Lazy people are hard wired to underachieve.

Inb4 laziness is the next 'disability' worth an allowance for.

Compulsive gambling actually runs in my family, and it probably is the result of a neural thing.

Maybe the taxpayer should give people like me a monthly fund to gamble with so that I don't lose all my own money and end up not being able to feed my kids.

Reply 22

Psyk

16

Original post by Hopple

The genes for underachievement, if they existed, would have been bred out of the genepool, surely?

Not necessarily. Scrounging off other people, getting them to do the work for you, seems like it could be a workable survival strategy.

Reply 23

Joinedup

20

Original post by avupa2.01

Compulsive gambling actually runs in my family, and it probably is the result of a neural thing.

Maybe the taxpayer should give people like me a monthly fund to gamble with so that I don't lose all my own money and end up not being able to feed my kids.

that sounds more like the thing the study was looking at than 'lazyness' tbh. It was looking differences in brain activity between people who chose to invest small amounts of time frequently when there was a high chance of getting a small payoff with people who chose to invest large amounts of time in tasks with a small chance of recieving a bigger payout.
Seems to be a comparison between steady workers and get rich quick merchants... Which the telegraph has decided to interpret as people who work steadily being lazy and people who take more risks as hard working.

Just read the abstract though.

Reply 24

avupa2.01

Original post by Joinedup

Just read the abstract though.

edit. Oh, sorry misread your post.

I would, but I read an article quite a while back that said that sort of stuff quite a while back so no need to really, it makes sense to me.

In some situations for example, high risk behaviour can reward, in others it can punish. It's not surprising imo that evolution has done it's thing and not make everything do the same thing - because, it's never good to put all your eggs in one basket and etc.

The article I read was talking about how, addicts in general have something similar about their brain in some way or something like that. And that there was a genetic factor involved also.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 25

TheHistoryStudent

11

Original post by Martyn*

Scientists have identified neural pathways that appear to influence an individual's willingness to work hard to earn money.

Or, pathways that appear to influence people's willingness to obey and conform to their corporate masters, and because society dictates that the only thing worthy of achievement in life is money and status.

Do you ever make any post that is not related to capitalism/left wing beliefs as a matter of interest? It's like every post I see by you always has something to do with it haha :biggrin:

- on topic... I'm not sure really about this study.

As others have said it doesn't actually show a genetic link, only chemical concentrations, which could have occured from other factors, and, aside from this, I think there are also other factors which play into motivation to work/achieve, medical conditions such as depression for example.

While I do think under-achieving is probably higher in lazy people than people who give their all, I don't think it's for the reasons stated in that article, and I dont think it applies to all lazy people, due to the mixed bag of some lazy people achieving high whilst doing the minimum, and some people who try hard also under-achieving too...

Reply 26

silverbolt

19

what a crock of ****,

sounds like another contrived excuse to ensure even more people dont have to take responsibility for thier actions (or lack of)

Reply 27

ForKicks

12

Reminds me of this :tongue:

http://xkcd.com/1027/

Reply 28

Aramiss18

14

Original post by Martyn*

Scientists have identified neural pathways that appear to influence an individual's willingness to work hard to earn money.

Or, pathways that appear to influence people's willingness to obey and conform to their corporate masters, and because society dictates that the only thing worthy of achievement in life is money and status.

A rare day that I agree with you :tongue:

But it's true. I've little motivation to work for money. Not everyone goes around chasing money so they can buy copious amounts of iCrap.

Reply 29

Aramiss18

14

Original post by TheHistoryStudent

Do you ever make any post that is not related to capitalism/left wing beliefs as a matter of interest? It's like every post I see by you always has something to do with it haha :biggrin:

Tbf given how capitalism and corporations dictate everything in our society if you have a problem with capitalism then everything bothers you. It becomes a massive elephant in the room. Look at the olympics and football for evidence of how even something as pure as sport can be corrupted.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 30

NB_ide

14

Original post by silverbolt

what a crock of ****,

sounds like another contrived excuse to ensure even more people dont have to take responsibility for thier actions (or lack of)

Do you think the findings of the study are flawed, or just unpleasant to hear about?

-----

The thing is that obviously all behaviours have a physical basis in the brain, everyone knows this. But it doesn't excuse us from our actions. If I got angry now and killed someone then yes obviously "my brain made me do it" but that's still part of me so I (brain and all) would be dealt with accordingly.

Unfortunately, though, there is a move towards excusing people for all sorts of things just because, surprise surprise, we have found a physical basis for them. What did we expect, that it was just "magic" and not visible to our science/tech?

Reply 31

bishbash72

15

Original post by Hopple

The genes for underachievement, if they existed, would have been bred out of the genepool, surely?

Are you saying lazy people don't reproduce?

Reply 32

willbee

12

I think it depends on what the person wants out of life. For some people that's a truckload of money, for others it's happiness, family and love. We can live comfortably without "achieving", we don't need high paid jobs to have a good life. I personally think I'm not lazy, just content.

Reply 33

Martyn*

13

Original post by TheHistoryStudent

Do you ever make any post that is not related to capitalism/left wing beliefs as a matter of interest? It's like every post I see by you always has something to do with it haha :biggrin:

- on topic... I'm not sure really about this study.

As others have said it doesn't actually show a genetic link, only chemical concentrations, which could have occured from other factors, and, aside from this, I think there are also other factors which play into motivation to work/achieve, medical conditions such as depression for example.

While I do think under-achieving is probably higher in lazy people than people who give their all, I don't think it's for the reasons stated in that article, and I dont think it applies to all lazy people, due to the mixed bag of some lazy people achieving high whilst doing the minimum, and some people who try hard also under-achieving too...

I'm using the example of Capitalism to show that not everyone is driven purely by material wealth, and is compliant with making pen-pushers very rich. Some people succeed so that they can do other things with their spare-time, or so that they can give their children a good education, etc. Those who never achieve much in life, according to this study, are supposedly 'hard wired' to do so. I do not believe this is true for the majority of people who achieve very little in life. I'm nos suggesting that there is no neurological factor involved; I'm saying that there are other factors involved.

Reply 34

Joinedup

20

Original post by avupa2.01

edit. Oh, sorry misread your post.

I would, but I read an article quite a while back that said that sort of stuff quite a while back so no need to really, it makes sense to me.

In some situations for example, high risk behaviour can reward, in others it can punish. It's not surprising imo that evolution has done it's thing and not make everything do the same thing - because, it's never good to put all your eggs in one basket and etc.

The article I read was talking about how, addicts in general have something similar about their brain in some way or something like that. And that there was a genetic factor involved also.

i meant i've just read the abstract (cos I can't do athens on the not so smart phone) but it was ambiguous.

newspaper reporting of journal articles is generally pretty lamentable. Ben goldacre used to blog about it but he seems to have laid himself off.
Just to be clear these findings are based on looking for 1 chemical in peoples brains while they push buttons for 20 minute sessions inside a fmri machine and may not accurately reflect the full complexity of societal problems. Nothing wrong with doing this sort of experiment, but it's a small piece of a very large jigsaw.

Reply 35

Retrodiction

19

Original post by Snagprophet

Inb4 laziness is the next 'disability' worth an allowance for.

But if it actually is biologically determined, then in what sense is it helpful to make snarky comments?

Reply 36

Retrodiction

19

Original post by silverbolt

what a crock of ****,

sounds like another contrived excuse to ensure even more people dont have to take responsibility for thier actions (or lack of)

But how do the whole 'responsibility for actions' comments offer any insight into this issue at all? It just betrays not only scientific ignorance but also lack of willingness to expand your scientific understanding. Laziness, your apparent mindset could be called.

Reply 37

That Bearded Man

22

Original post by Hopple

Lazy drives progress. Whoever invented the wheel went "Sod carrying this mammoth's head, let's roll it around instead".

But if someone had no desire at all, due to their genes, they wouldn't get anywhere unless it's only recently that humans have favoured outgoing partners.

So a little pinch of laziness is ideal?

Reply 38

silverbolt

19

Original post by Retrodiction

But how do the whole 'responsibility for actions' comments offer any insight into this issue at all? It just betrays not only scientific ignorance but also lack of willingness to expand your scientific understanding. Laziness, your apparent mindset could be called.

So they should all just be forgiven - murderers should be let off as thier brain made them do it, rapists, well thier brain made them do it, mugger, well society made them do it, lazy, well its thier brain and thier conditioning, vandalism, well its thier upbringing

not thier fault really. Lets just let them carry on.

You can blame anyone for anything. anything to avoid responsibility really.

Reply 39

RJ555

14

Original post by S-man10

Who isn't to say that the individuals become hard wired in the first place as a result on their environment :holmes:

I'll be inclined to see otherwise. Being hard-wired to be a slacker fails to understand how far an individuals intention can push him. A lot of people will be slackers, but that isn't to say I'll forever be one.

True. Not to mention that even transient/temporary conditions can cause brain changes, its very difficult to say if something is "hardwired" without consistent monitoring of brain changes regularly throughout a persons life. A single scan doesn't really show anything permanent.

And what about depression for example? For some this is a temporary condition, but it can still affect the brain structure, particularly in areas of motivation (which is often misperceived as laziness). It doesn't necessarily mean this person is "hard wired to under achieve".

Maybe I'm focusing on semantics too much, but "hard-wired" does imply "from birth" to me.

Lazy people are hard wired to underachieve.

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you