Engaged Workaholics: Working (A Lot) Is Healthy

Do you love working but are constantly told by naysayers that you're a workaholic working yourself into an early grave?

Science to the rescue! Researchers say that there's nothing wrong with "engaged workaholics":

Engaged workaholics, these experts say, are distinct from the classic, compulsively driven worker who can't unplug ever and always feels like he or she should be working and suffer greater-than-average ill effects: more conflicts at work, less job satisfaction, poorer social relationships, more heart attacks, more divorces.
Engaged workaholics may dodge some or all of those nasty repercussions for one simple reason: They love what they do. They get a kick out of it. They don't feel stressed by it.
'"They work because work is fun," says Wilmar Schaufeli, professor of work and organizational psychology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, whose team coined the "engaged workaholic" term.
Work engagement is a fairly new term in occupational psychology circles: It's basically defined as a healthy, positive passion for work — the opposite of the stereotypical uninterested slacker who slides by doing as little as possible throughout the day.

Link (Photo: Shutterstock)

For context however, Psychologists have historically considered the adaptivity of different organizational approaches on a scale with integrative organization on top and second to that is positive compartmentalization of self that shifts into integrative organization upon being primed with negative attributions. Below that is positive compartmentalization of self that shifts into negative compartmentalization upon being primed with negative attributions. On the maladapted extreme reside those who are primarily negative compartmentalists who only become integrative or positive when primed with positive attributions. This scale appears to be based in what is most "adaptive" for the individual psyche and doesn't seem to map perfectly onto the adaptivity of a gathering. What is adaptive in reducing stress for the individual may increase stress for other individuals or for the group.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

I wonder how this relates to different self-organization practices, difference importance and difference-avoidance strategies. It is possible people who are "engaged workaholics" are so because they operate within a positive compartmentalization of self while at work, and outside of work they experience too many negative primers that trigger a maladaptive negative compartmentalization of self. This would be the opposite of an integrative organization of the self which is adaptive to positive as well as negative primers. It is a general strategy of positive self comparmentalization that the individual clings to domains within which they receive the most positive primers and thereby boost their self-esteem, and for people to simultaneously avoid domains which contain too many negative primers. The "engaged workaholic" may simply find more positive primers in their work environment, whereas their home environment may trigger depressive states by priming negative attributes of self. In otherwise, they may be maladapted in another part of their life, but are ego-engaged at work to buffer them from the rest of their lives.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

Login to comment.

Click here to access all of this post's 2 comments