Andrii Levchenko
graduate student, National University of Civil Protection of Ukraine
ORCID 0009 0008 6465 6398
DOI - https://doi.org/10.52363/dcpp-2023.2.9
Keywords: professional athletes, Envy-resentment, Envy-disappointment, sports activity.
This article provides a comprehensive analysis of envy as a socio-psychological phenomenon and a motivator of human social behavior.
Envy is defined as a feeling based on an individual's awareness of their lower status in relation to a competitor who possesses certain obvious advantages. Consequently, it is filled with various negative emotions that effectively generate a destructive impulse aimed at undermining the object of envy. The role of this emotion in sports activities is thoroughly investigated. The emotional experience of envy can arise under three conditions: firstly, if the individual has a contradiction between some significant need and the impossibility of its realization (deficit of satisfaction of a significant need); secondly – when comparing oneself with another person who successfully satisfies this need (social comparison); and thirdly - in case of incompetence, lack of experience of self-realization, active actions that bring a person closer to meeting his own needs (immature mechanisms of self-regulation).
The research indicates that envy in professional sports constitutes one of the main obstacles on the path to victory. The research confirms that envy is more pronounced among athletes of the youth team. According to the "envy-dislike" scale, low levels are more characteristic of youth team athletes leading to higher satisfaction with the main spheres of their life. interestingly, emotional discomfort triggered by the awareness that someone has more is absent.
The majority of surveyed athletes from the youth team tend to experience feelings of envy-discontent, accompanied by the emergence of emotions such as offense, despair, sadness, and hopelessness. Their behavior reflects internal insecurities, which sometimes manifests as external aggressiveness.
The conducted research insecurities that the phenomenon of envy manifests differently in athletes with different levels of mastery. This emphasizes the necessity of considering this aspect in their psychological preparation for professional sports activities.