Envy and Carl Rogers (unfinished)
Rogers’ guiding question for his (1951) theory of emotion is: “in this goal-seeking effort which is termed behaviour, what is the place of emotion, feeling, emotionalised attitudes?” (493). His Proposition VI stated that:
- Emotion accompanies and in general facilitates such goal directed behaviour, the kind of emotion being related to the seeking versus the consummatory aspects of the behaviour, and the intensity of the emotion being related to the perceived significance of the behaviour for the maintenance and enhancement of the organism (Rogers 1951: 492-3).
Rogers discusses three aspects of emotion: their (1) Functions; (2) Kinds; and (3) Intensity.
1. Emotional Functions
Rogers' view of emotions contrasts with Distortion Theories, that emotions necessarily distort the individual (consciousness, behaviour, visceral functioning and personality). Emotions have a positive function: “Emotion accompanies and in general facilitates […] goal-directed behaviour” (492). Rogers is a motivational theory of emotions. Emotions are subservient to acquisitional behaviour serving either the organism or the self-concept. Emotions, in this view, appear to be an embodied lubricant for action.
Rogers’ view puts emotions secondary to behaviour: they are either passive accompaniments or facilitative elements of something bigger. Sartre (1943) argued that emotions have a 'magical' function, transforming our perception of the world in terms of our needs. Solomon (1993) argues that emotions have a meaning-giving function, actively manifested perhaps because their satisfaction is impossible.
2. Emotional Kinds
Rogers categorises emotions into two groups:
the unpleasant and/or excited feelings, and the calm and/or satisfied emotions. The first group tends to accompany the seeking effort of the organism, and the second to accompany satisfaction of the need, the consummatory experience (493).
The first group appears to have the effect of integrating and concentrating behaviour upon the goal, rather than having the disintegrating effect which some psychologists have pictured (493).
At a glance, envy would appear to fall into the first category of unpleasant feelings, although the envier in spite may feel satisfaction towards the victim’s pain, particularly upon losing the envied asset.
3. Emotional Intensity
Envy is always a possible response to perceiving others succeed in things that we value. The intensity of envy, in Rogers’ terms, relates to the perceived significance of the behaviour for the maintenance and enhancement of the organism or the self-concept (see Rogers 1951: 492-3). It is commonly assumed that envy closely relates to levelling behaviour. But it has been often disputed what operational behaviour envy facilitates, that is, whether envy is necessarily malicious (in terms of bringing the other down), whether envy can also be admiring (in terms of bringing oneself up). Perhaps a reason for envy’s behavioural ambiguity is that:
- Envy or an envious person [cannot] be shown without some other point of reference. We can depict a person who is woebegone or joyful, but it is practically impossible to represent a man by himself in such a way that anybody who looks at the picture will instantly grasp that this man is envious. To do so requires a social situation, or symbols whose connection with envy is common knowledge to everyone within the particular culture (Schoeck 1966: 11).
But if envy has two modes (malicious and admiring), inasmuch as its expression depends upon other emotions, then envy is a meta-emotion. Iago’s envy of Cassio, for instance, exists through his actions also expressing, say, resentment towards not being made lieutenant by Othello (see Shakespeare’s Othello Without relating to other processes Iago’s envy would be quite inexpressive. Solomon (1993) regards envy in itself as an impotent emotion:
Envy peers from a distance at what it wants, knowing full well that it does not deserve it, that it cannot it, and its expression is rarely more effective than a “green-eyed” glowering look and fantasies of theft or destruction unfulfilled and untried (Solomon 1993: 248; my emphasis).
Returning to Rogers, emotions facilitate or accompany organismic-orientated behaviour. But how might envy ‘facilitate’ impotence, a lack of behaviour? Sartre (1939) observed that emotions are ‘magical’ inasmuch as they (pre-reflectively) transform our qualitative experience of the world. Emotion, in Sartre’s (1939) view, is a possible mode of responding imaginatively to unendurable situations: failing to remove an obstacle blocking my path in practice, through emotion I can instead endure the obstacle or conjure up an alternative path. Distorting tough situations emotionally facilitates the appearance of alternative routes. Sartre (1939: 42) states: “I can suppress [the threat] as an object of consciousness, but only by suppressing consciousness itself”. Note that, in relation to Distortion Theories, Sartre accepts that emotions are distortions of consciousness but that such distortions are intentional and purposeful. Envy is perhaps describable as thus: I value an asset owned by Paul, say, wealth; but in response to perceiving that Paul’s wealth is beyond my reach, I therefore become envious inasmuch as I emotionally apprehend Paul to be undeserving of his wealth. My envy is malicious in being an emotional attempt to sever the perceived relation of ownership between the individual and his property: inasmuch as Paul and his wealth now appear separated through my envy, a practical response is now likely to appear gratuitous. Becoming envious, then, makes my impotence, or non-action appear acceptable. Indeed, the ‘evil eyes’ of the envious look is the behaviour facilitated in terms of seeking out reasons for this separation, for example, I regard Paul’s bought possessions as lacking in taste, a reason to resent that he is wealthy and I am not. Perhaps the look of admiring envy seeks out reasons for the envier’s own inadequacy. Returning to Rogers, the intensity of envy relates to the perceived significance of the behaviour for the maintenance and enhancement of the organism or the self-concept. Schoeck (1966: 8) considered that the intensity of envy relates to a disjunction, or inequality between the two individuals:
The intensity of envy depends less on the magnitude of the stimulus than on the social disparity between the envier and the envied.
The more I perceive the difference between Paul’s wealth and my own, the more I envy Paul. This suggests that although envy is a response to perceiving others succeed in things that we value, the intensity of envy indicates how much an individual values the negation of the disparity between self and other.
Rogers’ example: Thus in anything but excessive degree, fear accelerates the organisation of the individual in the direction of escape from danger, and competitive jealousy concentrates the efforts of the individual to surpass (493).