There is, it seems, a fine line between enthusiasm and addiction. When does the line get crossed? How can you know when your dedicated enthusiasm for your job becomes an addiction? An obsession? Researchers in Norway, at the University of Bergen, recently concluded a study that was designed to determine just that.
The results, the researchers found, was that 7.8%, nearly eight people in every one hundred, had an addiction to work. They are, in effect, workaholics. The research team had developed what is known as the Bergen Work Addiction Scale and interviewed thousands of people for their recent study. The Addiction Scale uses certain criteria to actually define and determine those who are truly addicted to work.
For the most part, workaholic characteristics encompassed working a lot in an effort to reduce feelings of guilt and to overcome anxiety as well as working longer and harder than a person really intended and allowing work to be the major priority in their lives over relationships, hobbies, and outside pursuits. An addiction, it seems, remains an addiction regardless of what the substance might be.
Lead researcher on the project, Cecilie Andreassen, said that, ” In traditional addictions, it is typical that there are common underlying and maybe genetic vulnerabilities…but it has never been looked at in the field of workaholicism.”
The study took in all socioeconomic and cultures as well as age groups. The researchers questioned 16, 426 adults who were working and were between the broad age range of 16 to 75 years of age. On notable discovery was that ADHD seemed to be a serious factor in determining who was a workaholic and who was not. In 32.7% of the people they researched, the team found that they were, also, afflicted with ADHD as compared to only 12.7% of the non-workaholics.
“Maybe because of the impulsive nature of these people,” Andreassen said about the ADHD afflicted, “they may be taking on a lot of work without thinking ahead and biting off more than they can realistically chew.”
The study also linked being a workaholic with having obsessive compulsive disorder. Depression and overwhelming anxiety were also major factors in how people became addicted workaholics. It seems that they seek relief from their pain in their work but end up becoming addicted instead. This study has helped to bring to the fore the fact that many things can be an addiction. It is just been recently that science has begun to study cell phone addiction which many have railed about for years but has rarely been taken seriously until recently.
The research study also allowed those participants, as well as any who read about it, the opportunity for some self reflection and to try and determine the relationship they really have with their work.
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