Boredom begs to differ: Differentiation from other negative emotions.

Abstract

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.The authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. All authors consented to the submission of this manuscript. AbstractBoredom research is booming. Nonetheless, a comprehensive understanding of boredom in relation to other negative emotions is lacking. This ambiguity impedes accurate interpretation of boredom's causes and consequences. To gain more insights into boredom, we examined in detail how it differs from a range of other negative experiences, namely sadness, anger, frustration, fear, disgust, depression, guilt, shame, regret, and disappointment. Our research indicates that the appraisals associated with boredom distinguish it clearly from other negative emotions; conceptually (Study 1), in terms of state experiences (Study 2), and in terms of individual differences in these experiences (Study 3). Our findings suggest that boredom is mild in negative valence, low in arousal, is associated with low perceived challenge, low perceived meaningfulness, and has low relevance to moral judgment and behavior. Boredom also involves low attention given to situations and tasks, and the lack of perceived meaningfulness and attention associated with boredom emerged as particularly distinctive characteristics. The findings underscore the importance of carefully discriminating boredom from other emotions in experimental induction, psychometric assessment, and conceptual discussion.

On Boredom and Perceptions of Heroes: A Meaning-Regulation Approach to Heroism

“…Boredom seems to be a state of low arousal (Smith & Ellsworth, 1985) and distinctive in the way it is expressed (see Walbott, 1998). In line with earlier conceptualizations, in the current study we stress that boredom is comprised of a lack of perceived meaning and challenge, and that it comes with a desire to disengage from current activities (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011b, 2016b.…”

“…In the last decade, however, boredom received more thorough empirical study (for a discussion see Van Tilburg & Igou, 2016b). Besides the development of boredom measures (e.g., Leong & Schneller, 1993;Vodanovich, 2003;Fahlman et al, 2013) and the documentation of clinical and social correlates of boredom (e.g., Blaszczynski, McConaghy, & Frankova, 1990;Dahlen, Martin, Ragan, & Kuhlman, 2004;Kass, Vodanovich, & Callender, 2001;Watt & Vodanovich, 1999), research has offered various definitions and descriptions of boredom experiences.…”

“…The focus of this research is on the self-regulatory processes triggered by boredom experiences, directed at counteracting the negative repercussions of its causes (e.g., Sansone, Weir, Harpster, & Morgan, 1992). In particular, through emotionally signaling a lack of challenge and meaning at hand, boredom triggers attempts directed at finding meaning in activities, and life in general (e.g., Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011, 2016a, 2016b. That is, boredom spurs attempts aimed at overcoming an acute lack of meaning.…”

“…The sequence of variables of the model was based on theoretical assumptions of our meaning-regulation approach and on earlier correlational and experimental studies in which several of the partial sequences of our model have been empirically supported (e.g., Fahlman et al, 2009;Kinsella et al, 2015aKinsella et al, , 2015bVan Tilburg & Igou, 2011, 2016c). Specifically, we tested whether boredom proneness, typically associated with low presence of meaning in life (e.g., Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011b, 2016b, predicted hero affirmation positively via search for meaning in life. Further, we tested whether perceptions of heroes are positively related to presence of meaning in life (e.g., Bronk & Riches, 2017;Green et al, 2017;Kinsella et al, 2017), and whether boredom proneness would, in turn, decrease via increased presence of meaning in life.…”

Boring Thoughts and Bored Minds: The MAC Model of Boredom and Cognitive Engagement

“…Examples include simple, repetitive tasks that require little to no thought or attention (Cox, 1980;Markey, Chin, Vanepps, & Loewenstein, 2014) and vigilance tasks that require constant attention but little variety (Hunter & Eastwood, 2016;Markey et al, 2014;Thackray et al, 1977). Posner et al (2005) define boredom as low arousal caused by insufficient external stimulation, and van Tilburg and Igou (2016a) argue that low arousal is one of the key components that differentiates boredom from related emotions.…”