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Desire to ‘work hard, play hard’ may serve evolutionary purpose

The Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort might have taken 'work hard play hard' to the extreme, but there's an evolutionary reason.

If there was a ranking of mottos most closely associated with today’s youth, “work hard, play hard” might only trail YOLO in its (over) usage.

It has been the subject of fist-pumping pop anthems by Wiz Khalifa, David Guetta and Tiesto, and the centerpiece of countless dumb tattoos.

But according to new research from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., the saying is not just aspirational, but might represent a real drive among youth to seek both accomplishment and leisure, and serve an evolutionary purpose to distract from the anxiety surrounding our own mortality. 

The study gave online surveys to 1,396 undergraduate students  267 men and 1129 women, 90 per cent of whom were between the ages of 18 and 21  about what it referred to as their “legacy drive,” or their attraction to accomplishment and fame, and “leisure drive,” or activities they want to pursue in their free time for fun.

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It also asked them about their feelings towards parenthood, religion, mortality and self esteem.

It found that there was a strong correlation in people with the desire to work hard to also play hard among the student cohort of a Canadian university.

“The ‘work hard, play hard’ connection, therefore, is clearly not just mythical or ideological – it actually displays as a particular pattern of co-variation in motivation and personalities, at least for our sample of university undergraduate students,” write the authors in the paper.

The study found that participants fell into three distinct clusters: The “apathetic type,” who had low attraction to parenthood, religion, work and leisure; the “religious, family-oriented type,” who were drawn to parenthood, religion and had moderate inclinations towards work and leisure; and the “secular go-getter type” who were attracted to parenthood, work and leisure, but not religion.

The authors suggest that students who self-impose a strong work habits might be incline to also take part in more leisure activities as a means to kick back and relax.

However, it said that their higher attraction to work did not correlate with students who had harder course loads.

“Playing hard then, rather than a ‘recovery’ from working hard, may instead be the goal that requires working hard in order to achieve or to earn,” the authors write.

“People work to live, and live to play.”

Lonnie Aarssen, the study’s main author, said that the desire to “work hard, play hard,” may offer a evolutionary purpose humans to distract them from their own mortality, especially when religious beliefs are absent.

"We, unlike any other animals, are aware and concerned about our own self-impermanence," said Aarssen in a press release.

“Legacy drive and leisure drive have potential to explain our ability to buffer this anxiety. Between these two drives, our ancestors were able to distract from their own self-impermanence, allowing them to cope with the anxiety and thus minimize its potential negative impact on reproductive success."