Are you a workaholic or just a hard worker? With Malissa Clark, PhD

Many of us have trouble switching off from work, whether it's staying late at the office, checking messages on vacation, or lying awake running through tomorrow's to-do list. Malissa Clark, PhD, of the University of Georgia, discusses how workaholism differs from simply working hard; why it's about more than hours on the clock; how it affects physical health, mental health and relationships; and how workplaces can encourage a healthier relationship with work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them? That's bull spend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it, it wasn't.

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• 0:31Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 0:56Kim Mills?

  It's 5 o'clock and your work day is technically over, but you tell yourself you'll just answer one more email. Before you know it, two hours have passed and you're still at your desk. Or you're supposed to be on vacation, but you can't resist reading work emails and responding every time your phone pings with a message from a colleague. In our always connected world, it's easier than ever to let work encroach on every hour of the day. But psychologists who study workaholism say that compulsive overwork is detrimental to our physical and mental health, and perhaps surprisingly even to our careers. Today, we're going to talk to a psychologist who studies workaholism about what it is and how to combat it.

• 1:37Kim Mills?

  What's the difference between being a workaholic and just being a hard worker who's invested in her job? Is workaholism an addiction? How does it affect people's physical and mental health and their relationships? What can you do if you recognize workaholic tendencies in yourself or in someone you care about? And what can organizations and employers do to encourage a healthy relationship with work among their employees?

• 2:03Kim Mills?

  Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills.

• 2:17Kim Mills?

  My guest today is Dr. Melissa Clark, a professor of industrial organizational psychology at the University of Georgia, where she directs the Healthy Work Lab. She's a leading expert on workaholism, overwork and employee well-being. Her research has been published in top academic journals and featured in publications, including Time, The New York Times, The Atlantic and US News and World Report. Her 2024 book, Never Not Working: Why the Always On Culture is Bad for Business and How to Fix It, was recognized as a top management book by People Management, Management Today, and the Next Big Idea Club. She also recently spoke with APA's Magazine Monitor on Psychology for an article on workaholism and work addiction. Dr. Clark, thank you for joining me.

• 3:00Speaker 04

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 3:02Kim Mills?

  I've seen workaholism go by a few different names, including work addiction and compulsive overwork. What term do you use in your research? And how is this situation different from just working really hard or being very dedicated to one's job?

• 3:18Speaker 04

  I use the term workaholism. To be honest, I don't love the term work addiction, but it is what it is at this point. It's what is coined. It's not a formal addiction in the DSM, and I'm also not a clinical psychologist, which is partly why I don't use the work addiction term specifically. But workaholism is multifaceted and a lot of people don't realize that. They think, okay, it's just someone who works all the time. But those examples that you pointed out really touch on how nuanced it is. And the way I study it and measure it is actually with four different components. There's a motivational piece where people feel like they ought to be working all the time. You probably have heard of a concept called intrinsic motivation, which is working because

• 4:03Speaker 04

  you love to work. Workaholism is driven by introjected motivation. It's a concept that psychologists know. It's working because you feel like you ought to. It's partially internalized values of society and, you know, things that you learn growing up, but it's not truly of your own volition. So it's this kind of controlled motivation. But I just describe it as pit in my stomach, you know, feeling like I ought to be working. The second component is the cognitive component where you're thinking about work all the time. And this is often not talked about enough, in my opinion, because it's this like running dialogue about work in your head. It keeps you up, keeps you from falling asleep. It distracts you when you're talking with your family and what are you doing? You're thinking about work.

• 4:48Speaker 04

  So that's the cognitive component. There's an emotional piece to it that goes along with introjected motivation, this feeling of guilt and anxiety that kind of builds and builds if you're not working, which is partly what kind of drives you to pick up the phone or check your email. And then the fourth component is the most obvious. It's the behavioral component. Workaholics do tend to work longer than expected, longer than their colleagues. It is related to work hours, but it's honestly just kind of a moderate relationship or correlation. So doing things like working on vacation, all of that is part of the behavioral component. So it is truly multifaceted. You can think about it sort of like a compulsion to work, using that loosely and not like in the technical clinical psychology sense.

• 5:34Kim Mills?

  Now, you've studied how workaholism affects people's lives, their physical health, their mental health and their relationships. What have you and other researchers in this area found?

• 5:44Speaker 04

  Right, so pretty universally negative outcomes for individuals, for those around them, family, both in terms of, you know, physical health outcomes. We find that workaholism is linked to poor health. You know, they tend to not exercise as much sometimes or sleep very well. And that kind of takes a toll. But there's some recent research showing links with cardiovascular risk and actograph studies like showing the sleep impacts of workaholism and even linked to inflammation. And so we see these health impacts.

• 6:23Speaker 04

  We see self-reported lower, you know, mental health, greater burnout, just generally, you know, kind of self-report of how you're feeling tends to be universally negative. And impacts on the family. I personally conducted interviews of spouses of workaholics and we really see the impacts of the family by talking to the spouses. You know, the relationship quality suffers, the spouse is taking more on, so they're becoming more exhausted. They probably are becoming resentful. There's impacts on the children and there's impacts at work. There's not enough research on this particular area, in my opinion.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  But we do see research on, you know, if a supervisor, for example, is higher in workaholism, they are having negative impacts on their employees, that their employees are basically feeling like they need to be responding all the time because of this pressure that their boss is putting on them. And, you know, just in general, we find it, workaholism related to negative workplace behaviors, like counterproductive work behaviors, which we don't want at work. So things that indirectly or directly harm the organization. So this could be things like being rude to a coworker or those types of counterproductive

• 7:47Speaker 04

  work behaviors, not necessarily things like stealing and whatnot. But yeah, we just see universally negative impacts on individuals, those around them, and their work suffers too. We are not finding relationships with job performance, either the self-reported or supervisor-reported performance that's consistent across all of our research. And we've conducted meta-analyses, which is basically a quantitative synthesis of all the research in this particular area. And we're not finding relationships with work performance. So workaholic behaviors are not making people better workers and they're making them more difficult to be around, to be quite honest.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  In my opinion, it's very clear that the impacts are negative.

• 8:34Kim Mills?

  Do workaholics themselves tend to think that by being on all the time, that that's going to help their careers, even though the research shows that it doesn't? I mean, are they deluded?

• 8:46Speaker 04

  Well, for my book, I interviewed many individuals from Workaholics Anonymous. So that's actually a real organization that exists. And so I feel like the answer to your question, it comes from like just hearing from self-described workaholics. And I can say that in many cases, yes, it's almost like they trick themselves into this is what I have to do, this is what I need, even in the face of negative health consequences. And I kid you not, every single person I interviewed from Workaholics Anonymous had some sort of health impact of their workaholism. And even with that,

• 9:27Speaker 04

  You know, I distinctly remember one man I spoke to, he said, he will never stop working. He will literally work until he dies. And it did not matter that he's had, you know, a heart attack in the past and his wife has said he was that she was going to divorce him. It didn't matter to him. That was, that was what he wanted. And that with him, the only reason he was part of Workaholics Anonymous is his wife said, you're going to do this, or I'm leaving you. And so I was almost like, he's dragged into this. And I relate personally to, you know, this is why I studied it in the first place is I relate to this idea of kind of telling yourself, I'm doing this for this reason. I'm doing this because I need to, you know, this'll, this'll help me succeed. So I do

• 10:10Speaker 04

  think there is a lot of confirming this with yourself.

• 10:14Kim Mills?

  Then are there particular jobs where the expectations are so high that workaholism is encouraged, if not expected? I mean, I'm thinking of some law firms where people are just expected to put in crazy hours, or even, you know, and here in DC, people who work on Capitol Hill, they do crazy hours. I mean, you're expected to be there, you know, all night because Congress is in, you know, is that the problem that the jobs are encouraging workaholism?

• 10:40Speaker 04

  That's part of the problem. And, you know, there are certainly these types of jobs and occupations that the culture is, it's a workaholic culture. This is what newcomers are told when they get in. Let me give you an example. One woman I interviewed for the book, she worked at a, one of the big consulting firms. And the very first day, her coworker said, look, let me tell you something. If you ever need to leave to go to a doctor's appointment, or something like that, leave your purse on your desk and just take your keys. Hmm. Why would that be? Well, I mean, because we know that if we're going to actually leave work to go to an appointment, of course, we're going to take our purse. And so it

• 11:22Speaker 04

  was, you know, basically sending that signal that you don't leave your desk. And, you know, jobs like that, like you said, in DC, some of the government jobs, I mean, doctors, lawyers, you name it. But what was really fascinating was in my research, you know, I have had people in all sorts of jobs, like across the whole range, K through 12 teachers. You know, I even had a race car driver and a llama farmer. I mean, it goes the whole range. So it's not linked to specific jobs. Another person I spoke with, she said she thought it was her job. And so she quit and she got a new job and realized she was still

• 12:04Speaker 04

  doing the same thing, even though that job wasn't as demanding with their organizational culture. And then that's when she realized, oh, this is partially internally driven. So the way I see it, there are some internal drivers that, you know, whether it's dispositional tendencies or, or whatnot, that do play a role for sure. But the setting, the organizational culture can exacerbate those workaholic tendencies, basically.

• 12:35Kim Mills?

  Well, is it something that is typical of, say, perfectionists? Are those the kinds of people who become workaholics?

• 12:42Speaker 04

  They're highly related, I will say. Yeah. So there's different kinds of perfectionists too. And we see some of the more, I would say, maladaptive qualities of workaholics, such as feeling negative emotions when you're not working, or thinking about work all the time. In my research, those two in particular seem to be related to the aspect of perfectionism that is that you're never going to live up to your standards, your internal standards. Whereas some people call it the more productive dimension of perfectionism, perfectionistic strivings, which is like, perhaps considered the healthier aspect, that's more related to the behavioral and the motivational components of workaholism. So, but bottom line is, they're

• 13:26Speaker 04

  very highly related. And we see perfectionistic tendencies in your childhood that are kind of like early indicators. So yeah, a lot of workaholics are also perfectionists.

• 13:37Kim Mills?

  And just to follow up on that, I mean, if I were a parent of a child and I thought that there was potential workaholism flowering there, I mean, what would I, what would I be looking for?

• 13:49Speaker 04

  There is, there's actually a concept called school addiction that I have read about. I haven't personally studied it. But yeah, you can, I think, look for the same sort of patterns, you know, if your, your child is constantly worried about their grade, or you see them, you know, instead of taking a moment to play with friends, they are studying for their exam, which is two weeks away, for hours, you know, and not being able to put their schoolwork down. I think those are really good indicators that there's some workaholic tendencies developing, for sure.

• 14:28Kim Mills?

  Well, our country is sometimes stereotyped as a country of workaholics. And I'm wondering if that's borne out in the research.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  There are some cross-cultural studies that show that some cultures, you know, on average, tend to show higher levels of workaholism. US is one of them. Japan, China, South Korea, those are probably the ones that show the highest levels. What's interesting, though, is Western Europe countries, a lot of them, especially like the Nordic countries, we see lower levels on average, again, but there's not a ton of research on this. But if I had to explain where most workaholism researchers are, it's in Europe, which we would think we need more of the research here. But that, I think, just goes to show that it's just

• 15:15Speaker 04

  culturally acceptable here. And, you know, maybe that's why in Europe, we see more researchers studying this phenomenon, because people take it more seriously.

• 15:25Kim Mills?

  Well, we don't get a lot of vacation in this country, you know, compared to other places. And I'm wondering, is that something that would help mitigate workaholism, or help to promote a healthier relationship that workers have with their workplace?

• 15:39Speaker 04

  I would love more vacation. Yeah.

• 15:42Kim Mills?

  But would you take it?

• 15:44Speaker 04

  Oh, I mean, isn't that the million dollar question? Yeah. So I do think, you know, as a society, we need more sanctioned vacation days, you know, but regulations that, you know, mandate that organizations have to give so much vacation time, because we are far short compared to other countries in terms of days off. But I do think that even with that, we would need to make sure people take it. You know, use it or lose it policies sometimes are beneficial. I think people don't want to lose something that they, that they have. But things like unlimited vacation time, I don't really think are the

• 16:25Speaker 04

  solution. Because then it turns into this weird pressure of like, well, what are my peers taking? Like, what are my coworkers taking in terms of days off? I don't want to look, you know, like I'm taking too much. And so I definitely think that, you know, having it taken out of the worker's control almost, and, you know, the organization or some regulations saying, no, these are the days you have to take. And, you know, there are even right to disconnect laws in some European countries. I don't know if I'm necessarily 100% on board with that, but it's an interesting concept. Right to disconnect laws is basically that the organization is not allowed to reach out to the employee if they are, you know,

• 17:10Speaker 04

  off the clock. So again, I don't know if I'm completely on board with that, but the philosophy behind that, I am. Because I do think setting those norms and, you know, making sure it's not expected. And organizations really, really shouldn't unless there's an emergency. That can help people to truly disconnect.

• 17:31Kim Mills?

  We're going to take a short break. When we return, we'll talk about the technology that keeps us tethered to our work, even when we're out of the office.

• 17:40Speaker 00

  Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great, till the CFO sees them? That's bullspend. And marketers are calling it out. In. Dashboard. Confessions.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand, when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Cut the bullspend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title, and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 18:38Kim Mills?

  Many of us work from home these days, especially since the pandemic, and we have our work emails on our personal phones and computers so we can check anytime. Has workaholism gotten more common, do you think, as technology has made us more reachable?

• 18:54Speaker 04

  What we do know from the research is that technology does tether us to work in an unhealthy way. And simply just having that access to work 24/7 and them having access to you 24/7, really what it's hindering is your ability to psychologically detach from work because you're always, you know that you're always possibly reachable. And having that technology is very tempting. If you have these workaholic tendencies, you're much more likely to have your email go to your phone and check it just throughout the day. Just, it almost becomes a habit. A lot of us have this, you know, just if we're bored, if we're in line at the grocery store,

• 19:39Speaker 04

  what do we do? We pull out our phone and maybe check our email. Maybe you can relate to that. And so being more accessible, it really hinders that detachment, both physically and mentally from work.

• 19:52Kim Mills?

  Are there other things that workplaces can do to basically discourage people from becoming workaholics or, you know, manifesting those tendencies?

• 20:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's a ton of things they can do if they're willing to fully like see that through. The culture broadly plays a role. And then how that manifests with the leader behaviors and what is rewarded is all something to think about. So, for example, is the organization rewarding and praising people for being, you know, accessible on the weekends and after hours? One of the companies I spoke with, one of their employees told me that the CEO in an all-hands call was praising another, you know, one of the employees for being available whenever he needed him. But the issue was he worked all the way around the world.

• 20:46Speaker 04

  And so, you know, being available all the time meant this person was up all night, basically. And so those are little signals that give indications of what is valued in that culture or in the organizational culture. And so what is rewarded? Who is rewarded and why? But also things that the leader, I think the leader is, you know, the supervisor or manager is the most direct impact on us. You know, if our boss is constantly texting us and emailing us and we know that their personality is such that they want a response immediately. A lot of workaholics have this tendency to think everything is urgent.

• 21:30Speaker 04

  And so if the manager or the boss has these workaholic tendencies and is constantly pinging their employees and wanting an immediate response, that is going to affect the employees negatively. Regardless of they, if they have workaholic tendencies, they're having to jump when the boss says jump.

• 21:50Kim Mills?

  Well, what if you see these tendencies in yourself? What are some of the things you can do to reduce your workaholism? And I mean, you said that that was an issue for you early in your career, so how do you manage this?

• 22:02Speaker 04

  It's a constant battle. I'm not going to lie. I mean, it's not like the tendencies go away, right? So I think just being really intentional. And there's a variety of different strategies that I talk about in my book. And it's not a one size fits all. So I think it's a matter of trial and error and see what works for you. And I use a combination of things. You know, one strategy is scheduling myself into my daily to-do list, like putting it on my calendar. Here's the time where I'm going to actually take a lunch break and not be on my computer, but just like relax and eat. Or like set an alarm on my phone. Okay, now it's time to walk around my building

• 22:47Speaker 04

  for, you know, five, 10 minutes to just get some fresh air and get away from my desk. Those little moments of reprieve, like those are micro breaks and they can be really helpful in recovery. So another thing that I do, there's a whole literature on recovery strategies that's very related to, you know, the workaholism literature, obviously. And one recovery strategy from that literature is to engage in what's called a mastery experience. And I personally love this one. It works for me because things like relaxation and meditation, I have tried and I have failed.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  And I have tried again and I've failed. Something about just being idle is very uncomfortable for me. And I, you know, I don't love it. And so a mastery experience is a recovery strategy where you're immersing yourself into something not work-related and it takes your attention and concentration. What I love about that is, one, it's been shown to be a very effective recovery strategy. So you feel more, you know, engaged the next day at work. You, you know, feel more rested and you're gaining back that energy that you lost, you know, throughout the whole day working. But I'm not sitting there idle. I'm doing something, you know?

• 24:16Speaker 04

  As long as it's something non-work related, I am psychologically detaching because I'm forcing myself basically to think about something else. So this could be learning a new language. You know, my editor for the book, he learned, you know, to play, he taught himself how to play guitar, you know? So really, anything that you get joy out of that you can focus on is, is my favorite recovery strategy for workaholics because it really does seem that a lot of people also struggle with being at rest.

• 24:51Kim Mills?

  You mentioned Workaholics Anonymous. And I'm wondering, I mean, are they structured the same way that, say, Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous are structured? Is there 12 steps that you have to go through the same as in those other organizations?

• 25:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, they are. I think it is modeled after, you know, they have the 12 steps, the workbooks, they have sponsors. So that, I'm not a member, but, you know, learning about it from my research, it seems very similar to like AA, for example.

• 25:19Kim Mills?

  What are you working on now? I mean, what are the big questions that you're trying to answer?

• 25:24Speaker 04

  Well, one of them is looking at these mastery experiences as a recovery, you know? And is this actually a more beneficial strategy for people higher in workaholism? And we really don't know enough about that, especially when we think about on a daily basis. So how does engaging in a mastery experience at night help you the next day at work? Do you, you know, are you more productive? Are you more engaged? And there's really very little research looking at that particular question. Currently working on updating my meta-analysis because that is about 10 years old now.

• 26:09Speaker 04

  Time goes by fast. So we're updating that and including all of the studies that have been conducted in, you know, the last 10 years since that was done. And so looking to see, are we seeing the same trends in terms of outcomes of workaholism? And so I'm excited about doing that update. So those are some of my, my main ones right now. But yeah, really looking at day-to-day dynamics, I think is, is something that I want to keep diving into and tracing people from day to day. Like what are you thinking about when you're not at work? And what is it about your workaholism that you struggle with the most to like turn off?

• 26:53Kim Mills?

  Well, this has been really interesting and I think you've given some good ideas to some of our listeners who may have some of these tendencies. So I want to thank you for joining me today, Dr. Clark.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 27:04Kim Mills?

  You can learn more about the psychology of workaholism in the October issue of APA's Magazine Monitor on Psychology. It's available for free at www.apa.org/monitor. You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at speakingofpsychology.org or on Apple, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you've heard, please subscribe and leave a review. If you have comments or ideas for future episodes, you can email us at [email protected]. Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lee Weinerman. Thank you for listening. The American Psychological Association. I'm Kim Mills.

• 28:32Speaker 05

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