The role of attachment styles in malicious envy

•We found an association between attachment styles and malicious envy.•Fearful avoidants showed lower levels of envy compared to dismissive avoidants.•People who attempt to pull down a superior other do not necessarily feel inferior.•We developed a new method of examining malicious envy.•We controlled variables such as the general tendency to see the other negatively.

The current study addresses the link between attachment styles and manifestations of malicious envy. One hundred twenty-four Israeli undergraduate students completed measures of attachment styles, self-esteem, social comparison, and participated in a subject manipulation tapping malicious envy using tools developed for the present study. These measures were developed to examine envy in a direct way while controlling confounding variables such as the general tendency to see others in negative ways. Our findings revealed that dismissive avoidants exhibited higher levels of malicious envy manifestations in comparison to fearful avoidants. Theoretical implications of the findings were discussed by the authors.