Successful people are nicer to those who are jealous of them, psychologists have found.

心理学家发现，成功人士对那些嫉妒他们的人更友善。

The fear that they may become the target of malicious¹（恶意的） envy makes people act more helpfully toward people who they think might be jealous of them.

Previous research found jealousy² could be divided into benign³（良性的，和蔼的） and malicious envy. Those with benign envy were motivated to improve themselves, to do better so they could be more like the person they envied. However those with malicious envy wanted to bring the more successful person down.

The Dutch researchers then set out to question the effect on the target of the envy.

Niels van de Ven of Tilburg University said: 'In anthropology⁴（人类学） , they say if you are envied, you might act more socially because you try to appease⁵（使平息，使满足） those envious⁶ people.' He cited as an example the fisherman who shared his bigger catch around.

In lab experiments a group of people were made to feel like they would be maliciously⁷ envied by being told they would receive an award of five euros. Sometimes the prize was deserved and was based on the score they were told they had earned on a quiz. But sometimes it was not based on their score at all.

The researchers thought that the deserved prize would lead to benign envy, while the undeserved prize would lead to malicious envy.

Then the volunteer was asked to give time-consuming advice to a potentially envious person.

People who had reason to think they would be the target of malicious envy were more likely to take the time to give advice than targets of benign envy.

In another experiment, an experimenter dropped a number of erasers on the floor as the volunteer was leaving. Those who thought they would be maliciously envied were more likely to help him pick them up.

He said: 'This sort of serves a useful group function. We all think better-off people should share with others but that's not something we are inclined to（想要） do when we are better off.

'This fear of envy can encourage us to behave in ways that improve the social interactions of the group.'

The findings were published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.