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Laziness

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Synonyms

Indolence; Slack off; Sloth

Definition

Laziness is described as a person’s reluctance to perform a chore or an exercise despite having the ability to actually do it. Such hesitancy can be traced from a person’s lack of motivation to utilize one’s energy for the task (Burton 2014; Pelusi 2007). Thus, laziness is differentiated from a state of physical exhaustion. As Laird (1934) puts it, “True laziness… is mental and not physical. It is caused by ideas and emotions, and is not caused by work or poor physical condition” (Laird 1934, p. 23).

Introduction

Laziness is noted as related, albeit, distinct from the concepts of procrastination and idleness (Burton 2014). Procrastination involves unnecessarily delaying a task because of counterproductive schemes and a lack of enthusiasm to initiate a project or task thereby resulting to the non-completion of the task at hand. This, in turn, leaves the procrastinator perturbed (Burton 2014; Senecal et al. 1995; Solomon and Rothblum 1984)....

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Correspondence to Rozel S. Balmores-Paulino .

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Balmores-Paulino, R.S. (2020). Laziness. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_2098

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