Negotiations are critical processes in organizational contexts, requiring effective decision-making to resolve conflicts and achieve collective goals. Emotions, particularly envy, often play a pivotal role in shaping negotiation dynamics, yet much of the existing research has focused on the perspective of the envious individual. The implications of being envied—whether maliciously or benignly—remain underexplored in negotiation settings. This study systematically investigates how being envied—whether maliciously or benignly—affects negotiators’ trust and decision-making. Across two experiments, malicious envy was found to undermine trust, leading to suboptimal outcomes. In contrast, benign envy had neutral or slightly positive effects, promoting more cooperative interactions and integrative decisions. These findings highlight the dual nature of being envied and its significant influence on negotiation dynamics, emphasizing the critical role of trust in fostering collaboration and achieving optimal outcomes. By shifting the focus to the perspective of envied individuals and introducing novel experimental paradigms to study envy, this research makes a valuable contribution to the literature on negotiation and emotions, while offering practical insights for managing envy in organizational contexts.
