Publication Date

Summer 2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Advisor

Howard Tokunaga; Megumi Hosoda; Joshua Taruud

Abstract

Recent shifts in labor discourse have drawn attention to rising burnout, declining organizational commitment, and diminishing job satisfaction, which challenge traditional assumptions about the centrality and desirability of work. These tensions have given rise to the concept of anti-work, a growing discourse that questions the moral, economic, and psychological foundations of work itself. Despite its cultural relevance, anti-work remains largely undertheorized and unmeasured in empirical research. Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship, this study defined anti-work as a negative critique of work as a social construct, questioning its value, purpose, and impact on individuals and society. Anti-work was operationalized through two higher-order dimensions, systemic critique of work and individual experience at work, composed of theoretically grounded subdimensions such as meaningful work, skepticism, worker exploitation, will to work, and employee engagement. The purpose of this study was to develop and preliminarily validate a scale, the Anti-Work Attitude Scale (AWAS) that captures anti-work attitudes from both systemic and individual perspectives. The AWAS, consisting of 42 items (6 items for each of seven subdimensions), exhibited strong internal consistency. Future research directions, including the need to assess the dimensionality and validity of the AWAS, are discussed.

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