Indolence vs. Laziness: What’s the Difference?

• Laziness

  Laziness (also known as indolence) is disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to act or to

  exert oneself. It is often used as a pejorative; terms for a person seen to be lazy

  include “couch potato”, “slacker”, and “bludger”.

  Despite Sigmund Freud’s discussion of the pleasure principle, Leonard Carmichael notes that “laziness is not a word that appears in the table of contents of most technical books on psychology… It is a guilty secret of modern psychology that more is understood about the motivation of thirsty rats and hungry pecking pigeons as they press levers than about the way in which poets make themselves write poems or scientists force themselves into the laboratory when the good golfing days of spring arrive.” A 1931 survey found high-school students more likely to attribute their failing performance to laziness, while teachers ranked “lack of ability” as the major cause, with laziness coming in second. Laziness is not to be confused with avolition, a negative symptom of certain mental-health issues such as depression, ADHD, sleep disorders, and schizophrenia.

• Indolence (noun)

  Habitual laziness or sloth.

• Laziness (noun)

  The quality of being lazy

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