Science and Medicine: Relationships

Washington Post staff writer Shankar Vedantam, who writes the Department of Human Behavior column, and social psychologist Abraham Tesser, a professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, Athens, were online Monday, March 3 at 1 p.m. to discuss the conflicting emotions people feel when a close friend or significant other excels at an activity that's similar to theirs.

Read more in the Monday Science Page story: Intimate Rivalries: A Mixture of Pride and Envy.

The transcript follows.

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Shankar Vedantam: Welcome everyone to the online chat to discuss how intimate relationships can produce a mixture of pride and envy when people work in the same fields, or wish to be recognized for the same kinds of skills. I am pleased to be joined today by social psychologist Abraham Tesser, professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, who helped conduct several of the experiments I described in my story today

Shankar Vedantam: I would also be happy to take any questions on my Department of Human Behavior column -- today's piece was about how election rules set up by the Republican and Democratic parties benefit some candidates in each field at the expense of others. In the interest of clarity, I will take questions on the rivalries story first, and questions on the column toward the end.

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Shankar Vedantam: I would like to start us off with a very general question for Dr Tesser. Could you tell us a little more about the conflicting feelings that people experience when someone close to them excels at something that they are good at, too? Is this mixture of pride and envy limited to, say, spouses working in the same profession, or is it a general phenomenon that affects friends, parents-children, and other pairings?

Abraham Tesser: The positive and negative feelings we experience when a close other does well is quite general. We have observed these reactions in spouses, siblings, even between fathers and sons. Anything that puts us into a "psychological unit" tends to intensify our reactions to the other good performance. And, that unit formation is very general. For example, 2 people from Georgia will be in a closer unit when they encounter one another in Paris, France, then if they encounter one another in Atlanta.

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Munich, Germany: I'd once read that people tend to get have friends and spouses with similar interests, so in a way, rivalry is unavoidable. But where do you think that border lies between healthy rivalry and unhealthy rivalry?

Abraham Tesser: You are right. Similarity is a very robust predictor of attraction. We like others with similar attitudes, values backgrounds etc. And on the face of it, this appears to be inconsistent with the idea that we tend to experience negative feelings when a close other does well in an area that is personally import. Perhaps the apparent inconsistency will disappear when when we parse the similarity domain. In the area of opinions or values another's agreement/similarity tends to validate our feelings; However, another's better performance in our own important performance domain does not validate the self but threatens the self.

Shankar Vedantam: I would also suggest that -- advice columns notwithstanding -- relationships are often not clearly healthy or unhealthy. The propensities described by the research studies I wrote about today say something about underlying human traits. It is not as though people who are close to one another always have "healthy" rivalries or always have "unhealthy" rivalries ... depending on the situation, rivalries can go in different directions (perhaps at the same time!) I guess what I am saying is that I am not sure a "border" exists between the two ...

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Shankar Vedantam: Dr Tesser, you mentioned a very interesting study that I did not have space to include in my story today -- this was about an analysis of fathers and sons who were both prominent scientists. Can you tell us about the study, what it found, and what conclusions you drew from the results?

Abraham Tesser: Yes. This study was based on entries in a compendium of biographies of outstanding scientists. For each entry an assistant made a note of what the scientist was famous for; what the scientist's father did for a living; and anything that could be found about the personal relationship between the scientist and his father. Since it was the son who was famous, we assume that the son outperforms the father in the scientific domain. A group of judges then rated the similarity between what the son was famous for and what the father did for a living. Another group of judges read only the personal information and judged the closeness of the father-son pair. As expected, the more similar the father and the son the less well they got along!

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Flagstaff, Ariz.: Although you focus on duos in the same fields, it doesn't necessarily stop there.

If one member of the duo is very insecure, then any accomplishment by the other is threatening, I feel. This is from observation of a long-standing relationship of mine. I am the more educated of the two, and any accomplishment of mine was minimally acknowledged (if at all), and any failures (in work, home chores, ANYthing) were constantly thrown in my face. I believe this was an effort to be "better" than me, just in general, to make up for the educational (and resultant work-area skills) difference between us.

Shankar Vedantam: I would be cautious about extrapolating from the research to individual situations, although perhaps that is inevitable to some extent. One of the things that appeals to me about the experiments discussed in the article today is that they attempt to remove idiosyncratic personal issues from the equation. Are people who are more insecure more likely to be insecure (and envious) about a partner's success? Possibly. But what is more interesting to me is that the phenomenon cuts across all people to a greater or lesser extent. You don't have to be insecure to feel envious about someone close to you doing better than you in the same field; you just have to be human!

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Sterling, Va.: I cringed when I read the article, as it brought back some embarrassing memories of high school. My closest friends and I were intelligent, highly accomplished, incredibly insecure young women. Rather than supporting each other, we felt threatened by one another's accomplishments, and gossip and subtly undermining each other. It was a stupid and unkind way to behave, and needless to say we did not stay in touch for very long after high school. I have two questions about the study: first, were there any observations about gender? (Were people more or less likely to undermine/resent "competitors" of the same or different gender? Did men show this tendency more, less, or the same amount as women?) And the second question is, now what? Do the researches have any suggestions for how their findings may be implemented in future studies, policies, socializing styles, etc.

Shankar Vedantam: I am going to let Dr Tesser handle the heavy lifting on this question in terms of the research findings, but my impression is that young men can be extremely competitive too. Perhaps society prompts men and women to be competitive about different things; moreover, competition among men is seen differently and "excused" if you will in a way that it is not for women.

Dr Tesser?

Abraham Tesser: The question about gender differences comes up frequently. We have done studies using only men and studies using only women. The effects appear equally robust. We have also done studies with married and dating couples. Again we get similar effects for men and women. However, as Mr. Vedantam points out, there are are often systematic differences between what men and women regard as important. Indeed, society often assigns different self defining domains to men and women.

If it is any consolation-- many of us cringe when we think back to HS.

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Washington, D.C.: I have a question from the flipside. My son was in a daycare where everyone threw great birthday parties. This year he's in a public school kindergarten and we decided to have a bowling party for the kids. We invited everyone and they reacted really funny, claiming the party was really too much. Bowling! While my wife and I are just barely getting by with no credit card debt, the best car we could pay with cash, etc., we just noticed that none of the other parents threw their kids a party. We noticed we don't have as many toys as my brother's family, but we seem to have more than any of my son's friends. I have to wear a full suit to work every day and slowly, but surely I started to believe that the other parents are treating us differently, like we are somehow more successful than they. How can I best put them at ease?

Shankar Vedantam: Another question from the personal front. I think I have two answers. The first is, ask Carolyn Hax, the Post's extraordinary advice columnist.

The second comes from the data itself. It seems that people who are close to one another who see each other in competitive/envious terms are less likely to feel that way when they can carve out different domains of expertise. In other words, both people can be musicians, but one person can say I am more interested in hip-hop while the other person is interested in jazz. Or I am interested in hip-hop circa 1999 and the other person is interested in hip-hop circa 2001. It doesn't matter whether there is a real distinction between the domains as much as whether the couple perceives there is a difference, and each gets to stake out one of those domains as an area of unquestioned expertise/superiority. People who develop different skills, especially if they are complementary skills, are less likely to see themselves in competition with one another, and more likely to see the other person's success as integral to their own success.

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Olney: Interesting article - it did tend to explain why I am happy to race in my category while my husband does the same race in his own category, but I don't like racing with him as a team, when our lap times can be compared directly to each other.

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the interesting point, Olney. I do think you have hit the nail on the head. Perhaps without consciously being aware of it, you and your husband are shying away from conflict and competitiveness, which seems smart. It allows you both to enjoy racing -- a shared interest -- but to do so in a way that does not lead to envy and competitiveness ... It's a good way to address some of the questions coming in asking for advice based on the article. Being interested in the same things does not necessarily need to lead to conflict and envy. A particularly good example would be the married couple I wrote about today -- John Trojanowski and Virginia Lee, who prominent neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania. As the article notes, this couple have arranged their lives to be interdependent, so that they don't see each other as competitors as much as friends, collaborators and allies.

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Arlington: Thanks for a very interesting article! A natural follow-up question seems to be, how does one stop the cycle of feeling competitive or threatened?

My example is: I have a friend who began jogging after she saw me jogging, through which I lost a lot of weight and got healthier. She ended up losing more weight than I did, and she's even kept it off whereas I've gained most of mine back. I truly am proud of her, as the article notes I would be, but I can't help feel a twinge of envy every time I see her and how thin she is compared to me.

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the question, Arlington. You neatly summed up the paradox described by many of the studies I wrote about today -- it is not that people feel proud of their friend who has excelled at some domain they are interested in at some times, and envious of her at other times, but that both feelings are often generated together. In one of Dr Tesser's studies, he manipulated the extent to which volunteers felt close to another person, and the extent to which couples felt like the issue on which they were being asked to demonstrate proficiency was something meaningful to them. He showed that you needed both factors to trigger the paradox -- you need to feel both close to the person and that you are engaged in the same domain. Since you are close to your friend and don't want to change that, perhaps you should try to think of ways in which your struggle is different from hers? As I noted earlier, the point is not so much that a meaningful difference exists for an impartial observer, only that a meaningful difference exists in how you look at the issues. Essentially, the research suggests that one way to avoid competitiveness is to define what you are doing differently from the other person -- as the racer from Olney suggested to us.

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Anonymous: Hi, Interesting article. But does your premise change if you look at how much effort was put into preparing for the task. In the instance of the important exam, does it factor in one preparing for the exam with the other just showing up on the day of?

I ask because, I dated someone in college who partied through school. I focused on my studies. We were close even after we graduated, but it was clear that my success was too much to handle. To me, that response makes sense if we both partied or if we both focused on our study, but the response becomes irrational when you split the pole, so to speak. What are your thoughts?

Shankar Vedantam: If I have learned one thing in the many years I have been writing about human behavior, it would be that people are not only far less rational that they should be, but far less rational than they think they are!

Yes, at a rational level, it makes no sense that your friend would be envious of your success, after playing the grasshopper to your ant through school. But the reaction seems eminently understandable through the lens this research has given us -- your friend feels close to you; you have excelled in ways he has not; he feels envious.

At the risk of venturing out into Carolyn Hax territory (!) isn't this his problem and not yours?

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Annapolis, Md.: I have found myself thrilled for a well-liked co-worker who won an award in our field, without any feelings of envy or reduction in self-worth. But, I have found myself very envious of a friend who got a job for which I felt myself much better-suited, even though I had not applied for that job. That was during a time when I was actively job-searching, and my friend was not. I felt silly to be so envious of her, when her good fortune had nothing to do with my own frustration. But, when she later made comments about the job falling in her lap, and how she wasn't sure she wanted the job after all, I felt like I would explode. Is this the kind of dynamic your research talks about?

Shankar Vedantam: As I have said before, I find myself hesitating in applying the research to individual situations. From where I sit, your reaction at your friend's unexpected (and unwanted) success is related to this research in the sense that you would not feel the same way if the person who acquired this great fortune was a complete stranger. We resent (or at least have the potential to resent) the success of people who are close to us more than we do the success of strangers. Your happiness for your coworker, on the other hand, may reflect nothing but your innate good nature -- or it could reflect that you don't see yourself in competition with this coworker, and don't see the award as something you care about much yourself?

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NY: Negative feelings arising from 'competition' - much of that is probably born of upset expectations. E.g. wife out-earning husband; girlfriend besting boyfriend in education or career...oh wait, that's just sexism...

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the comment, NY. I am sure expectations, sexism and other factors play a role in this. But what makes the research interesting to me is why the husband feels envious of his wife, who earns more than he does, and not his neighbor's wife, who earns even more than his wife? Sexism would predict a greater amount of envy for whichever woman earns the most, but this research suggests that the man's closeness to his wife prompts a comparison that can lead to more bitterness and envy. Far fewer people resent the good looks of a George Clooney or a Halle Berry than the number of people who resent the good looks of their own brothers or sisters ...

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Washington, D.C.: First, I just want to say that I really enjoy this column. Moreso when it deals with basic human behavior than politics.

My question is: Is there any hope for developing meaningful friendships at work then? Someone you work with will obviously be working in a very similar field to you, so can you ever be truly happy for a colleague who gets a promotion or a nice bump in salary?

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the nice word about my work.

The answer to your question is a resounding yes. As I have tried to say a couple of different ways earlier in this chat, the trick lies in carving out differences in the domains where you and your coworkers excel. That, and setting up mechanisms where you and your coworker can function as a team. You might feel competitive with a coworker or a romantic partner when they beat you at tennis, for example, but if you choose to play doubles together against another team, you immediately become invested in your partner's success ...

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Washington, D.C.: I wonder how much weight expectations have. For example, a teacher would be expected to know more than a student, so the student wouldn't feel the rivalry. Also, friends tend to be compared with each other, rather than with, say, movie stars.

Abraham Tesser: I believe that you are correct in that expectations play an important role in these dynamics. Indeed, teachers tend to be seen as categorically different from students in their knowledge; professional athletes categorically different from sand lot athletes. Indeed, a sand lot player who is serious about the game will take great pride in the performance of a hometown professional. There is some work to show that the following conditions produce role modelling: The potential model is advanced in his/her field; is an outstanding performer; and is psychologically related to the modeler.

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RE: Carolyn Hax territory (!) isn't this his problem and not yours?: I agree. I guess I was asking the question and providing an example to understand if this is more of a visceral response. Similar to the jogging example, its understandable to be envious of something that someone has but you would like to have. But do we, human beings, take into account the context of the success/object that the other has that we want? (In the examples given, do we realize we didn't prepare for the exam or we didn't jog as many miles as the other person.)

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the note.

And no, we don't realize how our feelings of envy and resentment are often irrational ... unfortunately that does not make them any less real.

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Severna Park, Md.: In the case of the current presidential race, both Democratic front-runners (Clinton and Obama) have expressed their mutual admiration and respect for each other, called each other friends, etc. That was when Clinton was the front-runner of the two, but there was still a lot of primaries to go so it was clearly anyone's game. But, with Obama now leading and the primaries close to be finished, they are now regularly taking shots at each other. Is this change in their expressed relationship an example of your study's results? Meaning that as things got more important and competitive, their relationship dynamic changed?

Shankar Vedantam: I think it merely reflects a very tight political race.

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Fairfax, Va.: Are there some people that are more prone to feelings of envy than others? And if so, what can be done to control these feelings? Thanks. The article was interesting.

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the note. The question on what to do about these feelings has been addressed before.

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The partier: Actually, I would have seen the parallel more if the previous writer had said that the partier was more successful, despite the lack of preparation. I think that most people who choose to "slack", for want of a better term, are aware of what they are doing and are able to judge their own lack of success accordingly. However, it's much more frustrating when someone gets better results with less effort--like getting an A on a test without studying for a week or dropping 20 pounds in a month after suddenly deciding to go to the gym more often. The previous poster's comment seems more of a matter of straight envy.

Shankar Vedantam: Thanks for the note ...

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Shankar Vedantam: That's all we have time for today.

I want to thank Dr Tesser for sharing his interesting work with us and sharing an hour of his time for this chat. And thanks to everyone who wrote in with a question, or was watching from the sidelines.

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