Richard Zwicky interviews social psychologist Dr. Andre Walton, who proposes a provocative redefinition of burnout, asserting that it is primarily caused by how we think rather than simply by workload or being restricted to workplace stress.
Dr. Walton explains that burnout stems from “thinking too narrowly,” which suppresses the core human drive for creative thought. Adults, trained to be efficient, often default to analytical and convergent thinking, which is the opposite of the divergent thinking required to see all options.
This analytical rut is worsened by chronic stress, leading to the social science phenomenon of “seizing and freezing,” where individuals cling to the first available option and fail to search for new possibilities, making them rigid and less innovative.