Negative emotion in the workplace: Employee jealousy and envy

Nine hypotheses were developed from the emerging literature on negative emotion in the workplace. In order to test these hypotheses, the responses of 167 employed master's students to measure of individual differences (self-esteem and Machiavellianism), work unit attributes (autonomy, competitive reward, and supervisory considerateness) and personal response variables (sense of control, organization-based self-esteem, and propensity to quit) were analyzed with bivariate and hierarchial regression analyses. Results of these analyses were generally supportive of the predicted relationships. Findings are interpreted as indicating the utility of the constructs of employee jealousy and envy for understanding individual experiences of interpersonal stress.