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A universal approach to identify a workaholic has been developed
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Almost all psychologists to this day cannot correctly determine whether a person is a workaholic and whether he has an addiction to work, since in the modern world most people have irregular hours every day.
But researchers at Nottingham Trent and the Bergen Institute, led by doctor Cecilia Shu Andreessen, say they have come up with a universal approach to identifying workaholics. They tested 12,000 people to tease out the key aspects of workaholism.
The essence of the method is based on a set of questions/statements to which you must answer "never" (1), "occasionally" (2), "from time to time" (3), "often" (4), "constantly" (5). The statements include, for example, "You think about how you could allocate more time to work", "You work more than you initially intended", "You work to overcome feelings of guilt, fear, weakness and depression".
There were also statements like: "Your friends advised you to work less, but you do not ignore them", "You become stressed if something prevents you from working", "Hobbies, training and other leisure activities recede into the background because of your work", "Your health has worsened because of your work".
People who score more than 5 questions are considered workaholics. It is worth noting that researchers have verified that at the moment, dependence on work is increasingly increasing due to the established relationship between work and home. As a result, it is more difficult for a person to switch from one task to another.
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