Why do people envy?

A study by the University of Haifa, Israel has found a hormone that strongly affects people's social behaviors, including envy.

This hormone, called oxytocin, is released by the pituitary gland, which can increase uterine contractions during birth and stimulate lactation from a woman's milk gland. Previous psychological studies have considered oxytocin as a kind of 'love hormone' because they have a strong impact on people's positive emotions such as trust, empathy and tolerance.

However, scientists who have just discovered oxytocin also affect people's opposite attitudes, such as envy.

They split the volunteers into two groups and let these groups smell a chemical they called oxytocin. But in fact, there was only one group that smelled the real oxytocin and the other only sniffed a fake chemical. After that, all were invited to play a game of chance to eat money with a computer.

After the game, the people who smelled the oxytocin showed a strong sense of jealousy and craving stronger when they saw that other people had more money than they did and were more complacent when they won. However, this envious attitude only arises while playing, not affecting their long-term character.

Thus, when human thinking is optimistic, oxytocin will create positive attitudes but when in pessimistic circumstances, it will increase the jealous and negative thoughts in humans.