Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

98 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENVY
Experiments in social psychology and the reality of envy
Experimental social psychology shows a number of proved results arrived
at from experiments with subjects in various cultures demonstrating
the degree to which the average man is inclined to mistrust his own
senses as soon as he is associated with an actual or fictitious group
which, unknown to him, has been instructed to pass on false information.
29 The experiment succeeds not only when the intentionally false
observations are reported by conniving participants whom the man being
tested holds to be better qualified than himself, or whose feigned rank is
such as to impress him. In this case it might be a question of a subordination
drive, which may well also be involved. During a military exercise,
in industry, in an anatomical laboratory or in a clinic where X-ray
photographs are being examined, for instance, there will always be
subordinates who will suppress their own observations or give an interpretation
either consciously or semi-consciously corresponding to that of
their superior, for fear of a clash with him.
These experiments, however, are highly pertinent to our theory of
envy avoidance, if they are planned in such a way that the group which
deliberately falsifies its observations is either unknown to the experimental
subject, indifferent to him, or else completely simulated, but in
no case represents a superior. 'Simulated' is now a current social science
term for such experiments. For in these experiments it can be seen that
the participant, suddenly unable to trust his senses, cannot bear to swim
against the (social) current since he does not wish to seem too clever, a
know-all and so forth. He is afraid of the others' resentment, their
envious annoyance, giving him to understand that only a snob or an
incurable egghead could reach conclusions that differed from their own.
About ten years ago Stanley Milgram experimented with subjects,
first at Harvard and then in Norway and France, to see if their respective
national cultures and characters played any part in conformity. The
subject, sitting in one of six cells, was given the false impression that the
other five were also occupied. In reality they were empty, and an
impression of the presence and co-operation of other people was given
by phase-ins on tape. The subject listened through earphones to two
29 S. E. Asch, 'Effects of Group Pressure upon the Modification and Distortion of
Judgments,' Groups, Leadership and Men, ed. Harold Guetzkow, Pittsburgh, 1951.