Envy seems to be bad-but it doesn't have to be. Researchers are finding that, if approached the right way, there can actually be an advantage. Psychologists classify envy in two ways: negative and positive. With positive envy, you are motivated by another person's success and struggle to follow it. With negative envy, you want to cut the advantaged person down so you look better by comparison. Let's say you feel sufferings of envy after your rival  at another firm gets promoted. Negative envy might drive you to destroy his success, but positive envy would inspire you to work harder and get promoted, too. Studies show positive envy can be a great motivator . In a 2011 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers in the Netherlands conducted a series of experiments with more than 200 university students. Researchers found that when they caused feelings of positive envy----as opposed to admiration or negative envy----in the students, it drove them to want to study more and perform better on a test measuring creativity and intelligence. While admiration may feel better, the researchers found, it doesn't motivate performance like the pain and frustration of envy. "Those painful sufferings of envy are there for an evolutionary  reason," says Texas Christian University researcher Sarah E. Hill, "warning us that someone has something of importance to us." Building on this theory, Dr. Hill and others conducted a series of experiments, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, to test whether envy improves attention and memory----the tools needed to copy a rival's steps to success. In one experiment, half of the participants were asked to recall past feelings of envy; the other half weren't. The two groups were then shown mock  interviews of imaginary peers. The group filled with envy paid closer attention and better recalled details about the interview subjects. In other words, envy made them more astute . Not only can envy motivate us to reach for higher goals, it may even give us the cognitive push to get there. Compared to admiration, positive envy can  _  .
make you feel worse in all sides be more likely to get you to admire others make you feel the pain in your performance be more likely to get you inspired to get success