Most people experience envy, especially toward peers close in age or status.

Benign envy can motivate growth, while malicious envy breeds resentment.

Naming envy and reframing it as inspiration can strengthen motivation and relationships.

Do you (like me) sometimes envy your friends? If so, this makes us “friendvious.” I know a cute portmanteau doesn’t make us feel any better about feeling green with friendvy… so let’s turn to research to understand (and rationalize) this uncomfortable emotion.

Studies show non-family-like relationships (i.e., close friends, casual friends, and acquaintances) are more likely to elicit feelings of envy than family-like relationships (i.e., relatives, siblings, best friends, and romantic partners).

Research also reassures us that “more than three-fourths of survey participants report that they had experienced envy in the last year.” Digging a bit deeper, about 80 percent of people under 30 reported feeling envious, compared with 69 percent of people over 50.

We are more likely to envy others of the same gender and within five years of our own age. We’re most likely to envy monetary and occupational success (although I have also been known to envy my friend CJ’s lustrous hair).

Allow me to provide personally unflattering examples before we wade further into the psychology of this unsavory emotion:

When I see a LinkedIn post (oh, LinkedIn, the breeding ground for friendvy!) from successful, keynote-speaking friends, I experience two simultaneous emotions: genuine happiness for their achievements, and a sense of longing for similar success in my own life. I don’t feel the same pangs of envy with keynote-speaker-strangers as I do with my friends; these........

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