High boredom proneness and low trait self-control impair adherence to social distancing guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic

Wolff, Wanja; Martarelli, Corinna S.; Schüler, Julia; Bieleke, Maik

doi:10.31234/osf.io/jcf95

Cited by 41 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Indeed, trait boredom is associated with psychological difficulties (e.g., drug abuse, depression, anxiety, binge eating) [40,41]. However, some recent functional approaches have also suggested that boredom constitutes a key signal to change behavior by orientating humans to try to find a more satisfying situation [42]. In the context of lockdown, one may therefore wonder what influence this feeling of boredom has on the development of pro-social behaviors or on compliance with the containment situation in the short or longer term (does it only result in bad things or also in good things?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time and Covid-19 stress in the lockdown situation: Time free, «Dying» of boredom and sadness

et al. 2020

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A lockdown of people has been used as an efficient public health measure to fight against the exponential spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and allows the health system to manage the number of patients. The aim of this study (clinicaltrials.gov NCT 0430818) was to evaluate the impact of both perceived stress aroused by Covid-19 and of emotions triggered by the lockdown situation on the individual experience of time. A large sample of the French population responded to a survey on their experience of the passage of time during the lockdown compared to before the lockdown. The perceived stress resulting from Covid-19 and stress at work and home were also assessed, as were the emotions felt. The results showed that people have experienced a slowing down of time during the lockdown. This time experience was not explained by the levels of perceived stress or anxiety, although these were considerable, but rather by the increase in boredom and sadness felt in the lockdown situation. The increased anger and fear of death only explained a small part of variance in the time judgment. The conscious experience of time therefore reflected the psychological difficulties experienced during lockdown and was not related to their perceived level of stress or anxiety.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time and Covid-19 stress in the lockdown situation: Time free, «Dying» of boredom and sadness

et al. 2020

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“…Third, our results indicate that those who were inactive during a lockdown, had worse SWB compared to others. This is important as dampened mood states are associated with less self-control which in itself is shown to be an important determinant of complying with restrictive rules such as social distancing ( Martarelli and Wolff, 2020 ; Wolff et al, 2020 ). Therefore, policy makers can use these results and promote exercise and physical activity in their countries to be able to benefit from its positive effects on mood under similar lockdown restrictions in the future.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Pandemic Hits: Exercise Frequency and Subjective Well-Being During COVID-19 Pandemic

2020

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The governmental lockdowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic have forced people to change their behavior in many ways including changes in exercise. We used the brief window of global lockdown in the months of March/April/May 2020 as an opportunity to investigate the effects of externally imposed restrictions on exercise-related routines and related changes in subjective well-being. Statistical analyses are based on data from 13,696 respondents in 18 countries using a cross-sectional online survey. A mixed effects modeling approach was used to analyze data. We tested whether exercise frequency before and during the pandemic would influence mood during the pandemic. Additionally, we used the COVID-19 pandemic data to build a prediction model, while controlling for national differences, to estimate changes in exercise frequency during similar future lockdown conditions depending on prelockdown exercise frequency. According to the prediction model, those who rarely exercise before a lockdown tend to increase their exercise frequency during it, and those who are frequent exercisers before a lockdown tend to maintain it. With regards to subjective well-being, the data show that those who exercised almost every day during this pandemic had the best mood, regardless of whether or not they exercised prepandemic. Those who were inactive prepandemic and slightly increased their exercise frequency during the pandemic, reported no change in mood compared to those who remained inactive during the pandemic. Those who reduced their exercise frequency during the pandemic reported worse mood compared to those who maintained or increased their prepandemic exercise frequency. This study suggests that under similar lockdown conditions, about two thirds of those who never or rarely exercise before a lockdown might adopt an exercise behavior or increase their exercise frequency. However, such changes do not always immediately result in improvement in subjective well-being. These results may inform national policies, as well as health behavior and exercise psychology research on the importance of exercise promotion, and prediction of changes in exercise behavior during future pandemics.

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“…Attesting to the existence of such a link in the exercise context, one recent study showed that high trait self-control and low boredom proneness form part of a latent personality profile that was linked to more regular exercise, whereas a profile with lower self-control and higher boredom proneness was linked with considerably lower exercise levels 25 . Further evidence on the proposed interplay between boredom proneness and self-control comes from recent research on adherence to the social distancing guidelines amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic [52][53][54][55] . In line with the above propositions, boredom proneness was linked to less adherence and this effect was mediated by the perceived difficulty to comply with social distancing guidelines 54 .…”

Section: Self-control and Boredom Are Tightly Associatedmentioning

confidence: 99%

A primer on the role of boredom in self-controlled sports and exercise behavior

Wolff¹,

Bieleke²,

Martarelli³

et al. 2020

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Self-control is critical for successful participation and performance in sports and therefore has attracted considerable research interest. Yet, knowledge about self-control remains surprisingly incomplete and inconsistent. Here, we draw attention to boredom as an experience that likely plays an important role in sports and exercise (e.g., exercise can be perceived as boring but can also be used to alleviate boredom). Specifically, we argue that studying boredom in the context of sports and exercise will also advance our understanding of self-control as a reward-based choice. We demonstrate this by discussing evidence for links between self-control and boredom and by highlighting the role boredom plays for guiding goal-directed behavior. As such, boredom is likely to interact with self-control in affecting sports performance and exercise participation. We close by highlighting several promising routes for integrating self-control and boredom research in the context of sports performance and exercise behavior.

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High boredom proneness and low trait self-control impair adherence to social distancing guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic

Cited by 41 publications

References 2 publications

Time and Covid-19 stress in the lockdown situation: Time free, «Dying» of boredom and sadness

Time and Covid-19 stress in the lockdown situation: Time free, «Dying» of boredom and sadness

When Pandemic Hits: Exercise Frequency and Subjective Well-Being During COVID-19 Pandemic

A primer on the role of boredom in self-controlled sports and exercise behavior

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