A cross-cultural study on envy premium: The role of mixed emotions of benign and malicious envies

Abstract

The current study examines how Koreans and Americans experience mixed emotions of benign and malicious envies, and how these mixed emotions affect envy premium (i.e., willingness to pay more for an envied product). Prior research has shown that benign envy drives envy premium. The results of the current study, however, indicate that envy premium is not apparent in Korea, where people are more accustomed to mixed emotions than are Americans. This study shows that Koreans tend to have a higher positive correlation between benign and malicious envies than Americans do. In addition, multi-group analysis using SEM demonstrates that both benign and malicious envies mediate the impact of the deservingness on envy premium in Korea, while this impact is only mediated by benign envy in the U.S. In Korea, the effect of malicious envy seems to counteract the effect of benign envy, thereby reducing envy premium.