Do You Work Hard, or Can You Not Stop?
Long hours, the pull you cannot switch off, and whether work gives anything back
Working a lot is not the same as being a workaholic. Researchers in the Netherlands and Japan separated two things that often travel together: working excessively, which is about hours and pace, and working compulsively, which is about the inner pull that makes rest feel wrong. Only the second is the real core. This test measures both, plus the healthy kind of hard work - being absorbed and energised by what you do - so you can see which one you are actually doing.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about a typical month of your working life, paid or unpaid, not about the busiest week of the year.
What it measures
The two components of workaholism in the DUWAS: working excessively (long, dense hours) and working compulsively (feeling driven to work, and uneasy when not working). A third bar measures work engagement - energy, dedication and absorption - which researchers treat as the healthy counterpart. It is not burnout, which is exhaustion; workaholism is a way of relating to work that can lead there. It also differs from perfectionism, which is about standards rather than time.
Based on: Dutch Work Addiction Scale, DUWAS (Schaufeli, Shimazu & Taris, 2009)
Possible results
Working excessively
How far work spills beyond its hours into the rest of your life.
Working compulsively
Whether you feel driven to work and uneasy when you stop.
Work engagement
Whether work gives you energy, meaning and absorption.
Common questions
Is being a workaholic the same as working hard?
No. Hours alone do not make someone a workaholic: surgeons, founders and parents with two jobs can work very long weeks for reasons that have nothing to do with compulsion. What defines workaholism in this research is the inner pull - feeling you must work, and feeling wrong when you do not. That is why the second bar matters more than the first.
What is the difference between workaholism and burnout?
Workaholism describes how you relate to work - the drive and the hours. Burnout describes a state of exhaustion, cynicism and reduced effectiveness that can result from it, among other causes. A large meta-analysis found workaholism linked to burnout, so the first can contribute to the second. Quinthea has a separate burnout test.
Do workaholics perform better?
The evidence is not flattering. A 2016 meta-analysis found workaholism tied to achievement-oriented traits such as perfectionism, and clearly linked to job stress, work-life conflict and worse physical and mental health. It did not find a matching gain in performance. The extra hours, in other words, come with real personal costs that the field has not shown to pay off in results.
Sources
- Schaufeli, W. B., Shimazu, A., & Taris, T. W. (2009). Being driven to work excessively hard: The evaluation of a two-factor measure of workaholism in the Netherlands and Japan. Cross-Cultural Research. doi:10.1177/1069397109337239
- Shimazu, A., Schaufeli, W. B., Kamiyama, K., & Kawakami, N. (2015). Workaholism vs. work engagement: The two different predictors of future well-being and performance. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. doi:10.1007/s12529-014-9410-x
- Clark, M. A., Michel, J. S., Zhdanova, L., Pui, S. Y., & Baltes, B. B. (2016). All work and no play? A meta-analytic examination of the correlates and outcomes of workaholism. Journal of Management. doi:10.1177/0149206314522301
An honest note The statements are Quinthea's own wording, adapted from the DUWAS, so scores are not comparable with its published norms. Only the first two bars correspond to that scale; work engagement is a related construct from the same research group, not a factor of it. Despite the word 'addiction' in the scale's name, researchers still disagree on how to define workaholism, and this is not a diagnosis. If work leaves you exhausted, sleeping badly or unwell, talk to a doctor or occupational health service.