Laziness (also known asindolence orsloth) is emotional disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to act or toexert oneself. It is often used as a pejorative; terms for a person seen to be lazy include "couch potato" and "slacker". Related concepts includesloth, a Christian sin,abulia, a medical term for reduced motivation, andlethargy, a state of lacking energy.
Laziness may reflect a lack ofself-esteem, a lack of positive recognition by others, a lack of discipline stemming from low self-confidence, or a lack of interest in the activity or belief in its efficacy.[5] Laziness may manifest asprocrastination orvacillation. Studies ofmotivation suggest that laziness may be caused by a decreased level of motivation, lack of interest, and confidence which in turn can be caused by over-stimulation or excessiveimpulses or distractions. These increase the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter responsible for reward and pleasure. The more dopamine that is released, the greater intolerance one has for valuing and accepting productive and rewarding action.[6][failed verification] This desensitization leads to dulling of the neural patterns and affects negatively theanterior insula of the brain responsible forrisk perception.[7]
ADHD specialists say engaging in multiple activities can cause behavioral problems such as attention/focus failure,perfectionism, andpessimism. In these circumstances, laziness can manifest as a negative coping mechanism (aversion), the desire to avoid certain situations to counter certain experiences, and preconceived ill results.[8]Lacanian thought says "laziness is the "acting out" ofarchetypes from societal programming and negative child-rearing practices."[citation needed] Thomas Goetz, University of Konstanz, Germany, and John Eastwood, York University, Canada, concur that aversive states such as laziness can be equally adaptive for makingchange[9] and toxic if allowed to fester. An outlook found to be helpful in their studies is "being mindful and not looking for ways out of it, simultaneously to be also open to creative and active options if they should arise." They point out that a relentless engaging in activities without breaks can cause oscillations of failure,[10] which may result in mental health issues.[11]
Economists have differing views of laziness.Frédéric Bastiat argues that idleness is the result of people focusing on the pleasant immediate effects of their actions rather than potentially more positive long-term consequences. Others note that humans seem to have a tendency to seek after leisure. Hal Cranmer writes, "For all these arguments against laziness, it is amazing we work so hard to achieve it. Even those hard-working Puritans were willing to break their backs every day in exchange for an eternity of lying around on a cloud and playing the harp. Every industry is trying to do its part to give its customers more leisure time."[13]Ludwig von Mises writes, "The expenditure of labor is deemed painful. Not to work is considered a state of affairs more satisfactory than working. Leisure is, other things being equal, preferred to travail (work). People work only when they value the return of labor higher than the decrease in satisfaction brought about by the curtailment of leisure. To work involvesdisutility."[14]
Laziness in American literature is figured as a fundamental problem with social and spiritual consequences. In 1612John Smith in hisA Map of Virginia is seen using a jeremiad to address idleness. In the 1750s this sort of advocating reached its apex in literature. David Bertelson inThe Lazy South (1767) expressed this as a substitution of "spiritual industry" over "patriotic industry". Writers like William Byrd went to a great extent and censured North Carolina as land of lubbers.Thomas Jefferson in hisNotes on the State of Virginia (1785) acknowledges a small portion of the people have only seen labor and identifies the cause of this indolence to the rise of "slave-holding" society. Jefferson raised his concerns what this deleterious system will bring to the economic system. Later by the 1800s the rise of Romanticism changed attitudes of the society, values of work were re-written; stigmatization of idleness was overthrown with glamorous notions.John Pendleton Kennedy was a prominent writer in romanticizing sloth and slavery: inSwallow Barn (1832) he equated idleness and its flow as living in oneness with nature.Mark Twain inThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) contrasts realist and romantic perspective of "laziness" and calls attention to the essential convention of aimlessness and transcendence that connects the character. In 20th century the poor whites were portrayed in the grotesque caricatures of early southern laziness. InFlannery O'Connor'sWise Blood (1952) andGood Country People (1955) she depicts spiritual backwardness as the cause for disinclination to work. The lack of any social function which could be valued equally with a luxurious lifestyle was closely portrayed through lives of displaced aristocrats and their indolence. Jason Compson,Robert Penn Warren andWilliam Styron were some of the writers who explored this perspective. The lack of meaningful work was defined as a void which aristocrats needed to fill with pompous culture;Walker Percy is a writer who has thoroughly mined the subject. Percy's characters are often exposed to the emptiness (spiritual sloth) of contemporary life, and come to rectify it with renewed spiritual resources.[15]
One of the Catholicseven deadly sins issloth, which is often defined as spiritual and/or physicalapathy or laziness.
The Arabic term used in theQuran for laziness, inactivity and sluggishness is كَسَل (kasal).[16] The opposite of laziness isJihad al-Nafs, i.e. the struggle against the self, against one's own ego.
In Buddhism, the termkausīdya is commonly translated as "laziness" or "spiritual sloth".Kausīdya is defined as clinging to unwholesome activities such as lying down and stretching out, procrastinating, and not being enthusiastic about or engaging in virtuous activity.
It is common for animals (even those likehummingbirds that have high energy needs) to forage for food until satiated, and then spend most of their time doing nothing, or at least nothing in particular. They seek to "satisfice" their needs rather than obtaining an optimal diet or habitat. Evendiurnal animals, which have a limited amount of daylight in which to accomplish their tasks, follow this pattern. Social activity comes in a distant third to eating and resting for foraging animals. When more time must be spent foraging, animals are more likely to sacrifice time spent on aggressive behavior than time spent resting. Extremely efficientpredators have more free time and thus often appear more lazy than relatively inept predators that have little free time.[17]Beetles likewise seem to forage lazily due to a lack of foraging competitors.[18] On the other hand, some animals, such aspigeons andrats, seem to prefer to respond for food rather than eat equally available "free food" in some conditions.[19]
^Harry Howard Gilbert (Jan 1931), "High-School Students' Opinions on Reasons for Failure in High-School Subjects",The Journal of Educational Research,23 (1):46–49,doi:10.1080/00220671.1931.10880126,JSTOR27525294
^Joseph M. Flora et al. (2002).The Companion to Southern Literature: Themes, Genres, Places, People, Movements, and Motifs, p. 420 - 423. LSU Press.ISBN9780807126929.
^Bernd Heinrich; Elizabeth Mcclain (Mar–Apr 1986), ""Laziness" and Hypothermia as a Foraging Strategy in Flower Scarabs (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)",Physiological Zoology,59 (2):273–282,doi:10.1086/physzool.59.2.30156041,JSTOR30156041,S2CID87569125
