19. Why Someone Else's Success Triggers You (Envy and the Drama Triangle)

Episode 19 | Why Someone Else's Success Triggers You (Envy and the Drama Triangle) | 6th October 2026  |  24 min

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Someone you know shares a massive win. What happens inside you?

Someone you know shares a massive win. One person hears it and goes, "How did they do that, and what could I learn?" Another starts building a case for why it was easier for them. This week Jodi unpacks what decides which way you go, sparked by Julie Chenell and Cathy Olson's episode on The Gorgeous Effect, where Julie called that second reaction, dare she say it, a victim mindset.

Jodi gets into the research on benign and malicious envy, and how the drama triangle shows you where you've handed over your power. She also looks at where your sense of agency came from in the first place, and how to step back into the part you can actually influence. When a friend's good news lands with a sting you didn't expect, this one's for you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Envy can pull you up or pull someone down

Psychologists Niels van de Ven, Marcel Zeelenberg and Rik Pieters describe two forms of envy. Both start with that uncomfortable awareness that someone has something you want. Benign envy tends to move you toward improving your own position. Malicious envy tends to turn your attention toward pulling the other person down. The sting itself is part of being human, and what happens after it arrives is where you get a say.

Whether it feels earned shapes which way you go

In van de Ven and colleagues' research, two appraisals made the difference. The first was whether the other person's advantage seemed earned. The second was whether people felt some control over their own outcome. These changed the type of envy people felt without changing how strongly they felt it. Researchers Jan Crusius and Jens Lange found the two also direct attention differently: benign envy looks toward the means of improving, while malicious envy fixes on the person.

The drama triangle shows where you've put your power

Stephen Karpman's drama triangle maps three positions we can slide into under pressure: Victim, Persecutor and Rescuer. They're positions you move between, sometimes all three in one conversation. Being harmed by something real is different from sitting in the Victim position, which is about where you've located your power. David Emerald's empowerment dynamic offers another way to respond through Creator, Challenger and Coach, where agency stays with the person it belongs to.

Your sense of agency was built, and you can keep building it

Research on early experience and self-efficacy suggests your sense of control is shaped over years, through what happened when you tried, failed and succeeded. That history influences the lens you see someone else's win through, and lenses can change. Regulation gives you enough space to feel the sting and then ask what's actually yours to do from here.

NOTABLE QUOTES

"If I can make you the problem, I don't have to look at what your success just brought up in me."

"Our sense of agency didn't appear this morning. We've been building it for years."

"I take responsibility for what's mine without taking responsibility for what's yours."

CHAPTERS

00:00 The Spark

01:10 Where This Came From

03:02 Two Kinds of Envy

05:13 So What Makes the Difference?

07:38 The Drama Triangle

10:35 Knowing You're On It Isn't the Same as Getting Off

13:04 Stepping Out of the Triangle

15:56 But Where Does That Lens Come From?

20:57 So Which One Are You?

Hey Gorgeous, Your Next Step Starts Here...

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KEY REFERENCES

• Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191

• Chenell, J., & Olson, C. (Hosts). (2026, September 4). Are we jealous or inspired? [Audio podcast episode]. In The Gorgeous Effect. https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-gorgeous-effect/id1772205385?i=1000787811506

• Chorpita, B. F., & Barlow, D. H. (1998). The development of anxiety: The role of control in the early environment. Psychological Bulletin, 124(1), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.1.3

• Crusius, J., & Lange, J. (2014). What catches the envious eye? Attentional biases within malicious and benign envy. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 55, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2014.05.007

• Emerald, D. (2009). The power of TED* (*the empowerment dynamic) (2nd ed.). Polaris Publishing.

• Karpman, S. B. (1968). Fairy tales and script drama analysis. Transactional Analysis Bulletin, 7(26), 39–43. https://karpmandramatriangle.com/dt_article_only.html

• Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2016). Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience. Psychological Review, 123(4), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000033

• van de Ven, N., Zeelenberg, M., & Pieters, R. (2009). Leveling up and down: The experiences of benign and malicious envy. Emotion, 9(3), 419–429. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015669

• van de Ven, N., Zeelenberg, M., & Pieters, R. (2012). Appraisal patterns of envy and related emotions. Motivation and Emotion, 36(2), 195–204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9235-8

COMMON QUESTIONS
Why do I feel jealous when someone else succeeds?

Someone else's success can put a spotlight on the gap between where you are and where you want to be. That gap can bring up disappointment, inadequacy or grief over how long you've been trying. Researchers call wanting what someone else has "envy" (jealousy is more about fearing you'll lose something). It's a common human response and says nothing about who you are.

What's the difference between benign and malicious envy?

Both start with the same uncomfortable feeling. Benign envy tends to motivate you to improve your own position. Malicious envy tends to motivate you to bring the other person down. Research suggests the difference often comes down to whether their success seems earned and whether you feel you have some control over your own outcome.

Is envy a bad emotion?

Envy can be useful information. It often points to something you want. The research suggests what matters most is where your attention goes afterwards: toward learning how to close the gap, or toward finding fault with the person who has what you want.

What is the drama triangle?

The drama triangle is a model developed by psychiatrist Stephen Karpman in 1968 as part of Transactional Analysis. It describes three positions people move into during unhealthy conflict: Victim, Persecutor and Rescuer. They're positions you can move between quickly, and they show where you've located your power in a situation.

What is the empowerment dynamic (TED)?

The empowerment dynamic is David Emerald's alternative to the drama triangle. Victim becomes Creator, Persecutor becomes Challenger, and Rescuer becomes Coach. Each shift keeps agency with the person it belongs to.

How do I stop rescuing people?

Start by noticing when you jump in to fix, smooth over or take on a problem that belongs to someone else. The Coach position lets you keep caring while you ask questions like "What do you think you could do?" and "How can I help without taking this over?"

Can I change how I react to other people's success?

Yes. Your sense of agency is shaped by experience, and new experience keeps shaping it. Building emotional capacity gives you space to feel the sting without acting from it, and then ask what's actually within your control from here.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] The Spark

Someone you know shares a massive win, and something happens inside of you. There could be this, "Yeah, well, that's easy for them. They've got money, connections, and a massive following. I'd be successful too if I had all that."

Or this, "That's so awesome. How in the heck did they do that, though? And if they can do it, surely I can too. What do they know that I could learn from?"

So the question remains, which one are you?

[00:00:30] Intro

[00:01:10] Where This Came From

So I was listening to "The Gorgeous Effect" podcast the other day, and Julie and Cathy were talking about the way people respond when somebody else shares like a big win.

And they were talking about the two reactions we just looked at. So the person that hears somebody else's success and immediately starts finding reasons why it was easier for that person, why they had the advantages that they themselves didn't have, or why that person's success really doesn't count, versus the person who hears the exact same thing and goes, "Holy crap, how did you do that? What can I learn from you?"

And Julie made this comment about the first response, that jealous, almost bitter one, and she said it was, "Dare I say it, a victim mindset." And my brain immediately went, "Ooh, now we're talking about the drama triangle." And I teach the drama triangle, so my ears pricked up. It's a framework that I know really well.

But then I started thinking beyond that. Why can two people hear essentially the same information and do something completely different with it? Why does one person see somebody who's further ahead and immediately start finding reasons why they can't have what that person has, and see it almost as a threat to themselves?

And sometimes in more extreme version of that response, it goes beyond jealousy or resentment, and they may start actually discrediting the person or undermining them, or even actively trying to tear down what they've built. Almost like, "I don't believe I can climb up to where you are, so I'm gonna pull you back down to where I am."

In Australia, we have a term for this called tall poppy syndrome.

So why is it that person exists while somebody else sees the exact same success and starts looking for clues about how they might get there too?

And once my brain gets, like, super curious about something like that, you know I'm gonna go digging.

So I did.

[00:03:02] Two Kinds of Envy

Well, it turns out researchers have been very curious about this as well. Psychologists Niels van de Ven, Marcel Zeelenberg, and Rik Pieters have done quite a bit of research into envy, and their work makes an important distinction between two different forms of it.

There's benign envy and malicious envy. Now, benign doesn't mean it feels good. Both can start with that really uncomfortable awareness that somebody else has something that you yourself actually want. Maybe it's the business or relationship or the body transformation, the house that they're in, the opportunity, the recognition. Whatever it is, there is a gap between what they have and what you want, and the difference is what that envy motivates you to do with that gap.

In their research, van de Ven and his colleagues described benign envy as creating a moving up motivation. "I want what you've got. How do I improve my own position?"

Whereas malicious envy was associated with what they called a pulling down motivation. "I want what you've got, but instead of focusing on how I might get there, my attention starts turning towards you and your position."

Which is pretty much exactly where my brain had gone earlier. If I believe I can climb up to where you are, I start looking for ways to climb.

But if I don't believe that, pulling you back down can become another way of reducing that gap.

I kinda think we need to be a little bit careful about making envy itself the villain in this story, though, because you can hear that your friend just doubled their income and have that little bit of internal, "Frac, I want that." You can feel a little envious or even a little jealous. You can wish it was you. You can have a moment where their success shines kinda like a giant spotlight on how far you still feel you have to go before you're there.

But none of that automatically determines what you do next. That's the interesting part, is what happens after the actual feeling arrives.

[00:05:13] So What Makes The Difference?

So then the obvious question becomes, why does envy send one person towards, " How do I get there?" And another person towards, "How do I bring them down?"

And this is where van de Ven, Zeelenberg, and, and Pieters' research gets even more interesting. They found that two of the things influencing which form of envy people experienced were deservingness and perceived control.

When somebody else's advantage was seen as undeserved, malicious envy was more likely. Which makes sense when you think about it, because if I'm looking at your success thinking, "You don't deserve that," my attention is already starting to shift towards you and why you shouldn't have what you have.

But benign envy was strongest when the other person's advantage was seen as deserved and people felt like they had some control over their own outcome.

That second part is what really catches my attention, because now we're talking about agency.

If I can look at the gap between where you are and where I am and believe that there is something I can actually do about it, that gives me somewhere productive to actually put my energy.

And researchers Jan Crusius and Jens Lange found something else that really fits well here, which is when they measured and studied attention, they found that benign envy was associated with greater attention towards the means of improving performance.

Whereas malicious envy, on the other hand, was associated with greater attention towards the person they actually envied.

Now, listen to how differently this can sound like in real life

What did she do? What can I learn from her? What would I need to change to get that? What's available to me from here where I'm at right now?

Versus what's so special about her? Why does everyone listen to her? She only got there because dot, dot, dot, whatever that might be. I bet there's more to that story.

One has you looking for the possibility, the other has you looking for problems with the person who has what you want.

And I think that's where Julie's comment about victim mindset becomes, uh, really apparent because we're now starting to move beyond envy itself into something a little bit bigger.

Where have I located my power in this situation?

[00:07:38] The Drama Triangle

The drama triangle was developed by psychiatrist Steven Karpman back in the 1960s as part of Transactional Analysis, and it basically is a model for understanding some of the roles we can move into when we're caught in unhealthy conflict or relationship dynamics.

There are three positions on the triangle. We've got the victim, the persecutor, and the rescuer.

Now, just a, a side note here, because being an actual victim of something is not the same as occupying the victim position on the drama triangle. Really terrible things can happen to people that they did not cause, choose, deserve, or have any control over. Being harmed, abused, betrayed, discriminated against, losing something, having genuinely something unfair happen to you, none of that means that you're operating from a victim mindset.

The victim position on the drama triangle is about where we locate our power. It's the position of, "I can't do anything about this. I have no options. Somebody or something outside of me has all the power here."

Then there's the persecutor, and the persecutor tends to locate the problem in somebody else. "This is your fault. You're the problem. If you weren't like this, I wouldn't be in this situation." There can be blame, criticism, attacking, controlling, or the need to make somebody else wrong.

And then we have the rescuer, and a lot of empaths will identify with this one. This one can be particularly sneaky because rescuing can feel and look a lot like helping. But there is a difference between supporting somebody and taking responsibility for something that actually belongs to them.

The rescuer tends to jump in, fix, saves, manages, smooths things over, takes over someone else's problems, or tries to protect them from discomfort, often without allowing the other person to access their own capability or agency.

These are not personality types. You're not a victim or a persecutor or a rescuer. They are positions, and we can move between them, and sometimes incredibly quickly.

Think back to our example from the beginning. "Of course she's successful. She already had money, connections, and an audience. I don't have any of that." There's the victim position.

Then it becomes, "And you know what? She's probably full of crap anyway. I bet she's not making anywhere near what she claims she is." Now we've moved towards the persecutor.

And then maybe your friend jumps in and is like, "Hey, don't compare yourself to her. You've had way more to deal with than she has. Of course it's harder for you." Hi, rescuer.

There's three distinct different positions in one conversation happening just there. And this is why I find the drama triangle really useful. Not because it gives us another set of labels to stick on people, because I am not a fan of labels like that. However, it does provide us with an awareness and a way of noticing where am I sitting right now, and where have I put the power.

[00:10:35] Knowing Youre on It Isn't The Same As Getting Off.

Now, becoming aware that you're in the drama triangle is important. But awareness, as we know, especially those of you hanging around Human Evolution for a while, doesn't automatically mean you're gonna step out of it.

There's usually something uncomfortable underneath the behavior. So go back to envy just for a second. Somebody else's success might bring you face to face with something you really want, but you don't have it yet, and sometimes that can hurt. It can bring up disappointment or inadequacy, fear, insecurity, grief over how long that you've been trying to obtain that exact same thing.

Maybe even some embarrassment that you thought you'd be further along by now. And suddenly it can make a lot of sense why finding something wrong with the other person can feel easier than sitting with what's happening inside of yourself, all that discomfort.

Because if I can make you the problem, I don't have to look at what your success just brought up in me.

And I think this is where capacity and emotional regulation becomes super important, because the goal isn't to regulate yourself until you're so evolved that somebody else announces their massive success and you float peacefully above comparison, because that is not how we work as humans. But it is about having enough capacity to feel what that moment brings up without immediately needing to react or act from it.

Can I feel envy without turning it into resentment? Can I feel inadequate without making somebody else smaller so I can feel better about myself? Can I watch somebody I love struggle without immediately jumping in and taking over? And can I tolerate the discomfort long enough to get curious about what's actually going on and why this is, like, affecting me this way?

So that capacity and emotional regulation, it buys you a little bit of space, and that space is important because it gives you the opportunity to notice, "Okay, I'm activated. I'm comparing things. I'm blaming. I'm trying to fix something that isn't actually mine to fix." You get to figure out where you are on the drama triangle if you're in it.

And instead of automatically following the pattern wherever it wants to take you, and doing that, like, on, on autopilot, you can come back to that question, where have I located my power in this situation? And then ask yourself another one, what is actually mine to do from here? And that's where we start moving out of the drama triangle and into something a little bit more useful.

[00:13:04] Stepping Out Of The Triangle

So if those are the positions we can get caught in, what do we move towards instead? So one framework that I really like for this is David Emerald's empowerment dynamic, or they call it the TED.

Emerald developed it as an alternative to Karpman's drama triangle with three different positions, creator, challenger, and coach. So imagine like the initial triangle, and then just flip it.

And essentially, each one gives us another way to respond. So instead of victim, we move toward creator. The victim position says, "I can't do anything about this." Whereas the creator asks, "What do I want, and what can I actually do from here?" It's a more resourceful question and position to be in. And notice that that doesn't mean pretending that everything is within your control, because sometimes you're dealing with circumstances you genuinely cannot change. Other people's behavior, something unfair that's happened, a door that's closed, or resources that you don't currently have, or limitations that are indeed very real.

The creator position doesn't deny any of that, but it does ask, "Given that what is true, where do I still have agency?"

Then we have the persecutor to challenger. So instead of needing someone to blame, attack, or make wrong, the challenger asks what the situation might be requiring from you. Maybe it's a difficult conversation or a boundary that needs to be put in, or it's feedback that you kinda don't particularly wanna hear, but you need. Maybe something isn't working and you need to change what you're doing. There needs to be some sort of behavioral change within your actions. The challenge can still be uncomfortable. We're no longer spending all of our energy fighting the fact that it's there.

And then the rescuer becomes a coach. The coach doesn't mean that you stop caring about people. You can still help and be generous and absolutely stand beside someone whilst they're going through something really difficult. But instead of immediately jumping in and solving it for them, you actually help them find their own agency within this. "What do you think you could do? What do you need? How can I help without taking this over?" You're supporting someone without accidentally sending messages that you don't believe that they're actually capable of handling their own life.

Again, all of these are much more empowering positions to be in, and when you look at these three shifts together, there's a common thread through all of them. Agency stays where it belongs.

I take responsibility for what's mine without taking responsibility for what's yours. I can acknowledge what I can't control without surrendering what I can, and I can face something difficult without needing somebody else to become the villain.

[00:15:56] But Where Does that Lens Come From?

There's still something I haven't answered yet, and as I'm going through this, I'm like, " Hey, there's something here." Why does one person arrive at that moment already believing, "I can do something with this," while somebody else arrives believing that, "Things like this don't happen for people like me?"

Because our sense of agency didn't appear this morning. We've been building it for years. Think about everything you've experienced that has taught you something about how the world works and who you are within it.

What happened when you tried something and failed as a kid? Were you encouraged to try again, problem solve, and figure things out? Or were things constantly done for you? Were mistakes something you learned from or encouraged to make, or something you were punished or humiliated for? Did you watch the adults around you meet problems with curiosity and resourcefulness? Or did you repeatedly hear that nothing ever works out, other people get all the opportunities, and there's nothing you can do about it? What happened when you did succeed?

Then add things like education, culture, relationships, opportunities, adversity, trauma, socioeconomic circumstances, and the environments you've lived in and the experiences you've accumulated along the way.

All of that gives your brain a ton of information about one really important question: Does what I do make a difference?

There's research behind this. Psychologist Bruce Chorpita and David Barlow reviewed research around control in early environment and proposed that repeated early experiences of diminished control can contribute to cognitive style, where we are more likely to interpret future situations as being outside of our control.

Research into learned helplessness and controllability also tells us something similar. Repeated experiences where our actions don't seem to change the outcome can influence what we expect from future situations, and that's part of the forecaster that we talk about.

And then there's self-efficacy, the belief that I am capable of doing something here. Albert Bandura's work showed that self-efficacy isn't something that you're born with, it's shaped through experience, including succeeding at things ourselves, watching other people succeed, what other people communicate to us about our capability, and even how we interpret our own emotional and physical states.

So by the time you and I see the exact same person announce the exact same success, we aren't actually receiving it through the exact same lens. You might have decades of evidence telling you, "If I don't know how to do something yet, I can learn." Whilst my history might be telling me, "People like me don't get opportunities like that."

So now those different responses from the start of the episode make a little bit more sense. Hey, again, this is really imperative though. History is influence. It is not destiny. Two people can grow up in the same household and come out with completely different beliefs, coping strategies, and ways of relating to the world.

Trauma doesn't automatically create helplessness. Plenty of people who have massive trauma in their histories are doing incredible things in the world. Privilege doesn't automatically create agency either. A difficult childhood doesn't sentence somebody to a lifetime on the drama triangle or anything negative for that matter.

We're talking about influences that help shape the lens, not a formula that determines the person, and those lenses, they can change. That's actually what neuroplasticity and learning gives us.

You can start collecting new evidence, and you can notice the automatic belief that says, "I can't," and question whether that's actually true now or whether it's a conclusion you learned a very long time ago.

You can build self-efficacy through doing hard things in manageable increments, kinda like scaffolding, and experiencing yourself handling them, proving to yourself you can do it. You can learn from people who model resourcefulness. You can practice finding what's within your control instead of automatically focusing on what isn't.

You can regulate and build the emotional capacity to tolerate failure, disappointment, envy, and uncertainty without immediately retreating into an old protective pattern.

And over time, you're giving your nervous system and your body and your mind different information. What I do can make a difference.

Not always, and not in everything, but enough that when life puts those gaps in front of me, I don't automatically have to attack the person on the other side of it. I can start asking, "Okay, what is available to me now?"

[00:20:57] So Which One Are You?

So let's go back to where we started. Someone you know shares a massive win. What happens inside of you? Maybe your answer isn't as clean as option one or two. Maybe there's a little bit of both.

Maybe your first thought is, "Damn, I wish that was me," and then you catch yourself. Because the goal here isn't to never feel jealous again.

Our feelings serve a purpose. It's not to become so emotionally evolved that you only ever respond to somebody else's success with pure, unwavering inspiration. The goal should be to become curious about what your response is actually showing you. What is your emotions trying to let you in on? If someone else's success activates something in you, then what is that about? What is it? What do you believe that their success means about you?

Where does your attention go? Do you start looking for what's wrong with them? Do you start building a case for why you can never have what they have? Do you make yourself powerless?

Or can you stay with the discomfort long enough to ask a different question? Capacity and emotional regulation is so incredibly important, my friends.

What is this showing me that I want? What could I learn here? What is actually within my control, even if it's tiny, tiny, tiny, and what am I going to do with that? Because you don't have to pretend the gap isn't there. We're not pretending that everybody starts from the same place either. You certainly do not have to take responsibility for things that were never yours to begin with, or the upbringing that you had as a kid in particular.

But you can learn to recognize where you've now, as an adult, stepped into the drama triangle. You can build the capacity to stay with the feelings that might be keeping you there, so you can start to get curious and question the lens through which you're interpreting what's actually happening.

You can choose to put your energy back into part of the equation where you actually have some influence. So the next time somebody tells you about their massive win, I would love for you to notice what happens within yourself.

We're not judging ourselves for this either, all right? It is about getting curious. Where did my mind go? Where did I put my power? Because that answer might tell you a whole lot more than you think. See you next week.

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