Study: Jealous runners are better runners

Have a jealous tendency? Apparently being green-eyed monster isn’t such a bad thing. At least, that’s what we can gather from new research. But it depends on the type of envy.

Published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the research says that there are two different types of jealousy: “benign” and “malicious”. Benign can actually be beneficial to runners’ performances. This version of the emotion can be understood as recognizing someone else’s success and then finding a way to achieve that for yourself. As runners, most of us would be nowhere without our competitive side. Jealous of a friend’s PB? If you’re using that as a way to set a goal and then achieve it, then it’s a good thing. It’s motivation to train harder and become faster to catch that running buddy in the next race. Those who lean towards benign envy see other people’s achievements as an accumulation of influential factors. As it applies to runners, that could mean recognizing a rival’s efforts in bumping up the mileage, eating cleanly or tackling extra speed intervals during the week.

But there’s another category of envy: malicious envy. This is more of a hindrance and that’s when those feelings lead to a perception that a running partner’s victories are predetermined. Runners who think this way wish for others’ good luck to end and set unrealistic expectations by comparing themselves to successful peers. It’s a pessimistic pattern of thinking versus a motivational one. In the study, when researchers asked runners in this category about goal times to find that they didn’t have one. These runners are not strong goal setters.

So if you’re scanning race results trying to chase down someone else’s time and training harder to catch up to them next race, continue. And if you don’t already, try getting a running partner who trains hard and is just that bit quicker than you. There’s no harm in a little friendly rivalry.