Reframing Laziness: Voices of Lived Experience
Funding
Funded by the PCER Fund, University of Oxford
Project Dates
23 Feb 2025-30 June 2025
Oxford Team
Prof Katrien Devolder, Dr Joanna Demaree-Cotton
Professor Katrien Devolder |
Dr Joanna Demaree-Cotton |
Project Description
This project brings together people who have experienced laziness stigma to share their stories, increase public understanding, and shape impactful academic research. It is part of our broader research aiming to reduce widespread societal harm (e.g. burnouts through overwork, low self-esteem when failing to meet expectations, and impeded access to healthcare and employment) resulting from misconceptions about ‘laziness’. Through two co-designed workshops, participants from groups often unjustly labelled as ‘lazy’ due to chronic health conditions will explore how these stereotypes impact their lives and develop ways to increase public awareness about harmful misconceptions. Offering both in-person and online participation, we will create an inclusive space where participants can collaborate in ways that work best for them. The project will culminate in a public event to increase awareness in the wider community and to encourage critical thinking about the value of effort and productivity. This accessible, public-facing approach aims to challenge widespread misconceptions, and include a diversity of views to stimulate broader societal debate on the value of effort and productivity. Results will inform our wider research on laziness.
This wider research addresses the critical research gap in philosophical work on ‘laziness’. Though frequently invoked in academic work, public discourse, and in policy debates (e.g. on welfare benefits, the future of work, and discrimination in education, healthcare and employment), this concept remains largely unexamined. But lack of clarity muddles these debates and perpetuates harmful applications that reduce wellbeing, and result in discrimination and social inequality. We aim to provide the first comprehensive philosophical account of ‘laziness’, informed by moral-psychological research and engagement with affected communities, establishing a new area of investigation relevant for philosophy, other disciplines, policymakers, and society.
Contact
For further details contact Katrien Devolder.
Media
Blog
Why being ‘lazy’ at work might actually be a good thing, The Conversation (1 April 2025)
Newspapers/online outlets
Quoted in 'Gen Z aren’t lazy — they’re practising ‘justified effort management’', The Times (by Rhys Blakely, 3 April 2025)
Quoted in 'Gen Z aren’t lazy, they’re masters of ‘justified effort management’, says Oxford professor', Daily Mail (by Sam Merriman, 3 April 2025)
Quoted in NDTV (YT video) 'How Gen Z Brain Works: All you Need to know about Justified Effort Management' (NDTV 4 April 2025
Radio interviews
Radio Ulster, Sunday with Steven Rainey https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0l2rtsl (6 April 2025)
RTE Radio Drivetime https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22503000/ (4 April 2025)
Times Radio, Breakfast Show with Kate McCann and Stig Abell https://www.thetimes.com/radio/show/20250403-30205/2025-04-03 (3 April 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETpqK4770wU
NDTV 4 April 2025
How Gen Z Brain Works: All you Need to know about Justified Effort Management
