The dark side of LinkedIn use: how perfectionism moderates emotional responses of envy and shame

Upward social comparison is likely to evoke contrasting emotions such as shame and envy.While shame is directed towards oneself and one's shortcomings, envy also involves focusing on the other person's advantages (Smith, 2000).Depending on one's perceived control over self-improvement and whether the other person's advantage is seen as deserved, envy can take two forms: benign envy motivates self-improvement, while malicious envy is characterized by the motivation to devalue the envied person (Crusius & Lange, 2017; Van de Ven, 2009).To date, research has typically examined the emotional responses associated with upward social comparison, such as shame, benign envy and malicious envy, on recreational SNSs, including Facebook and Instagram (e.g.Appel et al., 2016;McComb et al., 2023;Meier & Johnson, 2022).LinkedIn differs from recreational SNSs in several key ways.The information consumed is career-and achievement-focused, highlighting promotions, awards, and project successes.Its audience includes colleagues, managers, and industry peers, and platform norms encourage the display of competence and self-promotion (Van Dijck, 2013).In this context, upward comparisons do not refer to social or lifestyle benchmarks (see, e.g., Meier et al., 2020); instead, they relate to users' professional identity and perceived career standing.Specifically, upward comparisons may elicit shame when users perceive themselves as less successful relative to professional peers.Benign envy may arise when others' achievements are seen as deserved and attainable, motivating professional selfimprovement, whereas malicious envy may occur when peers' successes are perceived as undeserved or unattainable, reflecting concern over one's relative professional standing.Perfectionism, which refers to setting exceptionally high standards and being overly critical (Frost et al., 1990), may particularly intensify these emotional responses as upward social comparison should make unmet goals and personal shortcomings salient.To date, researchers have agreed on an overarching two-factor model of this disposition that includes perfectionistic strivings, i.e., setting extremely