivations can become drivers of public opinion and political participation. McClendon focuses on the United States and South Africa--two countries that provide tough tests for her arguments while also demonstrating that the arguments apply in different contexts.
From debates over redistribution to the mobilization of collective action, Envy in Politics presents the first theoretical and empirical investigation of the connection between status motivations and political behavior.
Why do governments underspend on policies that would make their constituents better off? Why do people participate in contentious politics when they could reap benefits if they were to abstain? In Envy in Politics, Gwyneth McClendon contends that if we want to understand these and other forms of puzzling political behavior, we should pay attention to envy, spite, and the pursuit of admiration--all manifestations of our desire to maintain or enhance our status within groups. Drawing together insights from political philosophy, behavioral economics, psychology, and anthropology, McClendon explores how and under what conditions status motivations influence politics.
Through surveys, case studies, interviews, and an experiment, McClendon argues that when concerns about in-group status are unmanaged by social conventions or are explicitly primed by elites, status motivations can become drivers of public opinion and political participation. McClendon focuses on the United States and South Africa--two countries that provide tough tests for her arguments while also demonstrating that the arguments apply in different contexts.
From debates over redistribution to the mobilization of collective action, Envy in Politics presents the first theoretical and empirical investigation of the connection between status motivations and political behavior.
248 pages, Hardcover
Published April 10, 2018
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71 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 21, 2023
Knyga parašyta kaip mokslinis darbas, todėl nesiskaitė ypač maloniai, bet buvo verta dėl joje buvusių įžvalgų, kokią reikšmę politikoje turi 3 žmonėms labai būdingi dalykai:
(1) pavydas tiems, kurie subjektyviu vertinimu toje pačioje grupėje turi aukštesnį statusą
(2) pagieža tiems, kurie turi žemesnį statusą
(3) žavėjimosi savo adresu siekis toje grupėje
Pasirodo, žmogus gali netgi pritarti tokiems mokesčiams, kurie jam finansiškai yra nenaudingi, bet dar labiau smukdo kitus tos grupės narius.
Žodžiu, tikrai ne lietuvių išmislas džiaugtis, kai kaimyno namas dega, skirtingai nei tautosaka byloja.
Buvo visai įdomu permąstyti tai, ką matau viešojoje erdvėje. Kai kas dabar jau man kitoje šviesoje atrodo.
(1) pavydas tiems, kurie subjektyviu vertinimu toje pačioje grupėje turi aukštesnį statusą
(2) pagieža tiems, kurie turi žemesnį statusą
(3) žavėjimosi savo adresu siekis toje grupėje
Pasirodo, žmogus gali netgi pritarti tokiems mokesčiams, kurie jam finansiškai yra nenaudingi, bet dar labiau smukdo kitus tos grupės narius.
Žodžiu, tikrai ne lietuvių išmislas džiaugtis, kai kaimyno namas dega, skirtingai nei tautosaka byloja.
Buvo visai įdomu permąstyti tai, ką matau viešojoje erdvėje. Kai kas dabar jau man kitoje šviesoje atrodo.
November 13, 2022
This insightful book on status motivations offers a novel lens for interpreting political behavior around contentious issues such as the ACA and affirmative action. Here the highlights that I will shate with my AP US Gov class
Envy in Politics by Gwyneth H. McClendon
How do citizens evaluate public policies?
Under what conditions do governments act in service of their constituents’ material interests or fail to do so?
Why and under what conditions do citizens participate in politics?
Public opinion
Policy implementation
Political participation
People care about maintaining and improving their social status within groups. Tis concern for status comes in may forms:
Envy is the inclination to bring down those who are better off.
Spite is the inclination to keep down those who are worse off
The pursuit of admiration is the inclination to rise in the ranks of others’ opinions.
Each of these impulses involves a concern for a better relative position within the group, even if that means costs to the self and to others
Citizens vote at least in part based on a desire to maximize their own material resources and physical safety, and they support policies that protect their social identity groups relative to other groups. Likewise, they participate in politics when the material and physical costs of doing so decrease and when doing so would make them materially better off. They evaluate policies based on partisan commitments, or according to general principles of compassion, fairness, and reciprocity.
[John Adams] “desire for status is as real a want of nature as hunger.”
Within-group status brings pleasure and a sense of personal power, and is more closely linked to self-reports of well being than many measures of absolute welfare.
Many status motivations, particularly envy and spite, are antisocial since they involve wishing that others had less. Other status motivations—like the desire for admiration—are not antisocial per se, but people may feign that they are not a priority.
Policies that are generally welfare enhancing may be stymied because politicians perceive that citizens do not want policies that advantage others, even though they would benefit, too.
Definitions
As a category, status motivations all involve doing well relative to other people on some socially valued dimension of income, assets, attributes, actions, or achievements.
Status motivations can help us make more sense of participation in collective action, especially if we consider status motivations from a slightly different angle: through people’s desire for admiration.
Admiration is a positive reaction to upward comparisons that conveys the admired person’s higher relative position.
People make real sacrifices of time, money, and effort in order to win the high regard of their peers. Status is a personal benefit that if given in exchange for participation in collective action, could act as a meaningful selective incentive not to free-ride
The nature of ties within a group, the rigidity of the hierarchy within the group, and the availability of mechanisms to render participation visible all have implications for whether and how groups mobilize collective action.
Status motivations also have interesting possible implications for the intensity of participation in contentious politics.
Participating is the payoff-dominant strategy ,whereas not participating is the risk-dominant strategy.
How do status motivations differ from a simple dislike of inequality? Status motivations are certainly attuned to inequality, but an envious person feels bad specifically because of the difference between what she has and what others have, not because of inequality writ large.
Even if status motivations can be distinguished from inequity aversion and altruism, can they be differentiated from fairness concerns? Because antisocial status motivations like envy and spite are socially undesirable, people may use concerns for fairness as a way to talk about unhappiness with their own status.
Identifying that someone perceives an allocation as unfair often tells us little about the specific principle that underlies that perception, and it often tells us little about what the person would prefer instead.
Status motivations are focused on distributive outcomes—specifically, maximizing of one’s own relative position within a group. They are indifferent to whether allocation rules are consistently applied to everyone, as long as the outcomes generate status for them.
Individuals who believe in upward mobility are more likely to oppose progressive redistribution in order to protect their future selves from taxation.
Another personality trait that correlates with a focus on relative position is “Social Dominance Orientation.” It has been argued that people high on the SDO scale exhibit physical signs of discomfort in response to being worse off than others within their reference group—symptoms that can be relieved only by putting others down even when it is costly to do so. People who score high on the SDO scale are more forceful with others, openly admitting that they enjoy imposing their will on others, openly admitting that they enjoy imposing their will on others and steering conversations. High SDO people might be more likely to pursue within-group status at the expense of other goals.
Within-group status concerns likely affect how well groups hold together. When envy and spite are rife within a group, members watch warily for possible hostile reactions from others and are unlikely to trust each other much. By contrast, when groups can appeal to member’ desire for admiration, they may be able to compel individual sacrifices for the benefit of the group
When individuals feel more confident in the integrity of the self, or understand that there are multiple dimensions along which any person can gain status, or perceive that their own status rises as others’ lives improve they may feel less inclined to seek psychic benefits from status within any particular group or along one dimension. Shklar wrote, “What one needs is the courage to be loyal to one’s own… way to live, not [as] a way to alter the conduct of other people. In a world of multiple moral hierarchies, this is not only feasible but an act of fidelity to the democratic polity, as well as to oneself.” Bolster self-confidence, not vanity, Shklar advises, or at least create multiple dimensions of comparison so that none is crucial.
Status emotions can also bias how people process new information about the status hierarchy and other people’s position in it. For instance, envy may bias people toward interpreting new information as suggesting they occupy an even lower status than they objectively do.
Envy in Politics by Gwyneth H. McClendon
How do citizens evaluate public policies?
Under what conditions do governments act in service of their constituents’ material interests or fail to do so?
Why and under what conditions do citizens participate in politics?
Public opinion
Policy implementation
Political participation
People care about maintaining and improving their social status within groups. Tis concern for status comes in may forms:
Envy is the inclination to bring down those who are better off.
Spite is the inclination to keep down those who are worse off
The pursuit of admiration is the inclination to rise in the ranks of others’ opinions.
Each of these impulses involves a concern for a better relative position within the group, even if that means costs to the self and to others
Citizens vote at least in part based on a desire to maximize their own material resources and physical safety, and they support policies that protect their social identity groups relative to other groups. Likewise, they participate in politics when the material and physical costs of doing so decrease and when doing so would make them materially better off. They evaluate policies based on partisan commitments, or according to general principles of compassion, fairness, and reciprocity.
[John Adams] “desire for status is as real a want of nature as hunger.”
Within-group status brings pleasure and a sense of personal power, and is more closely linked to self-reports of well being than many measures of absolute welfare.
Many status motivations, particularly envy and spite, are antisocial since they involve wishing that others had less. Other status motivations—like the desire for admiration—are not antisocial per se, but people may feign that they are not a priority.
Policies that are generally welfare enhancing may be stymied because politicians perceive that citizens do not want policies that advantage others, even though they would benefit, too.
Definitions
As a category, status motivations all involve doing well relative to other people on some socially valued dimension of income, assets, attributes, actions, or achievements.
Status motivations can help us make more sense of participation in collective action, especially if we consider status motivations from a slightly different angle: through people’s desire for admiration.
Admiration is a positive reaction to upward comparisons that conveys the admired person’s higher relative position.
People make real sacrifices of time, money, and effort in order to win the high regard of their peers. Status is a personal benefit that if given in exchange for participation in collective action, could act as a meaningful selective incentive not to free-ride
The nature of ties within a group, the rigidity of the hierarchy within the group, and the availability of mechanisms to render participation visible all have implications for whether and how groups mobilize collective action.
Status motivations also have interesting possible implications for the intensity of participation in contentious politics.
Participating is the payoff-dominant strategy ,whereas not participating is the risk-dominant strategy.
How do status motivations differ from a simple dislike of inequality? Status motivations are certainly attuned to inequality, but an envious person feels bad specifically because of the difference between what she has and what others have, not because of inequality writ large.
Even if status motivations can be distinguished from inequity aversion and altruism, can they be differentiated from fairness concerns? Because antisocial status motivations like envy and spite are socially undesirable, people may use concerns for fairness as a way to talk about unhappiness with their own status.
Identifying that someone perceives an allocation as unfair often tells us little about the specific principle that underlies that perception, and it often tells us little about what the person would prefer instead.
Status motivations are focused on distributive outcomes—specifically, maximizing of one’s own relative position within a group. They are indifferent to whether allocation rules are consistently applied to everyone, as long as the outcomes generate status for them.
Individuals who believe in upward mobility are more likely to oppose progressive redistribution in order to protect their future selves from taxation.
Another personality trait that correlates with a focus on relative position is “Social Dominance Orientation.” It has been argued that people high on the SDO scale exhibit physical signs of discomfort in response to being worse off than others within their reference group—symptoms that can be relieved only by putting others down even when it is costly to do so. People who score high on the SDO scale are more forceful with others, openly admitting that they enjoy imposing their will on others, openly admitting that they enjoy imposing their will on others and steering conversations. High SDO people might be more likely to pursue within-group status at the expense of other goals.
Within-group status concerns likely affect how well groups hold together. When envy and spite are rife within a group, members watch warily for possible hostile reactions from others and are unlikely to trust each other much. By contrast, when groups can appeal to member’ desire for admiration, they may be able to compel individual sacrifices for the benefit of the group
When individuals feel more confident in the integrity of the self, or understand that there are multiple dimensions along which any person can gain status, or perceive that their own status rises as others’ lives improve they may feel less inclined to seek psychic benefits from status within any particular group or along one dimension. Shklar wrote, “What one needs is the courage to be loyal to one’s own… way to live, not [as] a way to alter the conduct of other people. In a world of multiple moral hierarchies, this is not only feasible but an act of fidelity to the democratic polity, as well as to oneself.” Bolster self-confidence, not vanity, Shklar advises, or at least create multiple dimensions of comparison so that none is crucial.
Status emotions can also bias how people process new information about the status hierarchy and other people’s position in it. For instance, envy may bias people toward interpreting new information as suggesting they occupy an even lower status than they objectively do.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 12, 2020
A crap study made by a bureaucrat who needs to publish in order to get to the higher echelons of the administration and, of course, a much larger pension from the tax money collected by the state. If you are interested in the subject Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour is a much better choice.
March 17, 2024
Something you don’t get to often: a concise book presenting an original argument, and also reviewing the existing literature. Recommended.
I thought a lot about what the “local group” is in the SoMe age. This is entertained a bit at the end, but I don’t think that the major difference with SoMe is that you can follow the kardashians. It it that instead of keeping track of 50 friends, you can keep track of 500, and that has more effect.
March 19, 2024
McClendon cycles through an impressive range of methods to show that envy, spite and admiration really matter in politics, explaining when they come to the fore. She is entirely convincing, esp in her case studies of South African housing.
November 18, 2020
I enjoyed this book and thought it offered an additional framework for understanding a lot of hard to comprehend political phenomena / voting patterns. The thesis that intra-group envy (wishing others who are above you to do worse), spite (wishing those below you to remain worse off) and desire for admiration are powerful motivators of political preference was compelling. Also enjoyed reading about how this is driven as well by perception of future growth/prospects and rate of social change. Also really enjoyed reading about South Africa (as the book focuses on US and SA).
I wish the book had used more examples of this phenomenon. The three case studies examined fell just a little short of compelling general evidence, and (perhaps as a non academic) I would have liked more examples and more rumination on the many many ways status motivations likely drive political phenomena.
I wish the book had used more examples of this phenomenon. The three case studies examined fell just a little short of compelling general evidence, and (perhaps as a non academic) I would have liked more examples and more rumination on the many many ways status motivations likely drive political phenomena.
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February 22, 2019152.48 M1269 2018
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews