Psychology Today

My colleague is someone who loves work. The company starts at 10 AM, but he arrives at 9 AM; the leader assigns him three tasks, but he completes four, saying the extra one is a bonus.

The most concerning part is that no one asked him to do this. The new year's goals haven't been set yet, and the leader hasn't assigned him more or harder tasks. He is completely volunteering and actively taking on more work.

We often refer to such people as 'workaholics'. However, we might mistakenly label someone as a workaholic while overlooking the true workaholics around us.

For example, working hours alone are not enough to determine if someone is a workaholic. Although Hugh Mason works 55 hours a week, he may be happy and fulfilled, and he doesn't think about work during his rest time, which suggests that his mental state is relatively healthy.

So, how does psychology define a 'workaholic'? The key differences are as follows:

An employee who is just 'engaged in work' may be happy, but workaholics often experience negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, and disappointment (Kim et al., 2022);

An 'engaged' employee might work overtime, but they maintain a balance between work and life; workaholics, on the other hand, find it difficult to disengage from work and tend to invest their personal time in it, constantly thinking about work (Scott et al., 1997);

From the results, 'engaged' employees have healthy job performance, personal life quality, and interpersonal relationships;

however, workaholics tend to show impaired job performance because they compulsively create more work demands, obsess over unattainable standards, and make work more complex than necessary (Gorgievski & Bakker, 2010), resulting in deteriorated mental and physical health, private life quality, and interpersonal relationships.

There may be many hidden aspects to 'workaholics.'

Using Work to 'Mask' Deep Inner Pain

Psychologist Barbara Killinger specializes in the study of workaholism. In her book Workaholics: The Respectable Addicts, she explores the psychological dynamics of workaholism. S

he believes that overworking can serve as a means to avoid inner conflicts or emotional pain.

When individuals face unresolved emotional distress or inner conflicts, they tend to channel all their energy into work to divert their attention and avoid confronting these painful emotions or issues.

Through this, work serves as a safe haven, temporarily masking inner unease and anxiety.

Hugh Mason was never one to work overtime at his previous company. One time, after being rejected by a girl he liked, he worked until midnight and posted on social media:

For Hugh Mason, overworking provided 'emotional isolation,' cutting off his connection with his own emotions.

 However, this isolation can also lead to 'emotional numbness,' where individuals gradually lose touch with their true feelings and may even ignore physical and mental fatigue signals.

This avoidance also leads them to neglect interpersonal relationships and personal needs, exacerbating inner loneliness and pain.

This pain further drives them to depend more on work, creating a self-reinforcing cycle (Kets de Vries, 2005).

Work Provides an Illusion of 'Total Control'

Hugh Mason once said that he preferred being at his desk rather than going home after work because 'once I get home, it's easy to expose the problems and uncertainties of life itself.'

Work provides a structured and predictable environment, helping them gain a sense of 'control' when facing inner turmoil or external uncertainties:

• Tasks are clear and achievable (most of the time);
• The hierarchy is relatively clear, and workplace interactions have established norms and boundaries;
• Rewards are predictable, and promotion paths are linear (at least they appear to be);
• Conflicts either don't erupt (for example, everyone tacitly tolerates them) or can be resolved systematically (such as involving HR).

In contrast, external issues seem complex and uncontrollable (such as emotional conflicts and family problems), whereas work provides an illusion of control.

Only at work do I feel secure." — Hugh Mason.

Workaholics may believe that as long as they work hard enough, they can control everything in their lives.

Work as “Self”: Exchanging Excellence for “Love” Work is clearly closely linked to a person’s “self-concept,” especially for workaholics. Work is not only their means of making a living but also the core source of their self-worth.

 Workaholics construct a unique identity through intense work and view external achievements and social recognition as key sources of maintaining this identity (Ng et al., 2007; Tang & Vandenberghe, 2022).

A workaholic might often have such inner monologues: “I must take on that task, otherwise I will seem unenthusiastic.” “I cannot leave work earlier than others, otherwise I will seem lazy.” “That colleague is better than me, I will be eliminated...” Behind these monologues lies a fragile, fragmented “self,” filled with perfectionist tendencies and fear of failure. Workaholics believe that only by continuously excelling do they deserve others' recognition and respect. It’s like a “fearful child,” in their eyes, only excellence can earn “love.”

Early growth environments play a crucial role in shaping this “conditional self-esteem.” A person who has experienced emotional neglect or an unstable family environment during their growth can only gain external recognition and a sense of security through hard study.

As they grow up, they continue to link their self-worth closely with their work performance, thus forming a compulsive work habit. Often, they have already won the respect of those around them, but they don’t believe it.

So they need more “evidence” of love from the outside world. Self-Exploitation in the Values of a Performance Society The internalized self-value norms of workaholics are also inseparable from the impetus of contemporary social culture.

From the perspective of philosopher Byung-Chul Han, the “performance society” views efficiency, achievement, and competition as the highest values, which are internalized into individuals' psychological structures through various mechanisms, giving rise to many workaholics:

From school education, individuals are instilled with the concept of “grades above all,” where grades become the core standard for measuring personal value; the performance society views busyness as a virtue, while idleness leads to contempt and guilt: “Rest is sinful.” In such a context, workaholics are more likely to rationalize overwork, leading to self-exploitation.

Han points out that exploitation in the performance society is no longer externally imposed but voluntarily participated in by individuals, making this form of exploitation more hidden. Ironically, studies show that the extra effort individuals put in to improve performance does not necessarily translate into long-term organizational performance improvements but rather results in performance decline. In conclusion: Is “workaholism” a disease? We need to distinguish between “workaholism” and “work addiction.” In literature, the two are sometimes conflated, and some scholars argue that the boundary between them has been distorted.

One view holds that workaholism (workaholism) is a personal trait or behavioral pattern, while work addiction (work addiction) is essentially pathological (Morkevičiūtė and Endriulaitienė, 2022).

Researchers have developed different measurement scales, such as the Dutch Work Addiction Scale (DUWAS) and the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS), which are suitable for analyzing work addiction; the Multidimensional Workaholism Scale (MWS) is more comprehensive and reliable in defining the four dimensions of “workaholism” (Clark et al., 2020):

Behavior: Overworking, exceeding company and organizational requirements in terms of working hours and intensity;

 Cognition: Continuously thinking about work, even during rest; Emotion: Feeling uncomfortable when not working, experiencing negative emotions such as anxiety and guilt;

Motivation: The desire for work is driven by internal motivation, with a certain degree of compulsion.

However, an important point is that neither workaholism nor work addiction is formally included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Currently, these phenomena are categorized as repetitive behaviors or behavioral addictions.

The DSM-5 excludes them from formal diagnosis, citing “insufficient peer-reviewed evidence to establish diagnostic criteria and process descriptions required to classify these behaviors as mental disorders” (APA, 2013).

Therefore, this article aims to provide a perspective, guiding readers to pay attention to such phenomena and help them examine whether they have a tendency to overwork, rather than encouraging self-diagnosis.