Towards the Sociologization of Laziness – Conceptual Clarifications and Preliminary Empirical Insights

Abstract

The basic intention of this paper is to examine “laziness” as an essentially social phenomenon. Laziness is generally considered to be an attribute of a person as an individual and is, as such, discussed in psychology and medical science primarily through the concept of procrastination. The main argument developed in this article is that laziness is an inherently social phenomenon, because its definition and, consequently, the categorization of an individual as “lazy”, also depends on the socio-cultural context, which places the label of laziness on a particular form of individual’s social action, i.e. lack thereof, while at the same time implying predominantly negative connotations. In this paper, the cultural background of defining laziness is presented, by looking at its religious roots and the relation between the concept of laziness and a particular perception of time. Particular focus is placed on capitalist societies, whose socio-cultural matrix has proven to be suitable for categorizing certain behaviours as lazy. The relation of media and specific lifestyles toward the category of laziness is also problematized. On the conceptual level, the relationship between the concepts of laziness and procrastination, on the one side, but also of laziness and leisure, on the other side, is dissolved.
In the second part of the paper, the results of empirical research are presented. The research was conducted in 2018 using semi-structured interviews on a convenient sample (N=15) of male and female students at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb.