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61-504: Lazy is the adjective for laziness , a lack of desire to expend effort. It may also refer to: Laziness Despite the famed neurologist Sigmund Freud 's discussion of the " pleasure principle ", Leonard Carmichael noted in 1954 that "laziness" is not a word that appears in the table of contents of most technical books on psychology ". A 1931 survey found high-school students more likely to attribute their failing performance to laziness, while teachers ranked "lack of ability" as

122-519: A social welfare function . Instead of giving actual numbers over different bundles, ordinal utilities are only the rankings of utilities received from different bundles of goods or services. For example, ordinal utility could tell that having two ice creams provide a greater utility to individuals in comparison to one ice cream but could not tell exactly how much extra utility received by the individual. Ordinal utility, it does not require individuals to specify how much extra utility he or she received from

183-439: A cloud and playing the harp. Every industry is trying to do its part to give its customers more leisure time." Ludwig von Mises writes, "The expenditure of labor is deemed painful. Not to work is considered a state of affairs more satisfactory than working. Leisure is, other things being equal, preferred to travail (work). People work only when they value the return of labor higher than the decrease in satisfaction brought about by

244-416: A consumption set of R + L {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} _{+}^{L}} , and each package x ∈ R + L {\displaystyle x\in \mathbb {R} _{+}^{L}} is a vector containing the amounts of each commodity. For the example, there are two commodities: apples and oranges. If we say apples is the first commodity, and oranges

305-445: A cup of water equal to 1-p. One cannot conclude, however, that the cup of tea is two thirds of the goodness of the cup of juice, because this conclusion would depend not only on magnitudes of utility differences, but also on the "zero" of utility. For example, if the "zero" of utility was located at -40, then a cup of orange juice would be 160 utils more than zero, a cup of tea 120 utils more than zero. Cardinal utility can be considered as

366-415: A cup of water has a utility of 40 utils. With cardinal utility, it can be concluded that the cup of orange juice is better than the cup of tea by exactly the same amount by which the cup of tea is better than the cup of water. Formally, this means that if a person has a cup of tea, he or she would be willing to take any bet with a probability, p, greater than .5 of getting a cup of juice, with a risk of getting

427-413: A good's marginal utility is positive, additional consumption of it increases utility; if zero, the consumer is satiated and indifferent about consuming more; if negative, the consumer would pay to reduce his consumption. Rational individuals only consume additional units of goods if it increases the marginal utility. However, the law of diminishing marginal utility means an additional unit consumed brings

488-483: A great extent and censured North Carolina as land of lubbers. Thomas Jefferson in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) acknowledges a small portion of the people have only seen labor and identifies the cause of this indolence to the rise of "slave-holding" society. Jefferson raised his concerns what this deleterious system will bring to the economic system. Later by the 1800s the rise of Romanticism changed attitudes of

549-481: A lack of foraging competitors. On the other hand, some animals, such as pigeons and rats , seem to prefer to respond for food rather than eat equally available "free food" in some conditions. Disutility In economics , utility is a measure of the satisfaction that a certain person has from a certain state of the world. Over time, the term has been used in at least two different meanings. The relationship between these two kinds of utility functions

610-458: A lack of interest in the activity or belief in its efficacy. Laziness may manifest as procrastination or vacillation. Studies of motivation suggest that laziness may be caused by a decreased level of motivation, lack of interest, and confidence which in turn can be caused by over-stimulation or excessive impulses or distractions. These increase the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter responsible for reward and pleasure. The more dopamine that

671-498: A limited amount of daylight in which to accomplish their tasks, follow this pattern. Social activity comes in a distant third to eating and resting for foraging animals. When more time must be spent foraging, animals are more likely to sacrifice time spent on aggressive behavior than time spent resting. Extremely efficient predators have more free time and thus often appear more lazy than relatively inept predators that have little free time. Beetles likewise seem to forage lazily due to

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732-445: A lower marginal utility than that brought by the previous unit consumed. For example, drinking one bottle of water makes a thirsty person satisfied; as the consumption of water increases, he may feel begin to feel bad which causes the marginal utility to decrease to zero or even become negative. Furthermore, this is also used to analyze progressive taxes as the greater taxes can result in the loss of utility. Marginal rate of substitution

793-426: A luxurious lifestyle was closely portrayed through lives of displaced aristocrats and their indolence. Jason Compson, Robert Penn Warren and William Styron were some of the writers who explored this perspective. The lack of meaningful work was defined as a void which aristocrats needed to fill with pompous culture; Walker Percy is a writer who has thoroughly mined the subject. Percy's characters are often exposed to

854-537: A negative coping mechanism (aversion), the desire to avoid certain situations to counter certain experiences, and preconceived ill results. Lacanian thought says "laziness is the "acting out" of archetypes from societal programming and negative child-rearing practices." Thomas Goetz, University of Konstanz, Germany, and John Eastwood, York University, Canada, concur that aversive states such as laziness can be equally adaptive for making change and toxic if allowed to fester. An outlook found to be helpful in their studies

915-416: A positive linear transformation (multiplying by a positive number, and adding some other number); however, both utility functions represent the same preferences. When cardinal utility is assumed, the magnitude of utility differences is treated as an ethically or behaviorally significant quantity. For example, suppose a cup of orange juice has utility of 120 "utils", a cup of tea has a utility of 80 utils, and

976-413: A utility function ranks preferences concerning a set of goods and services. Gérard Debreu derived the conditions required for a preference ordering to be representable by a utility function. For a finite set of alternatives, these require only that the preference ordering is complete (so the individual is able to determine which of any two alternatives is preferred or that they are indifferent), and that

1037-462: Is u (nothing) = 0, u (1 apple) = 1, u (1 orange) = 2, u (1 apple and 1 orange) = 5, u (2 apples) = 2 and u (2 oranges) = 4. Then this consumer prefers 1 orange to 1 apple, but prefers one of each to 2 oranges. In micro-economic models, there are usually a finite set of L commodities, and a consumer may consume an arbitrary amount of each commodity. This gives

1098-556: Is "being mindful and not looking for ways out of it, simultaneously to be also open to creative and active options if they should arise." They point out that a relentless engaging in activities without breaks can cause oscillations of failure, which may result in mental health issues. It has also been shown that laziness can render one apathetic to reactant mental health issues such as anger , anxiety , indifference , substance abuse , and depression . Economists have differing views of laziness. Frédéric Bastiat argues that idleness

1159-401: Is a function from choices to the real numbers: which assigns a real number to every outcome in a way that represents the agent's preferences over simple lotteries. Using the four assumptions mentioned above, the agent will prefer a lottery L 2 {\displaystyle L_{2}} to a lottery L 1 {\displaystyle L_{1}} if and only if, for

1220-502: Is a major concept in welfare economics . While preferences are the conventional foundation of choice theory in microeconomics , it is often convenient to represent preferences with a utility function . Let X be the consumption set , the set of all mutually-exclusive baskets the consumer could conceivably consume. The consumer's utility function u : X → R {\displaystyle u\colon X\to \mathbb {R} } ranks each possible outcome in

1281-455: Is highly controversial among both economists and ethicists . Consider a set of alternatives among which a person has a preference ordering. A utility function represents that ordering if it is possible to assign a real number to each alternative in such a manner that alternative a is assigned a number greater than alternative b if and only if the individual prefers alternative a to alternative b . In this situation someone who selects

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1342-399: Is indeed proportional to log of income.) The first important use of the expected utility theory was that of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern , who used the assumption of expected utility maximization in their formulation of game theory . In finding the probability-weighted average of the utility from each possible outcome: Von Neumann and Morgenstern addressed situations in which

1403-423: Is possible for rational preferences not to be representable by a utility function. An example is lexicographic preferences which are not continuous and cannot be represented by a continuous utility function. Economists distinguish between total utility and marginal utility. Total utility is the utility of an alternative, an entire consumption bundle or situation in life. The rate of change of utility from changing

1464-448: Is preferred over B. It was recognized that utility could not be measured or observed directly, so instead economists devised a way to infer relative utilities from observed choice. These 'revealed preferences', as termed by Paul Samuelson , were revealed e.g. in people's willingness to pay: Utility is assumed to be correlative to Desire or Want. It has been argued already that desires cannot be measured directly, but only indirectly, by

1525-463: Is released, the greater intolerance one has for valuing and accepting productive and rewarding action. This desensitization leads to dulling of the neural patterns and affects negatively the anterior insula of the brain responsible for risk perception . ADHD specialists say engaging in multiple activities can cause behavioral problems such as attention/focus failure, perfectionism , and pessimism . In these circumstances, laziness can manifest as

1586-448: Is the result of people focusing on the pleasant immediate effects of their actions rather than potentially more positive long-term consequences. Others note that humans seem to have a tendency to seek after leisure. Hal Cranmer writes, "For all these arguments against laziness, it is amazing we work so hard to achieve it. Even those hard-working Puritans were willing to break their backs every day in exchange for an eternity of lying around on

1647-417: Is the slope of the indifference curve, which measures how much an individual is willing to switch from one good to another. Using a mathematic equation, M R S = − d x 2 / d x 1 {\displaystyle MRS=-\operatorname {d} \!x_{2}/\operatorname {d} \!x_{1}} keeping U ( x 1 , x 2 ) constant. Thus, MRS is how much an individual

1708-424: Is willing to pay for consuming a greater amount of x 1 . MRS is related to marginal utility. The relationship between marginal utility and MRS is: Expected utility theory deals with the analysis of choices among risky projects with multiple (possibly multidimensional) outcomes. The St. Petersburg paradox was first proposed by Nicholas Bernoulli in 1713 and solved by Daniel Bernoulli in 1738, although

1769-643: The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease sought to eradicate hookworm infestation from 11 southern U.S. states. Hookworms were popularly known as "the germ of laziness" because they produced listlessness and weakness in the people they infested. Hookworms infested 40 percent of southerners and were identified in the North as the cause of the South's alleged backwardness. It

1830-512: The Wisdom books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes , it is stated that laziness can lead to poverty ( Proverbs 10:4 , Ecclesiastes 10:18 ). According to Peter Binsfeld 's Binsfeld's Classification of Demons , Belphegor is thought to be its chief demon. The Arabic term used in the Quran for laziness, inactivity and sluggishness is كَسَل ( kasal ). The opposite of laziness is Jihad al-Nafs , i.e.

1891-432: The optimal attainable value of a given utility function, which depends on the prices of the goods and the income or wealth level that the individual possesses. One use of the indirect utility concept is the notion of the utility of money. The (indirect) utility function for money is a nonlinear function that is bounded and asymmetric about the origin. The utility function is concave in the positive region, representing

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1952-501: The Swiss mathematician Gabriel Cramer proposed taking the expectation of a square-root utility function of money in an 1728 letter to N. Bernoulli. D. Bernoulli argued that the paradox could be resolved if decision-makers displayed risk aversion and argued for a logarithmic cardinal utility function. (Analysis of international survey data during the 21st century has shown that insofar as utility represents happiness, as for utilitarianism , it

2013-428: The above example, it would only be possible to say that juice is preferred to tea to water. Thus, ordinal utility utilizes comparisons, such as "preferred to", "no more", "less than", etc. If a function u ( x ) {\displaystyle u(x)} is ordinal and non-negative, it is equivalent to the function u ( x ) 2 {\displaystyle u(x)^{2}} , because taking

2074-423: The assumption that utility can be measured by quantifiable characteristics, such as height, weight, temperature, etc. Neoclassical economics has largely retreated from using cardinal utility functions as the basis of economic behavior. A notable exception is in the context of analyzing choice with conditions of risk (see below ). Sometimes cardinal utility is used to aggregate utilities across persons, to create

2135-567: The combinations of commodity X and Y along the same indifference curve are regarded indifferently by individuals, which means all the combinations along an indifference curve result in the same value of utility. Individual utility and social utility can be construed as the value of a utility function and a social welfare function respectively. When coupled with production or commodity constraints, by some assumptions these functions can be used to analyze Pareto efficiency , such as illustrated by Edgeworth boxes in contract curves . Such efficiency

2196-402: The consumption set. If the consumer strictly prefers x to y or is indifferent between them, then u ( x ) ≥ u ( y ) {\displaystyle u(x)\geq u(y)} . For example, suppose a consumer's consumption set is X = {nothing, 1 apple,1 orange, 1 apple and 1 orange, 2 apples, 2 oranges}, and his utility function

2257-601: The curtailment of leisure. To work involves disutility ." Laziness in American literature is figured as a fundamental problem with social and spiritual consequences. In 1612 John Smith in his A Map of Virginia is seen using a jeremiad to address idleness. In the 1750s this sort of advocating reached its apex in literature. David Bertelson in The Lazy South (1767) expressed this as a substitution of "spiritual industry" over "patriotic industry". Writers like William Byrd went to

2318-565: The emptiness (spiritual sloth) of contemporary life, and come to rectify it with renewed spiritual resources. One of the Catholic seven deadly sins is sloth , which is often defined as spiritual and/or physical apathy or laziness. Sloth is discouraged in Hebrews 6:12 and 2 Thessalonians , and associated with wickedness in one of the parables of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew ( Matthew 25:26 ). In

2379-415: The essential convention of aimlessness and transcendence that connects the character. In 20th century the poor whites were portrayed in the grotesque caricatures of early southern laziness. In Flannery O'Connor 's Wise Blood (1952) and Good Country People (1955) she depicts spiritual backwardness as the cause for disinclination to work. The lack of any social function which could be valued equally with

2440-438: The function itself, and which plot the combination of commodities that an individual would accept to maintain a given level of satisfaction. Combining indifference curves with budget constraints allows for derivation of individual demand curves . A diagram of a general indifference curve is shown below (Figure 1). The vertical axes and the horizontal axes represent an individual's consumption of commodity Y and X respectively. All

2501-566: The function needs to be defined for fractional apples and oranges too. One function that would fit these numbers is u ( x apples , x oranges ) = x apples + 2 x oranges + 2 x apples x oranges . {\displaystyle u(x_{\text{apples}},x_{\text{oranges}})=x_{\text{apples}}+2x_{\text{oranges}}+2x_{\text{apples}}x_{\text{oranges}}.} Preferences have three main properties : Assume an individual has two choices, A and B. By ranking

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2562-401: The individual prefers bundle A to bundle C. (If a ≥ b and b ≥ c , then a ≥ c for all ( a , b , c )). If a bundle A contains all the goods that a bundle B contains, but A also contains more of at least one good than B, then the individual prefers A over B. If, for example, bundle A = {1 apple,2 oranges}, and bundle B = {1 apple,1 orange}, then A

2623-424: The major cause, with laziness coming in second. Laziness should not be confused with avolition , a negative symptom of certain mental and neurodevelopmental disorders such as depression , ADHD , ASD , sleep disorders , substance use disorders and schizophrenia . Laziness may reflect a lack of self-esteem , a lack of positive recognition by others, a lack of discipline stemming from low self-confidence, or

2684-731: The most preferred alternative is necessarily also selecting the alternative that maximizes the associated utility function. Suppose James has utility function U = x y {\displaystyle U={\sqrt {xy}}} such that x {\displaystyle x} is the number of apples and y {\displaystyle y} is the number of chocolates. Alternative A has x = 9 {\displaystyle x=9} apples and y = 16 {\displaystyle y=16} chocolates; alternative B has x = 13 {\displaystyle x=13} apples and y = 13 {\displaystyle y=13} chocolates. Putting

2745-484: The outcomes of choices are not known with certainty, but have probabilities associated with them. A notation for a lottery is as follows: if options A and B have probability p and 1 −  p in the lottery, we write it as a linear combination: More generally, for a lottery with many possible options: where ∑ i p i = 1 {\displaystyle \sum _{i}p_{i}=1} . By making some reasonable assumptions about

2806-467: The outward phenomena which they cause: and that in those cases with which economics is mainly concerned the measure is found by the price which a person is willing to pay for the fulfillment or satisfaction of his desire. Utility functions , expressing utility as a function of the amounts of the various goods consumed, are treated as either cardinal or ordinal , depending on whether they are or are not interpreted as providing more information than simply

2867-575: The phenomenon of diminishing marginal utility . The boundedness represents the fact that beyond a certain amount money ceases being useful at all, as the size of any economy at that time is itself bounded. The asymmetry about the origin represents the fact that gaining and losing money can have radically different implications both for individuals and businesses. The non-linearity of the utility function for money has profound implications in decision-making processes: in situations where outcomes of choices influence utility by gains or losses of money, which are

2928-459: The preference order is transitive . If the set of alternatives is not finite (for example because even if the number of goods is finite, the quantity chosen can be any real number on an interval) there exists a continuous utility function representing a consumer's preferences if and only if the consumer's preferences are complete, transitive and continuous. Utility can be represented through sets of indifference curve , which are level curves of

2989-437: The preferred bundle of goods or services in comparison to other bundles. They are only required to tell which bundles they prefer. When ordinal utilities are used, differences in utils (values assumed by the utility function) are treated as ethically or behaviorally meaningless: the utility index encodes a full behavioral ordering between members of a choice set, but tells nothing about the related strength of preferences . For

3050-459: The properties of the agent's preference relation over 'simple lotteries', which are lotteries with just two options. Writing B ⪯ A {\displaystyle B\preceq A} to mean 'A is weakly preferred to B' ('A is preferred at least as much as B'), the axioms are: Axioms 3 and 4 enable us to decide about the relative utilities of two assets or lotteries. In more formal language: A von Neumann–Morgenstern utility function

3111-520: The quantity of one good consumed is termed the marginal utility of that good. Marginal utility therefore measures the slope of the utility function with respect to the changes of one good. Marginal utility usually decreases with consumption of the good, the idea of "diminishing marginal utility". In calculus notation, the marginal utility of good X is M U x = ∂ U ∂ X {\displaystyle MU_{x}={\frac {\partial U}{\partial X}}} . When

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3172-569: The rank ordering of preferences among bundles of goods, such as information concerning the strength of preferences. Cardinal utility states that the utilities obtained from consumption can be measured and ranked objectively and are representable by numbers. There are fundamental assumptions of cardinal utility. Economic agents should be able to rank different bundles of goods based on their own preferences or utilities, and also sort different transitions of two bundles of goods. A cardinal utility function can be transformed to another utility function by

3233-449: The second, then the consumption set is X = R + 2 {\displaystyle X=\mathbb {R} _{+}^{2}} and u (0, 0) = 0, u (1, 0) = 1, u (0, 1) = 2, u (1, 1) = 5, u (2, 0) = 2, u (0, 2) = 4 as before. For u to be a utility function on  X , however, it must be defined for every package in  X , so now

3294-537: The society, values of work were re-written; stigmatization of idleness was overthrown with glamorous notions. John Pendleton Kennedy was a prominent writer in romanticizing sloth and slavery: in Swallow Barn (1832) he equated idleness and its flow as living in oneness with nature. Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) contrasts realist and romantic perspective of "laziness" and calls attention to

3355-710: The square is an increasing monotone (or monotonic) transformation . This means that the ordinal preference induced by these functions is the same (although they are two different functions). In contrast, if u ( x ) {\displaystyle u(x)} is cardinal, it is not equivalent to u ( x ) 2 {\displaystyle u(x)^{2}} . In order to simplify calculations, various alternative assumptions have been made concerning details of human preferences, and these imply various alternative utility functions such as: Most utility functions used for modeling or theory are well-behaved. They are usually monotonic and quasi-concave. However, it

3416-482: The struggle against the self, against one's own ego. Among the five pillars of Islam , praying five times a day and fasting during Ramaḍān are part of actions against laziness. In Buddhism, the term kausīdya is commonly translated as "laziness" or "spiritual sloth". Kausīdya is defined as clinging to unwholesome activities such as lying down and stretching out, procrastinating, and not being enthusiastic about or engaging in virtuous activity. From 1909 to 1915,

3477-458: The two choices, one and only one of the following relationships is true: an individual strictly prefers A (A > B); an individual strictly prefers B (B>A); an individual is indifferent between A and B (A = B). Either a ≥ b OR b ≥ a (OR both) for all ( a , b ) Individuals' preferences are consistent over bundles. If an individual prefers bundle A to bundle B, and prefers bundle B to bundle C, then it can be assumed that

3538-456: The utility function characterizing that agent, the expected utility of L 2 {\displaystyle L_{2}} is greater than the expected utility of L 1 {\displaystyle L_{1}} : Of all the axioms, independence is the most often discarded. A variety of generalized expected utility theories have arisen, most of which omit or relax the independence axiom. An indirect utility function gives

3599-403: The values x , y {\displaystyle x,y} into the utility function yields 9 × 16 = 12 {\displaystyle {\sqrt {9\times 16}}=12} for alternative A and 13 × 13 = 13 {\displaystyle {\sqrt {13\times 13}}=13} for B, so James prefers alternative B. In general economic terms,

3660-423: The way choices behave, von Neumann and Morgenstern showed that if an agent can choose between the lotteries, then this agent has a utility function such that the desirability of an arbitrary lottery can be computed as a linear combination of the utilities of its parts, with the weights being their probabilities of occurring. This is termed the expected utility theorem . The required assumptions are four axioms about

3721-796: Was alleged that indolence was the reason for backward conditions in Indonesia , such as the failure to implement Green Revolution agricultural methods. But a counter-argument is that the Indonesians, living very precariously, sought to play it safe by not risking a failed crop, given that not all experiments introduced by outsiders had been successful. It is common for animals (even those like hummingbirds that have high energy needs) to forage for food until satiated, and then spend most of their time doing nothing, or at least nothing in particular. They seek to " satisfice " their needs rather than obtaining an optimal diet or habitat. Even diurnal animals, which have

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