Envy is a word signifying an emotion that arises from social comparison and signals that one is outperformed by another person, or group of people, which makes one feel painful inferiority. It originates from the Latin "invidere" which means to "gaze maliciously". Yet, this emotion does not want to be communicated. It is hard to identify or admit it, partly because of a range of other negative emotions, such as hostility, resentment and rejection that accompany envious feelings. Envy may also trigger admiration that motivates one to "do better". However, subjective, historical and philosophical accounts overwhelmingly speak of its negative consequences. Not surprisingly, envy is regarded as a social taboo. Even the traditional scientific community considers envy as a "second class" emotion. It is said that envy does not meet the criteria for basic emotions. Only recently, with the paradigmatic shift in modern evolutionary psychology, a new framework was offered and started shedding light onto the emotion nobody likes to feel, think or talk about. This paper presents a review of theoretical considerations, predictions and empirical results, emerging from a relatively small amount of studies that incited a change in the conceptualization of this unwanted and seemingly inept emotion.; Zavist je emocija koja proizlazi iz usporedbe s drugima i upućuje na to da je netko bolji od nas u nečemu te donosi osjećaj bolne inferiornosti. Riječ potječe od latinske riječi "invidere", što znači "zlobno promatrati". Ipak, ta emocija često se prikriva. Teško ju je prepoznati ili priznati, djelomično stoga što osjećaj zavisti prate mnoge druge negativne emocije poput neprijateljstva i odbojnosti. No zavist može izazvati i divljenje, koje nas motivira da budemo uspješniji. Međutim, subjektivna iskustva, povijesni i filozofski zapisi svjedoče o mahom negativnim posljedicama zavisti, stoga ne čudi što se zavist smatra društvenim tabuom. Čak i tradicionalni znanstveni krugovi proglašavaju zavist "drugorazrednom emocijom", odnosno navode da se zavist ne ubraja u osnovne emocije. Tek je nedavno, zahvaljujući paradigmatskom okretu unutar moderne evolucijske psihologije, ponuđen nov okvir koji omogućava bolje razumijevanje ove emocije, koju nitko ne voli osjećati, razmišljati ili razgovarati o njoj. Ovaj rad predstavlja pokušaj pregleda teoretskih razmatranja, predikcija i empirijskih rezultata proizašlih iz relativno malog broja istraživanja koja su izazvala promjenu u konceptualizaciji ove neželjene i naizgled beskorisne emocije.