Silent Competition among Students: How Schadenfreude and Social Envy Influence Rating-based Achievement Motivation

Schadenfreude and social envy have attracted human interest for thousands of years. However, little is know about how they influence achievement motivation in a hierarchical competitive environment. To overcome this problem, inspired by Mayer Salovey’s (1997) emotional intelligence theory, the author develops rivals' anticipated emotions (RAE) models sense being envied become schadenfreude target to avoid decrease or increase current position. The study follows Higgin's self-regulatory framework students' context. In scenario, as part self-protection, proposes that target, represented joyfulness (RAJ), influences position (prevention focus), especially those who occupy upper medium positions. Rivals' distress (RAD) represents stimulates (promotion lower When working together, RAJ RAD stimulate promotion avoidance motivations simultaneously, among mediocre students. Future researchers can widen their investigation into intergroup research domains.