The Routledge International Handbook of Boredom (Routledge International Handbooks) [1 ed.] 1032221860, 9781032221861

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THE ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF BOREDOM

This comprehensive text is a unique handbook dedicated to research on boredom. The book brings together leading contributors from across three continents and numerous fields to provide an interdisciplinary exploration of boredom, its theoretical underpinnings, its experiential properties, and the applied contexts in which it occurs. Boredom is often viewed as a mental state with little utility, though recent research suggests that it can be a powerful motivator of human behavior that shapes our actions in many ways. The book examines boredom from a range of perspectives and is comprised of three parts. Part I delves into the theoretical approaches to boredom, presenting methods for its measurement, explaining when and why boredom occurs, and scrutinizing the impact it has on our behavior. Part II focuses on the psychological and neural properties of boredom and its associations with a multitude of mental and interpersonal processes, such as self-control, mind-wandering, flow, and aggression. Part III presents boredom in practical contexts like school and work, and sheds light on its role for health-related behaviors, psychosocial well-being, and aesthetic experiences. The book concludes by summarizing the state of boredom research, identifying promising areas for future research, and providing directions for how research on boredom can be advanced. As the authoritative book on boredom, this handbook is an essential resource for students and researchers of psychology, sociology, education, sport science, and computer science. Maik Bieleke received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Konstanz (Germany), where he currently works as a senior researcher. He focuses on motivation, effort, and performance, with an emphasis on the interplay of self-control and boredom as guiding signals of human behavior. Dr. Wanja Wolff studied psychology at the University of Konstanz, earned his doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Potsdam, and has then worked as a senior researcher at the University of Konstanz. Since 2024, he is a Professor for Sport Psychology at the University of Hamburg where he heads the Dynamics of Human Performance Regulation Laboratory (DHPRL). The DHPRL uses psychological, neuroscientific, and physiological methods to investigate how people regulate performance in different contexts. Corinna S. Martarelli received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Bern (Switzerland). She is currently Associate Professor for Methods and Statistics at the Faculty of Psychology of UniDistance Suisse. She carries out research in the field of cognitive psychology in the areas of memory and learning, with a focus on boredom and mind-wandering.

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THE ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF BOREDOM

Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff and Corinna S. Martarelli

Cover image: Created with the assistance of DALL·E 2 First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, & Corinna S. Martarelli; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, & Corinna S. Martarelli to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-22186-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-22200-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-27153-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003271536 Typeset in Galliard by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors

viii x xi

  1 Boredom is not boring Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, and Corinna S. Martarelli

1

PART I

Foundations3   2 Same same but different: what is boredom actually? Wanja Wolff , Vanessa C. Radtke, and Corinna S. Martarelli

5

  3 Methodological approaches to boredom and its measurement Corinna S. Martarelli and Nathanael S. Jost

30

  4 The nature and value of boredom Andreas Elpidorou

46

  5 The function of boredom: driving us to explore the new and different Noah T. Reed, Nazim Asani, Van Dang, and Heather C. Lench

64

  6 Boredom: a Control-Value Theory approach Reinhard Pekrun and Thomas Goetz

74

v

Contents

  7 Boredom and the quest for meaning Eric R. Igou, Muireann K. O’Dea, Katy Y. Y. Tam, and Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg   8 A brief history of the psychology of boredom Josefa Ros Velasco

90

106

PART II

Correlates131   9 On the virtues of fragile self-control: boredom as a catalyst for adaptive behavior regulation Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, and Alex Bertrams

133

10 Mind-wandering as an exploratory response to boredom Corinna S. Martarelli and Ambroise Baillifard

145

11 Flow as an experience beyond boredom David Weibel and Bartholomäus Wissmath

163

12 Boredom on the brain: what can neuroimaging tell us about boredom? Allison Drody, Ofir Yakobi, and James Danckert

178

13 Boredom proneness Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg, Christian S. Chan, Andrew B. Moynihan, and Eric R. Igou

191

14 On the relation of boredom and aggression Christine Emilie Tonne Artak and Stefan Pfattheicher

211

PART III

Contexts223 15 Academic boredom Thomas Goetz, Lisa Stempfer, Reinhard Pekrun, Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg, and Anastasiya A. Lipnevich

225

16 Boredom at work: a systematic review of the causes and consequences of work‑related boredom Edwin A. J. van Hooft and Madelon L. M. van Hooff

250

17 Adolescent boredom in leisure: risks and opportunities for healthy development Elizabeth Weybright and Linda L. Caldwell

280

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Contents

18 Boredom, food consumption, and weight Asli Erdemli and Géraldine Coppin

298

19 Boredom in sports and exercise Wanja Wolff , Christian Weich, and Ursula Fischer

315

20 Boredom and the psychosocial well-being of persons experiencing homelessness Carrie Anne Marshall 21 Aesthetic boredom Aenne Brielmann and Peter Dayan

332 349

22 Boredom intervention: recommendations, experiences, and preliminary evidence Virginia Tze, Patti Parker, and Lia Daniels

366

23 Overview of current directions in boredom research Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, Corinna S. Martarelli, Christine Emilie Tonne Artak, Nazim Asani, Ambroise Baillifard, Alex Bertrams, Aenne Brielmann, Linda L. Caldwell, Christian S. Chan, Géraldine Coppin, James Danckert, Van Dang, Lia Daniels, Peter Dayan, Allison Drody, Andreas Elpidorou, Asli Erdemli, Ursula Fischer, Thomas Goetz, Eric R. Igou, Nathanael S. Jost, Heather C. Lench, Anastasiya A. Lipnevich, Carrie Anne Marshall, Andrew B. Moynihan, Muireann K. O’Dea, Patti Parker, Reinhard Pekrun, Stefan Pfattheicher, Vanessa C. Radtke, Noah T. Reed, Josefa Ros Velasco, Lisa Stempfer, Katy Y. Y. Tam, Virginia Tze, Madelon L. M. van Hooff, Edwin A. J. van Hooft, Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg, David Weibel, Christian Weich, Elizabeth Weybright, Bartholomäus Wissmath, and Ofir Yakobi

382

Index

392

vii

FIGURES

2.1 Schematic and non-exhaustive Venn diagram of the overlapping organism’s preferences, capabilities (defining the objective action space), and perceived energy levels (defining the actual action space). 10 3.1 Overview of boredom measures. 32 6.1 Control-Value Theory and boredom: overview of propositions. 76 9.1 According to the EVC theory, the intensity of the control signal is selected such that the expected value of control (EVC) is maximized, thereby optimally solving the tradeoff between the value and the costs associated with a given signal strength. 136 9.2 While the distribution of EVCs across all potential activities likely fluctuates considerably within and across individuals, there might be systematic differences. 139 10.1 Boredom and different types of thought. 152 10.2 A graphical representation of the interaction between timepoint (nine visiting rooms) and boredom with spontaneous mind-wandering as dependent variable (N = 66). 154 10.3 A graphical representation of the interaction between timepoint (nine visiting rooms) and boredom with deliberate mind-wandering as dependent variable (N = 66). 155 11.1 The flow channel, illustrating the relationship between difficulty and skill. 168 13.1 Trait boredom and the pragmatic meaning-regulation hypothesis. 198 13.2 Trait boredom and the meaning and attention model. 199 13.3 Trait boredom and the boredom feedback model. 200 15.1 Relative numbers of publications on academic boredom per 10,000 publications listed in PsycInfo and ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) databases. 226 15.2 Components of boredom. 227 15.3 Theoretical assumptions about the antecedents of achievement boredom. 231 17.1 Mediation analysis of HealthWise intervention. 291 20.1 A conceptual model of boredom and its consequences during and following homelessness.339 21.1 Schematic illustration of a computational model of aesthetic value. 355 viii

Figures

21.2 Example illustration of how boredom arises in a computational model of aesthetic value. 22.1 Conceptualization of boredom as a multi-faceted emotion, according to CVT. 22.2 Framework for boredom intervention: CB and ER mapped onto CVT. 22.3 Sample screenshots of various components of the BIT intervention. 22.4 Knowledge-based test frequencies reported pre- and post-psychoeducational video.

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356 367 371 374 375

TABLES

10.1 15.1 15.2 16.1 16.2 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4

Aspects of boredom and mind-wandering. 150 Self-reported measures of academic boredom. 236 Classification of students’ strategies for coping with boredom. 238 Systematic review of findings of consequences of trait boredom and job/ momentary boredom in samples of individual workers/employees. 255 Systematic review of findings of antecedents of job/momentary boredom in samples of individual workers/employees. 263 One-sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests for indices of boredom, meaningful activity, and psychosocial well-being. 336 Correlations between EMAS and MSBS with measures of psychosocial well-being.337 Mann–Whitney U tests comparing housed and unhoused participants on indices of psychosocial well-being. 337 Ten capabilities in Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach. 341

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CONTRIBUTORS

Christine Emilie Tonne Artak is a Ph.D. fellow at the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences at Aarhus University, Denmark. Here, she investigates the effects and characteristics of boredom with a specific focus on the experience of new parents and the consumption of aggressive, morbid media content. Nazim Asani is a social and personality psychology Ph.D. candidate at Texas A&M University, USA. His research focuses on the functionality of emotions, with an emphasis on boredom and coping strategies. Ambroise Baillifard received his master’s degree in psychology at UniDistance Suisse. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Bern (Switzerland). He is involved in various research projects at the crossroads of cognitive and educational psychology. Alex Bertrams received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Mannheim, Germany. Currently, he is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. His research focuses on self-control and dark-personality motivation. Maik Bieleke received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Konstanz, Germany, where he currently works as a postdoctoral researcher. His research focuses on the self-regulation of performance and decision-making, with an emphasis on the interplay of self-control and boredom as guiding signals of human behavior. Aenne Brielmann received their Ph.D. in psychology from New York University, USA. They currently work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. Their research focuses on the valuation of sensory experiences with a particular emphasis on vision. Linda L. Caldwell, Ph.D. is Distinguished Professor Emerita, Penn State University, USA. Her research focuses on promoting healthy youth development through leisure.

xi

Contributors

Christian S. Chan is Associate Professor at The University of Hong Kong and International Christian University in Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from University of Massachusetts Boston, USA. Géraldine Coppin received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She did her postdoctoral studies at Yale University (USA) and Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research (Germany). She is a professor in psychology at UniDistance Suisse since 2018. Her research focuses on preferences and choices related to odors, flavors, and food intake in both healthy-weight individuals and people with obesity. James Danckert received his Ph.D. in psychology from LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He has been a professor in the cognitive neuroscience area since 2002 at the University of Waterloo (Canada), where his research focuses on characterizing the behavioral and neural correlates of trait boredom proneness. Van Dang is a fourth-year graduate student in the clinical psychology program at Texas A&M University (USA). Her research interests include examining potential mechanisms underlying affective forecasting biases in individuals with elevated symptoms of anxiety. Lia Daniels, Ph.D., is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Alberta (Canada). Her research focuses on emotions and motivation across a range of achievement contexts including school, sport, and psychological services. Her current interests bring the field of motivation and emotions together with classroom assessment in higher education with the intention to center student well-being. Peter Dayan is a director at the MPI for Biological Cybernetics and a professor at the University of Tübingen (Germany). His interests include affective decision-making, neural reinforcement learning and computational psychiatry. Allison Drody is a Ph.D. candidate in the cognitive neuroscience area at the University of Waterloo (Canada), where she investigates the influence of mind-wandering and boredom on real-world behaviors including media multitasking. Andreas Elpidorou is a professor of philosophy at the University of Louisville (USA). He specializes in the philosophical study of human emotions and has published extensively on the character of boredom. His most recent book, Propelled: How Boredom, Frustration, and Anticipation Lead Us to the Good Life, explores how negative emotions and states of discontent can help us live a more flourishing life. Asli Erdemli is currently doing her Ph.D. in neurosciences at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), where she previously earned her master’s degree in affective psychology. She works as a teaching assistant for the “Psychologie de l’émotion et de la motivation” course at UniDistance Suisse since 2022. Her research focuses on the predictors and neural basis of epistemic emotions with an emphasis on curiosity and interest. Ursula Fischer received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Tübingen (Germany). Following her previous position as a junior professor for development and intervention in early childhood at the University of Konstanz (Germany), she is now working as a senior lecturer at xii

Contributors

the University of Teacher Education in Special Needs in Zurich (Switzerland). In her research, she focuses mainly on the interplay between children’s cognitive and motor skills. Specifically, she is interested in how physical experiences contribute to children’s cognitive, socio-emotional, and motivational development. Thomas Goetz is a full professor and head of the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology (Faculty of Psychology) at the University of Vienna (Austria). His main research interest is emotions in education, with a particular focus on academic boredom. In a 2022 analysis published by Fong et  al. in Educational Psychology Review, he was ranked as one of the world’s most productive researchers in educational psychology journals for 2015–2021. Eric R. Igou is an experimental social psychologist with expertise in social cognition and in particular in affect and cognition, social judgment effects, and decision-making. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), followed by postdoctoral studies at New York University (USA) and the New School University (USA). He became a Lecturer at Tilburg University (Netherlands) in 2004 and then joined the University of Limerick (Ireland) in 2008. He has served as Head of Department for more than six years since joining UL, developed two master’s programs, and supervised a number of Ph.D. students who developed outstanding careers. Nathanael S. Jost graduated from the University of Bern (Switzerland) in psychology and from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland) in applied information and data science. He works as a research associate at the faculty of psychology of UniDistance Suisse in the lab of Corinna S. Martarelli. He conducts research in cognitive psychology, including boredom, mind-wandering, and eye-tracking methodology. Heather C. Lench is an internationally recognized expert in the psychological processes that shape how people think and behave. She is currently a professor at Texas A&M University (USA) in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and Senior Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs. There, she directs the Emotion Science Lab that focuses on giving people the tools to use their emotions. Anastasiya A. Lipnevich is a full professor of educational psychology at Queens College (USA) and the Graduate Center, City University of New York (USA). Her research interests include instructional feedback, emotions, and the role of psychosocial characteristics in individuals’ academic and life achievement. Carrie Anne Marshall is an assistant professor and director of the Social Justice in Mental Health Research Lab at Western University in London, Ontario (Canada). Her research focuses on intersections between poverty and mental health, with a particular focus on homelessness. Dr. Marshall has a particular interest in the time use and meaningful activity engagement patterns of persons living in housing precarity in high-income countries. This research includes a focus on boredom and its relationship with indices of psychosocial well-being during and following homelessness. Corinna S. Martarelli received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Bern (Switzerland). She is currently associate professor for methods and statistics at the faculty of psychology xiii

Contributors

of UniDistance Suisse. She carries out research in the field of cognitive psychology, in the areas of memory and learning with a focus on boredom and mind-wandering. Andrew B. Moynihan received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Limerick (Ireland), where he is currently a lecturer. His research focuses on how people engage in hedonic and interpersonal behaviors to escape from threats to meaning in life (e.g., boredom). Muireann K. O’Dea is a Ph.D. researcher in psychology at the University of Limerick (Ireland). Her research focuses on the reduction and prevention of boredom through increasing meaning. In particular, her research focuses on how self-transcendent emotions, like awe and gratitude, can reduce boredom by increasing perceptions of meaning in life. Patti Parker received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Manitoba (Canada). She currently holds an assistant professor position at Thompson Rivers University (Canada). Patti’s research focuses on supporting individuals in terms of promoting adaptive cognitive beliefs, emotions, and motivation when managing significant setbacks. Reinhard Pekrun received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich (Germany). He is professor for psychology at the University of Essex (United Kingdom) and professorial fellow at the Institute of Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University (Australia). He is a highly cited scientist who pioneered research on emotions in education, originated the Control-Value Theory of achievement emotions, and has authored 24 books and more than 350 articles and chapters. Stefan Pfattheicher is an associate professor of psychology and behavioral science at Aarhus University (Denmark). His research explores factors that promote and prevent pro- and antisocial behavior. This includes investigating of how boredom promotes aggression, while considering individual differences in personality and motivations. Vanessa C. Radtke is a Ph.D. student in psychology at the University of Bern (Switzerland). She is a researcher at the University of Konstanz (Germany) and at the UniDistance Suisse. Her research focuses on psychological, neuronal, and physiological temporal dynamics of boredom and self-control. Noah T. Reed is a social psychology Ph.D. student at Yale University (USA). He is interested in the interpersonal functions of emotions and how experiencing and expressing emotion affects close relationships. His interests also extend to areas like social energy expenditure, belonging, and interpersonal emotion regulation. Josefa Ros Velasco is a MSCA postdoctoral researcher at the Complutense University (Spain), where she also received her Ph.D. in philosophy in 2017. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University (USA). She is a specialist in boredom studies with a focus on the experience of boredom in older adults. She is also the president of the International Society of Boredom Studies. In 2022, Ros Velasco published her book The Disease of Boredom. Lisa Stempfer is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology (Faculty of Psychology) at the University of Vienna (Austria). Her research interest

xiv

Contributors

is the role of emotions in achievement contexts, especially in the educational setting. In her dissertation, she elaborates on the relationship between boredom and performance. Katy Y. Y. Tam completed her joint Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Hong Kong and King’s College London (UK) in 2022. She is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto (Canada). Her research focuses on boredom, emotion, and technology use. She is interested in studying what helps people regulate boredom adaptively in this increasingly distracting world. Virginia Tze is an associate professor at the University of Manitoba (Canada). The overarching theme of her research focuses on social-emotional learning and skills. Her current research studies the impact of boredom on learning, and her research team is developing an intervention to alleviate this emotion. Madelon L. M. van Hooff received her Ph.D. in work and organizational psychology from the Radboud University (Netherlands) and currently works as an associate professor at the Open Universiteit (Netherlands). Her research primarily focuses on employee well-being, with a specific emphasis on (recovery from) work stress, work-related boredom, hybrid working, and sustainable employability. Edwin A. J. van Hooft received his Ph.D. in work and organizational psychology from the VU University Amsterdam (Netherlands) and is currently full professor at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands). His research focuses on motivation and self-regulation processes in achievement settings. Specific topics include self-regulation during career decision-making, job search and reemployment, work-related boredom, mental health at work, job insecurity, learning goal orientation, self-control, and procrastination. Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg is an experimental social psychologist. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Limerick (Ireland), followed by postdoc and lecturer (assistant professor) posts at the University of Limerick, University of Southampton (UK), and King’s College London (UK). He joined the University of Essex (UK) in November 2019 and currently is a senior lecturer. His research interests include emotion, decision-making, and quantitative methods. David Weibel works as a lecturer at the Department of Psychology at University of Bern (Switzerland). His main research interests are human experience and behavior in mediated environments and immersion in other worlds. He focuses on topics such as the illusion of being in a virtual reality (presence), flow experiences, creative and imaginative fantasy, and the influence of individual factors on immersive experiences. Christian Weich received his Ph.D. in sports science from the University of Konstanz (Germany), in cooperation with the Northern Michigan University (USA). During his research years, mainly at the University of Konstanz, he focused on analyses of cyclic human motion in competitive sports and rehabilitation. Furthermore, he was also engaged in projects on performance physiology and boredom in the context of sport activities, especially in ultra-running events. As an experienced and ambitious athlete, it has always been important to him to translate his research results into practical applications.

xv

Contributors

Elizabeth Weybright, Ph.D. is an associate professor in human development and an adolescent extension specialist at Washington State University (USA). Her research focuses on understanding and disseminating effective adolescent health promotion and prevention approaches. Bartholomäus Wissmath manages the research company w hoch 2 and is an associated lecturer at the Department of Psychology at University of Bern (Switzerland). His passion is applying research methods and statistics in practical contexts such as healthcare, government, sport, health promotion, and tourism. His academic work focuses on human experiences and behavior in the context of real, imagined, and virtual environments. When he is not immersed in research or work, he often escapes feelings of boredom by riding motorcycles, kickboxing, cooking, traveling, or volunteering as an emergency psychologist. Dr. Wanja Wolff studied psychology at the University of Konstanz, earned his doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Potsdam, and has then worked as a senior researcher at the University of Konstanz. Since 2024, he is a Professor for Sport Psychology at the University of Hamburg where he heads the Dynamics of Human Performance Regulation Laboratory (DHPRL). The DHPRL uses psychological, neuroscientific, and physiological methods to investigate how people regulate performance in different contexts. Ofir Yakobi received his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the Technion (Israel). He was a postdoctoral fellow in James Danckert’s lab at the University of Waterloo (Canada). Currently, he is working as a researcher and data scientist in industry.

xvi

1 BOREDOM IS NOT BORING Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, and Corinna S. Martarelli

Experience shows that escape from boredom is one of the really powerful desires of almost all human beings. —Bertrand Russell (1950) in his Nobel Lecture

Almost everyone is bored sometimes. But despite the fact that boredom is a frequent experience in everyday life, people tend to treat boredom as a more or less aversive nuisance that does not warrant further interest or consideration. However, more and more research suggests that boredom matters more than it tends to get credit for and that it has powerful effects on human behavior. But how? Boredom is understood to signal the need to change something about one’s current situation by interrupting the focus of attention and spurring people to “do something else”. If this call to action remains unanswered, boredom is experienced as an aversive state that people try to avoid and escape. This makes boredom an immensely powerful motivator of human behavior, eloquently emphasized in the introductory quote by philosopher and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell. While great minds such as Bertrand Russel, Seneca, or Leo Tolstoy understood and expressed the importance of boredom for human behavior, behavioral science research has only recently started to focus on boredom as worthwhile research topic. This rise in boredom research has led to an accumulation of insights into the prevalence of boredom and its key role for human behavior. This booming interest in boredom is reflected in an ever-growing number of articles and special issues devoted to the theoretical underpinnings and phenomenology of boredom, its position in nomological networks of established constructs, and the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of boredom in applied contexts. While boredom research had already been on the rise before the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to better understand boredom, and the consequences of being bored, became even more evident during this time. To illustrate this boom, an analysis of PubMed—one of the most important databases for life sciences and biomedical research—conducted by the magazine Discover showed that boredom research had increased by about 30% in 2020 compared to 2019, making it the third fastest-growing topic during this time. Highlighting the public interest in boredom throughout the pandemic, numerous newspapers and podcasts around the world published dedicated content on boredom. While DOI: 10.4324/9781003271536-1

1

Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, and Corinna S. Martarelli

the public interest in boredom waned and waxed with COVID-19 restrictions, the interest of researchers turned out be much more than a fleeting trend. For instance, the attention to boredom has been consolidated by the foundation of the International Society of Boredom Studies (ISBS; www.boredomsociety.com), which brings boredom researchers across various disciplines in exchange and has recently started to publish the Journal of Boredom Studies (JBS). Today, we know increasingly more about boredom—and fortunately, our knowledge about boredom is not restricted to one specialty domain (e.g., boredom in the work context or the neuronal basis of boredom). Across various domains, researchers have started to shed light on what boredom is and why it matters. While this diversity in boredom research is a testament to its general relevance, it also proves challenging to keep track of boredom research as a whole and to synthesize commonalities across domains. The International Handbook of Boredom is a first attempt to bring together these strands of research by inviting leading boredom experts to present their research and their perspectives on boredom. They will navigate you through those questions that have formed the field in the past and the questions that shape it today, as well as explore new cutting-edge perspectives for future research. Despite an extensive body of work and longstanding traditions across different fields, numerous questions about boredom remain unanswered. These questions relate to basic properties of boredom such as the intensity, dynamics, and duration of its experience; the ways in which boredom might evolve and change across developmental stages; the underlying neurological mechanisms that lead to and accompany the experience of boredom; its role in orchestrating decisions to explore versus exploit one’s environment; effective strategies of dealing with boredom and capitalizing on the information it conveys about the value of an activity; and many more. We have structured the book in three parts. Part I focuses on conceptual approaches to boredom, addressing fundamental questions about its definition, explanation, and measurement. Part II covers research on boredom that identifies its experiential properties, accompanying processes, and associated concepts. Part III presents research that investigates the causes, mechanisms, and consequences of boredom in applied contexts. The final chapter of the book provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary summary of these contributions that has been jointly written by the editors and all authors. This makes The International Handbook of Boredom a unique knowledge hub that hopefully appeals to researchers from diverse disciplines and serves as a source of inspiration and encouragement for future research on boredom. We wish you an exciting journey through the landscape of boredom research! The editors of The International Handbook of Boredom Maik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, and Corinna S. Martarelli

Reference Russell, B. (1950). What desires are politically important? [Nobel lecture]. NobelPrize.org. https://www. nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1950/russell/lecture/

2

PART I

 Foundations

2 SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT What is boredom actually? Wanja Wolff, Vanessa C. Radtke, and Corinna S. Martarelli

Introduction Boredom is interesting: For centuries, it has been a topic in philosophy or literature. Its relevance has been readily acknowledged by great minds, such as Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca. Seneca laments (as quoted in Danckert & Eastwood, 2020b, p. 17): How long the same things? Surely I will yawn, I will sleep, I will eat, I will be thirsty, I will be cold, I will be hot. Is there no end? But do all things go in a circle? Night overcomes day, day night, summer gives way to autumn, winter presses on autumn, which is checked by spring. All things pass that they may return. I do nothing new, I see nothing new. Sometimes this makes me seasick [nauseous]. There are many who judge living not painful but empty. It is particularly revealing that a stoic philosopher—late stoicism being at its core concerned with being able and prepared to deal with anything life throws at one—would lament in such a way about boredom. Clearly, to the stoic, boredom might be worse than actual pain. As can be inferred from this quote, the bored person wishes for something new, something that can add value. This wish is echoed very prominently in Leo Tolstoy’s famous book Anna Karenina, where Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya “began to be very much bored. She took no interest in the people she knew, feeling that nothing fresh would come of them” (Tolstoy, 2020). In the same book, Tolstoy beautifully characterizes boredom as the “desire for desires” (p. 487). Critically, while boredom seems to be aversive and trigger the desire for something else, boredom is far from a mere nuisance. In his Nobel lecture, Bertrand Russell (2022) states: “Experience shows that escape from boredom is one of the really powerful desires of almost all human beings”. Thus, boredom is understood as a powerful motivator that calls people to action (Bieleke & Wolff, 2021; Westgate & Wilson, 2018; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). The urgency this desire can assume is exemplified in the German Faust legend, whereby Johann Georg Faust—a bored scholar—bargains with the devil: In exchange for his soul, the devil shall alleviate Faust of his boredom by allowing him to acquire further knowledge and pleasure (Wikipedia, 2022). This is very concisely put in the opening verses of Alexander Pushkin’s Scene from Faust when Faust laments: “Demon, I’m bored. . . . The joke is stale” and demands “Distraction’s what DOI: 10.4324/9781003271536-3

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I want, So find me some [sic]” (Pushkin, 2022). Faust experiences boredom to be so aversive that he strikes a deal with the devil that might cost him his soul but grants him immediate distraction. Why is it that boredom triggers such a powerful drive to escape from it? According to the pessimistic German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, human life is generally miserable and “life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom”. More precisely, humans are either facing conditions whereby things are lacking (leading to the experience of pain) or whereby everything is achieved and one’s “idle powers become a burden” and boredom ensues (as quoted in Fox, 2022). These examples offer just a glimpse into the large and very rich body of work from the arts and humanities that has addressed the nature and power of boredom. They offer a vivid illustration of boredom as a powerful sensation that humans have had to cope with (and make sense of) for millennia already. This is in striking opposition to the longstanding scarcity of dedicated empirical research on boredom (Smith, 1981). Thus, while several philosophers, poets, and politicians have gone to great lengths to characterize and understand boredom, psychological research had—with few exceptions—largely ignored it as a topic for scientific study or had addressed it only superficially and in a cursory fashion. For example, by foregoing its very definition despite including it in theoretical and/or empirical work (Deci et al., 1994; Nguyen et al., 2022; Vansteenkiste et al., 2010; White et al., 2021), by subsuming it among other psychological concepts (Zuckerman et al., 1972; Zuckerman, 2007), or by positioning boredom as the polar opposite of other psychological concepts that were deemed more focal (Ulrich et al., 2014). Fortunately, this has started to change, and boredom research has drastically increased in recent years. The foundation of the International Society of Boredom Studies and the launch of the Journal of Boredom Studies will hopefully facilitate this growth. Substantial advancements have been made with respect to defining boredom, differentiating it from other psychological concepts (Danckert & Eastwood, 2020b; van Tilburg & Igou, 2016; Westgate & Wilson, 2018), by formulating dedicated boredom theories (see Chapters 6–7), and by investigating the neuroscience of boredom (Chapter 12) In this chapter, we will review these advancements by focusing on matters of definition, and differentiation from other psychological concepts.

What is boredom? Recent years have seen substantial progress in defining and understanding boredom. Researchers have defined boredom as a feeling state (Danckert & Eastwood, 2020b) or as an emotion (Pekrun et  al., 2002), have differentiated state (Fahlman et  al., 2013) from trait boredom (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986), and have defined boredom with relation to specific domains, such as academic (Pekrun et al., 2002), sport-specific (Wolff et al., 2021), or social boredom (Chapter 15). Further, it has been suggested that the experience of boredom can be understood along five interacting facets (Chapter 15): namely, the motivational, cognitive, physiological, expressive, and affective components of boredom. In addition, researchers have embedded boredom in the circumplex model of affect which organizes emotional states along the two dimensions of positive–negative valence and low–high arousal (Russell, 1980). From this point of view, boredom is often described as having negative valence and being a low arousal emotion (Posner et al., 2005). However, others have found boredom to be a high arousal state (London et al., 1972), and there is even evidence in favor of boredom as a mixed arousal state (Merrifield & Danckert, 2014). In sum, depending on the specific research focus and background, boredom has been conceptualized in many ways. Clearly, the field of boredom research is flourishing. However, the many different perspectives on boredom also coincide with a somewhat inconsistent or contradictory body of literature 6

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on boredom (for a similar argument, please see Chapter 5). We illustrate this inconsistency with two examples. First, while trait boredom—usually measured as boredom proneness—has been robustly linked with negative outcomes (e.g., breaking COVID-19 containment measures, gambling; Blaszczynski et al., 1990; Tam et al., 2021; Wolff et al., 2020), such a robust picture has not emerged for state boredom. Likewise, boredom proneness and state boredom have been found to correlate only moderately, indicating that people with high trait boredom are not necessarily bored more quickly in a supposedly boring situation (Danckert et al., 2018; Westgate & Steidle, 2020). To account for this, it has been argued that boredom proneness as it is currently understood and assessed is no pure measure of boredom as a trait, but rather captures repeated self-regulatory failures in effectively dealing with boredom (Bieleke et  al., 2021a): Beyond capturing one’s susceptibility to get bored easily and often, boredom proneness might also tap into affective and behavioral consequences of experiencing one’s life as boring. In turn, researchers have put forward additional measures that try to capture boredom as a trait (Bieleke et al., 2021b; Tam et al., 2022; for a comprehensive account on boredom proneness, please see Chapter 13). With respect to state boredom, researchers have called to differentiate how boring a situation is from how bored a person actually is in this situation (Mills & Christoff, 2018): A measure of state boredom might produce different results if one assesses how boring a task is rated (e.g., watching a boring movie) versus how bored a person actually is (e.g., not bored at all because the person might enjoy thinking about her evening plans while being exposed to the video). Second, research on the physiological signature of boredom—for example, by assessing heart rate variability (HRV) or galvanic skin response (GSR)—has produced inconsistent results (Raffaelli et al., 2018). For example, boredom has been linked to increases in GSR (London et al., 1972) but also to lowered GSR (Frith, 1983). Physiological measures, such as HRV and GSR, tap into the autonomous nervous system, and variations in these measures reflect changes in arousal. In turn, research on whether boredom is a high, low, or mixed arousal state has yielded inconsistent results, too. This has been met with calls to conceptualize boredom independently from arousal (Elpidorou, 2021), while other research has hinted at different types of boredom based on different arousal–valence configurations (Goetz et al., 2014). Thus, while boredom research is clearly flourishing, a heterogenous body of literature leaves many open questions. Such inconsistencies might be the result of different definitions, and the resultant differences in how boredom is measured. In this chapter, we focus on conceptual and definitional aspects of boredom and refer the reader to Chapter 3 for measurement aspects of boredom.

Boredom: Conceptual considerations To advance boredom research, it seems worthwhile to further unpack boredom’s constituents (i.e., what is boredom?) from its antecedences, correlates, and consequences. In the spirit of recent functional accounts on boredom (Bench & Lench, 2013; see also Chapter 5), we focus on the mechanisms that constitute boredom. We strive to elucidate how these mechanisms can afford boredom the function it is understood to have. With this approach, we hope to account for some of the inconsistencies in the literature and invite new research questions on the mechanisms that underly boredom. One potential reason for some of the heterogeneity in research on boredom might lie in how fine-grained its conceptualization is, and how much researchers zoom in or out of the conditions under which boredom occurs. The effects of such differences are most clearly illustrated when looking at the way in which results from research on state boredom and on boredom proneness differ. While experiencing boredom is linked to negative outcomes, such as depression (Fahlman et al., 2013; Farmer & Sundberg, 1986; Goldberg et al., 2011; Sommers & Vodanovich, 7

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2000), amotivation (Caldwell & Faulk, 2013; Fernandez-Rio et al., 2014; Ntoumanis, 2001), drug use (Lee et al., 2007), or gambling (Blaszczynski et al., 1990; Mercer & Eastwood, 2010), a more nuanced picture emerges when we look at state boredom. For example, research shows that the response to being bored depends on why one got bored in the first place. In a series of three studies, Bench and Lench (2019) showed that people preferred hedonically positive things if they got bored by a hedonically negative stimulus. However, they were drawn to hedonically negative things if they got bored by a hedonically positive stimulus. Thus, isolated instances of boredom might trigger substantially different behavioral responses—and such responses are neither consistently adaptive nor maladaptive. These differential associations between negative outcomes and trait vs. state boredom suggest that being boredom-prone is qualitatively different from a mere accumulation of numerous isolated boredom episodes. In turn, research on boredom proneness might conclude that boredom is inherently maladaptive and leads to bad things, whereas research on state boredom is agnostic to this issue and concludes that boredom motivates a change in behavior (Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). In the same vein, the inconsistencies with respect to the relationship between boredom and arousal point toward different physiological correlates of being bored. One reason for this inconsistency could be that arousal is an unspecific correlate of what triggered boredom (e.g., an early morning lecture during which the student’s arousal has dropped), or of the specific response that boredom triggers (e.g., a sudden increase in arousal as the student tries to reengage with the lecture because she knows today’s topic is relevant for the exams), but not necessarily a defining feature of boredom itself.

A granular conceptualization of boredom Here, we propose a fine-grained definition of what boredom is. We argue for a narrow definition of boredom that is agnostic to various known antecedents (e.g., meaningless activity, attentional mismatch; Pekrun et  al., 2011; Westgate & Wilson, 2018), responses (e.g., increased mental effort, attentional failures, arousal, affect; Eastwood et al., 2012), and specific consequences of boredom (e.g., adaptive or maladaptive behaviors; Bieleke et al., 2021c). We believe this allows for a clear understanding of the boredom concept while still facilitating the investigation of the various antecedents, correlates, responses to, and consequences of boredom (i.e., such a reduced definition is not at odds with current boredom theories’ predictions, see Chapters 6–7). In addition, by making specific predictions regarding boredoms constituents and consequences, this provides testable and ultimately falsifiable propositions about boredom. This definition can therefore be put to further empirical scrutiny. We are optimistic that such scrutiny will lead to an even more refined and precise conceptualization of boredom in the future. In defining boredom, we merge Schopenhauer’s core take on boredom (Fox, 2022; Schopenhauer, 2011, 2018) with emerging evidence on boredom’s unique evolutionary function as a driver for exploration in situations that are low in informational value (Agrawal et al., 2022; Bieleke & Wolff, 2021; Danckert, 2019; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). Schopenhauer— ever the great pessimist—describes human life as a pendulum between pain and boredom. According to this approach, organisms have an inherent will to use their faculties (e.g., do things with one’s physical and mental capacities). In humans, this is particularly manifested in the will to cognize (i.e., use one’s mental functions; Fox, 2022). However, according to Schopenhauer’s conceptualization, the different parts of the human body all have specific functions and organisms have the will to use their body parts according to their functions (i.e., use one’s limbs for bodily movement). Accordingly, boredom is a state whereby 8

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an organism’s functions are not adequately utilized. How we use the terms adequately, utilized, and function warrants clarification (Fox, 2022). First, adequately refers to inter-individual, intra-individual, and cross-domain variations of an organism’s preferences, capabilities, and perceived energy levels. This reasoning is schematically expressed in Figure 2.1. The shaded inner zone of the ellipses in the Venn diagram visualizes what other researchers have aptly referred to as the “Goldilocks Zone”—in other words, a condition that is just right (Danckert & Eastwood, 2020a). Activities in this zone are characterized by an adequate utilization of an organism’s functions, in the sense that the current activity is consistent with one’s preferences (dark gray ellipse) and within the scope of one’s general capabilities (light gray ellipse), and one’s perceived current energy levels (medium gray ellipse). Importantly, preferences, perceived energy level, and capabilities should not be seen as fixed but are prone to intra- and inter-individual differences and changes in shape, size, and localization. This implies that humans differ in a state and trait like fashion in their propensity to experience boredom. For example, one person might get bored during a math class because math is not consistent with her preferences or capabilities, while another person might not be bored in the same class (it matches her capabilities and preferences) but could be bored in the next math class because she feels particularly tired that day (it still matches her preferences but her perceived energy levels lower her capacity that day and the class does not allow her to adequately use her faculties). Here, capability, energy level, and preference characterize the potential action space at any given time. What one is capable of doing (across all function domains, i.e., not restricted to mental operations) defines the theoretical action space. Across the lifespan, this space should follow a negative quadratic function: At very young age, very few routes of action are possible (e.g., due to restricted mobility, language etc.) and the action space is small; the action space then vastly increases until it starts to shrink again with age. Interestingly, this developmental trajectory of the objective action space is mirrored by empirical evidence on the developmental trajectory of boredom: from young age to early adulthood, experienced boredom increases, then it drops until it rises again around the age of 60 (Danckert & Eastwood, 2020b). We propose that one’s perceived energy level at any given point in time is what defines the actual action space. Thus, when perceived energy levels are particularly low, e.g., after a long day at work, the actual action space shrinks and one has less possible routes of action, thereby shrinking the possible space of overlap between preferences and actual behavioral options. Indeed, higher fatigue is strongly related to higher boredom (Dora et al., 2021). Finally, preferences refer to the activities a person values at any given point in time. Here, a small range of preferred activities restricts the size of the possible overlap with the actual action space, which is nested within the objective action space. Consistent with this, being open to new experiences is linked to lower boredom proneness (Hunter et al., 2016). Second, utilized refers to the degree to which the faculties are engaged by the task at hand. In Schopenhauer’s work, under-utilization is a threat primarily for organisms for whom “mere existence” is not challenging enough to allow for an adequate utilization of their faculties. While prototypically, boredom is equated with an under-utilization of one’s faculties (think of a monotonous simple task, such as monitoring a flight monitor), it has frequently been shown that boredom can also occur when a task would require over-utilization of faculties (e.g., when a math class is way too challenging; Westgate & Wilson, 2018). Likewise, faculties might also be considered under-utilized if the way they are utilized is not consistent with one’s preferences. In this case, one’s energy would feel wasted, a feeling that is linked to boredom (Westgate & Steidle, 2020). Taken together, boredom should not occur when the degree of function utilization is situated in the shared variance of the three ellipses. The shaded area emphasizes that many non-boring states/activities are possible, and that these non-boring activities might vary 9

Wanja Wolff, Vanessa C. Radtke, and Corinna S. Martarelli

Figure 2.1  Schematic and non-exhaustive Venn diagram of the overlapping organism’s preferences, capabilities (defining the objective action space), and perceived energy levels (defining the actual action space). Axes in Venn diagram represent the difficulty of the task (x-axis) and the domain (categorical variable). Non-shaded areas (light gray, medium gray, and dark gray) are likely to elicit boredom, i.e., an organism is bored when its functions are not adequately utilized. Inter-individual and intra-individual (across domains, over time) differences are represented by black (preferences), light gray (capabilities), and medium gray (perceived energy) arrows. The area of the perceived energy ellipse is smaller than the area of the capability ellipse (is nested within the capability ellipse), as perceived energy refers to how much one can tap into its potential capabilities at any given moment. Capabilities set an objective outer boundary for what a person can do in principle, while the energy level sets the actual boundary for what the person currently feels able to do. Note: The actual action space can be altered by the individual as well as external factors (e.g., contextual constraints that are not depicted here).

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in terms of how much energy they demand and how close they are to the edge of one’s capabilities. In addition, it highlights that many states might cause boredom1 (see also Westgate & Wilson, 2018). It further indicates that the size of the shaded area should covary with boredom susceptibility and boredom proneness. Thus, a large overlap between preferences, objectives, and actual action space (defined via individual capabilities and perceived energy levels) should be characteristic of someone who is rarely bored. The size of the actual action space highlights how boredom and fatigue can co-occur: If energy levels drop and fatigue rises, boredom should become more likely as the three ellipses’ shared variance decreases. Finally, Figure 2.1 implies that boredom can occur due to various mismatches between capability, perceived energy level, and preferences, and that this mismatch can be met with various responses that go into different directions. For example, when fatigued, one can become bored because one feels the energy to do something that is consistent with one’s preferences is lacking (Milyavskaya et al., 2019). On the other hand, a person might get bored because she has to engage with a task that she is capable of doing and also has the energy to be engaged in, but the task in question is not compatible with her preferences (e.g., making the reference list for this chapter).

How does an organism “notice” boredom? Following from this conceptualization, an organism is bored when its functions are not adequately utilized. This begs the question: How does the organism notice that this is the case? Here, we merge Schopenhauer’s understanding of boredom with current research and theorizing on predictive coding in the brain (Friston, 2010; Gomez-Ramirez & Costa, 2017; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020): We suggest that the state of insufficient function utilization is a state whereby reward prediction error has been minimized. This proposition warrants clarification of what is meant by reward prediction error. A  reward prediction error refers to the difference in the reward utility that is predicted for a state and the actual reward utility of this state.2 Contemporary theories of learning conceptualize the human brain as a Bayesian agent that uses its knowledge about states to predict future states. Simply put, I  use my previous knowledge about how rewarding it is to format a book chapter according to the guidelines in order to predict how rewarding it will be to format this chapter. When a state turns out to be different from the prediction, this returns a reward prediction error. This prediction error can be negative (formatting was worse than expected), positive (formatting was more rewarding than predicted), or close to zero when prediction and outcome align. Control theory states that ideally, prediction error is minimized (Schultz, 2017). However, for positive prediction errors, this might not be the most adaptive form of learning. It has been argued that reward systems should not minimize positive errors, but rather maximize them (Schultz, 2017). Simply put, if I repeatedly manage to put myself in situations that generate more rewards than predicted (i.e., are positively surprising), then this should be advantageous, compared to when my learning is optimized toward never experiencing such positive surprises. We propose that boredom occurs when positive (but also negative3) reward prediction errors are minimized, i.e., an organism is bored when utilizing its functions does not produce an outcome that differs from expectations and everything is perfectly predictable (Danckert, 2019; in this vein, please see also: Bieleke & Wolff, 2021; Danckert & Eastwood, 2020b; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). The claim that a minimized reward prediction error offsets optimal learning is supported by computational work. Here, artificial agents that were designed to treat predictable states (i.e., states whereby prediction error was minimized) as non-rewarding and boredom-inducing outperformed curiositydriven agents in terms of learning (Yu et al., 2018). Further indirect support for the mechanistic link between boredom and reward prediction error comes from one study that investigated 11

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electrophysiological markers of reward prediction error (Martin & Potts, 2011). Here, prediction errors were only observed in experimental trials whereby participants had to actively indicate if they would receive a reward compared to a condition whereby they passively waited if they would be rewarded or not. Interestingly, the authors report that participants in the passive condition made the experience of boredom. Thus, although this study was not designed to test the proposition of boredom’s link to prediction error, only when participants were bored, no reward prediction error was observed. Finally, the timescale over which the minimization of reward prediction error leads to boredom matters. It is likely that this is subject to high inter-individual, intra-individual, and crossdomain variations (see Figure  2.1). For example, research (Bell & Peeke, 2012) shows that there is a large variation in the time it takes non-human animals to habituate on a variety of behavioral, affective, and physiological responses to a stimulus after repeated presentation. More specifically, recent work has shown that people differ in how sensitive they are to low informational value (i.e., indicative of a situation that is low in prediction error), and that this difference predicts choice behavior when bored (Seiler et al., 2022). Or to put it in the words of Pushkin’s Faust, people differ in how long it takes until the “joke is stale”. Taken together, we propose that a state of inadequate function utilization is characterized by a near-zero reward prediction error,4 and the timescale of this state’s occurrence is highly individualized.

What is the function of boredom, and how is it implemented? Consistent with other researchers, we propose that boredom’s evolutionary function is to drive exploration (Agrawal et al., 2022; Danckert, 2019; Gomez-Ramirez & Costa, 2017). This implies that boredom is an inherently adaptive signal indicating that a current state is not valuable (i.e., functions are not utilized; reward prediction error is minimized) and serves as a push to put one’s functions to adequate use which will yield prediction errors that differ from zero. We suggest that this push of boredom is an undirected one that triggers undirected exploration. Exploration is undirected if it is not directed at a specific goal. For example, a bored child might stroll aimlessly through its room, in undirected search of something. This process of undirected exploration is different from directed exploration (Wilson, Geana et al., 2014). Thus, boredom is understood to trigger an undirected response in search of anything that yields a better utilization of one’s functions. This would explain why boredom has been linked to adaptive and maladaptive behavioral responses.

Boredom triggers motion More specifically, we argue that boredom creates motion in order to alter reward prediction error by means of increased entropy. Such undirected motion might represent spontaneous alleviation of boredom. Here, motion refers to motor or mental changes away from the state that caused boredom. Incidentally, the link between boredom and motion is the topic of a very early (semi-)empirical publication on boredom: In an 1885 Nature publication, Francis Galton reported that he had observed increased fidgeting in the audience of an academic talk and attributed this increase in motion as a sign of boredom (Galton, 1885). This assumption has subsequently received empirical support (Bailey et  al., 1976). In addition to motion in the motor domain, boredom-induced motion can also occur in the mental domain. This is prototypically exemplified by an academic who—after writing a paragraph of a chapter—for no apparent reason switches to his social media feed. Beyond such anecdotal evidence, a large body

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of empirical research has linked boredom to attentional failures (Eastwood et al., 2012), which can be seen as mental motion away from an ongoing task (see Box 2.1 for a different view of the link between boredom and attentional failures). Mental motion does not need to occur overtly. As an example for inner mental motion, research shows that people who are frequently bored also engage more frequently in spontaneous mind-wandering, whereas the link to deliberate mind-wandering is less strong (Martarelli et al., 2021). This suggests that boredom is indeed more associated with undirected exploration (e.g., spontaneous mind-wandering) compared to directed exploration (e.g., deliberate mind-wandering). Importantly, even if circumstances negate overt mental or motor motion, boredom might still enable exploration via internal routes of mental motion. As the assumed function of boredom is to drive undirected exploration, this mechanism can be expressed in terms of increasing entropy. In information theory, entropy refers to the predictability of one’s current environment. If entropy is very low, the environment is predictable and reward prediction error is minimized, and we would expect that the organism is bored. Indeed, a recent study that experimentally manipulated entropy and then assessed choice behavior showed that experienced entropy predicted behavior. Consistent with our reasoning, low entropy predicted a behavioral response that was geared at avoiding further instances that were low in informational value. Consistent with the proposed role for boredom, these findings “underline the relevance of boredom for driving behavioral responses that ensure a lasting stream of information to the brain” (Seiler et al., 2022, p. 1).

Box 2.1 Our conceptualization of boredom offers a differentiated view on the oft-found link between boredom and attention. A very consistent body of research has linked boredom to attentional failures. That is, when bored, we fail to keep our attention engaged with the task at hand (Eastwood et al., 2012). In turn, failures to keep attention engaged have been incorporated into the conceptualization of boredom as a defining feature (Eastwood et al., 2012). While we in no way negate the close link between boredom and attention, we argue that in the context of boredom, attentional disengagement does not represent a failure. We suggest that disengaging attention from a situation that yields only uninformative reward prediction errors (i.e., minimized near zero) is the very function of boredom. By triggering exploration via increased mental or motor motion, boredom is intrinsically designed to engage attention elsewhere. Thus, attentional disengagement is not the bug of boredom, but one of its core features. Clearly, people frequently find themselves in situations whereby attentional disengagement is problematic and whereby boredom-induced attentional failures can produce catastrophic consequences (e.g., boredom while flying an airplane; Langewiesche, 2001). However, we argue that in navigating the plethora of choices people make in life (simply put: Where do I devote my time and attention?), boredom serves as an adaptive function in helping people disengage from a course of action that is too low in subjective utility. Consistent with this, people who are frequently bored (i.e., score high in boredom proneness) scored lower on a measure of trait disengagement, thus supporting the notion that rather than being a pure measure of trait boredom, boredom proneness might reflect the dispositional self-regulatory failure to adaptively respond to boredom (Bieleke et al., 2022).

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Boredom-induced mental and motor motion in the service of undirected exploration is often expressed in terms of attentional failures (Eastwood et al., 2012) or restless movements.5 Such motion can be triggered by external events (e.g., gaze away from the target stimulus)6 (Bieleke & Wolff, 2021; Martarelli & Wolff, 2022), appear to be rather aimless (e.g., restless motion on a chair; Galton, 1885), and/or reflect habitual behavioral responses (e.g., the author who habitually accesses social media when bored of writing). These effects of boredom seem to be externally controlled, aimless, and/or habitual. We propose that such very immediate effects of boredom reflect a stimulus-driven response to boredom. Importantly, this implies that boredom might theoretically occur—in the sense of inadequate function utilization which is reflected in minimized prediction error and triggers exploration—outside one’s full awareness. Simply put, in many instances, boredom might cause alterations of our behavior before we are aware that we were bored.

Unattended boredom and the “desire for desire” Boredom is an everyday experience, and almost everyone feels bored sometimes (Harris, 2000). In addition, research shows that people can report various ways of responding to boredom (Fahlman et al., 2013). Clearly, boredom not only exerts its effects via spontaneous responses that might evade conscious awareness, but also via more controlled processes. We propose that boredom manifests itself in an aversive “desire for desire” when boredom is not alleviated via spontaneous responses. This feeling state is characterized by wanting to engage with something but failing to do so (Danckert & Eastwood, 2020b). Importantly, this state is assumed to be clearly noticeable by the person who can now verbally report that she is bored and that this experience feels aversive. The aversive feeling of discomfort that accompanies the experience of boredom is likely to intensify the longer the person remains bored. This is consistent with research showing that monotonous increases of boredom covary with respective increased perceived aversiveness over time (Bieleke et al., 2021a). How people deal with feeling bored is sometimes incorporated in the adopted definition of boredom. For example, boredom has been defined by the failure to stay engaged with an ongoing task or by high mental effort that is invested while trying to stay engaged with the task (Eastwood et  al., 2012). The link between boredom and attentional failures, as well as with mental effort or self-control, is robustly established in the literature (Bieleke et al., 2021b; Isacescu et al., 2017; Mugon et al., 2018; Wolff et al., 2020; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). Importantly, we propose that this link does not necessitate the latter to be part of the definition of the former. More specifically, by focusing on how people consciously deal with boredom, we leave the realm of defining boredom and move to the intricate consequences neglected boredom can produce. It is plausible that some of the heterogeneity in the boredom literature is introduced by adding such consequences to the definition and assessment of boredom. First, the boredom proneness scale—the leading measure of trait boredom—asks participants to respond to statements such as “I  sit around, nothing to do”, thus incorporating passivity in the definition of boredom. However, this aspect does not need to be specific to the state of boredom, and it might explain the differences between trait and state boredom that are sometimes observed (MercerLynn et al., 2014; Westgate & Steidle, 2020). Further, it is conceivable that the responses to boredom in terms of passivity, effort, or failure to sustain attention elicit different arousal patterns in the bored person, thus leading to mixed results—despite boredom being a unitary construct (Elpidorou, 2021). 14

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Differentiation of boredom from other constructs In the first section of this chapter, we have put forward a definition of boredom. We have focused on defining what boredom is, how its occurrence manifests itself, and what it does. In the second section of the chapter, we focus on how boredom differs from other psychological constructs. The chosen constructs are those that have been likened to boredom on conceptual and empirical grounds with relative frequency. Thus, the list of constructs we use for contrasting purposes is not an exhaustive one but focuses on those that are the most relevant based on our reading of the literature. We will keep our presentation short, given that the interested reader can find entire chapters devoted to some of these concepts and their interplay with boredom in this book (see Chapter 9 and Chapter 11).

Boredom in the context of affect and emotion Some researchers conceptualize boredom as an emotion, and boredom is frequently studied in the context of affect and emotions (e.g., Chin et al., 2017; Kass & Vodanovich, 1990; Perkins & Hill, 1985; Rupp & Vodanovich, 1997; van Hooft & van Hooff, 2018; van Tilburg & Igou, 2012, 2016; Vodanovich et al., 1991; Westgate & Wilson, 2018). Such research is usually informed by the circumplex model of affect (Russell, 1980) or theories of discrete emotions (Lench et al., 2011; Lench, 2018). According to the circumplex model, affective states can be described along their position on two orthogonal axes: valence (positive or negative) and arousal (low or high) (Russell, 1980). For example, frustration is characterized by negative valence and high arousal, while feeling depressed is characterized by negative valence and low arousal. Although prototypical depiction and empirical evidence have linked boredom to relatively low arousal (van Tilburg & Igou, 2016), research shows that boredom can also be a mixed or even a high arousal state (Bailey et al., 1976; Raffaelli et al., 2018). With respect to valence, research shows that boredom tends to co-occur with negative affective states (Chin et al., 2017; Vodanovich et al., 1991), and can even cause people to voluntarily seek out highly aversive sensations (Wilson, Reinhard et al., 2014). This is at odds with the observation that people describe boredom only as mildly negative in valence when compared to other negative emotions. Taken together, when approached through the lens of the circumplex model of affect, boredom seems harder to pin down than other affective states or emotions. In contrast to the circumplex model, theories that conceptualize emotions as discrete propose that emotions differ qualitatively in their expression and function and should therefore be investigated specifically (Lench, 2018). In a very influential study, van Tilburg and Igou (2016) set out to assess if boredom differed from various discrete emotions. Specifically, they investigated how boredom differed from negatively valenced emotions, such as sadness, anger, frustration, fear, disgust, feeling depressed, guilt, shame, regret, or disappointment. Moving beyond a bivariate correlational approach, they applied multidimensional scaling to produce a spatial model of distances among boredom and these other negative emotions. This approach is used to find the optimal spatial model of evaluated emotions (in terms of lay concept, state experience, and individual differences) with the lowest possible dimensionality. The modeled distance between emotions can be interpreted as the difference among them (the larger the distance, the higher the difference). In their analyses, the authors were further interested in localizing boredom with respect to affective valence, arousal, relevance to morality, engagement of attention, perceived challenge, and perceived meaningfulness. Those concepts were chosen because they had either been investigated in the context of boredom in prior research or were linked to the investigated negative emotions (van Tilburg & Igou, 2016). Consistent with the 15

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idea that boredom differs from other emotional states, it was located the furthest away from the other measured emotions—some of them clustering together (see Figure 2 in the original paper). Thus, boredom differed more from other emotions with negative valence than they differ from each other. The analysis also revealed that boredom differs from the aforementioned emotions in that boredom involves relatively low arousal and a less negative valence. This aligns well with the proposition that boredom is a push to act that is not per definition coupled with a specific arousal and valence configuration: In our conceptualization of boredom, changes in valence and arousal are a consequence of how one deals (or fails to deal) with boredom. In line with this, van Hooft and van Hooff (2018) showed that boredom correlates moderately with both frustration (high arousal) and depressed affect (low arousal). FRUSTRATION

We now turn to frustration to further unpack how boredom differs from emotions and affective states. Boredom and frustration seem to share certain similarities, and their relationship has been studied frequently (Perkins & Hill, 1985; van Hooft & van Hooff, 2018; van Tilburg & Igou, 2012, 2016). Frustration is a negative emotion that arises from disappointment when people perceive their need or goal pursuit to be blocked (Jeronimus & Laceulle, 2017; Scherer et al., 2001). Similar to boredom, frustration arises when the current situation is not satisfying and then acts as a signal that something needs to be changed (Jeronimus & Laceulle, 2017). However, boredom and frustration are not the same—the experience of boredom and frustration do not consistently co-occur in empirical studies (e.g., van Tilburg & Igou, 2016; Westgate & Wilson, 2018). In addition, boredom can be manipulated without affecting frustration (van Tilburg & Igou, 2012). In some cases, opposing patterns have been revealed (e.g., Nass et al., 1996; Westgate & Wilson, 2018). For example, when the difficulty of a game was increased, frustration has been reported to increase but boredom to decrease (Nass et al., 1996). In the same vein, Westgate and Wilson (2018) observed a linear effect of task difficulty on frustration, i.e., increased difficulty of a task was associated with greater frustration. In contrast, they reported a quadratic effect of difficulty on boredom, indicating that boredom was high when cognitive demands were too low, but also when they were too high. The authors proposed that boredom and frustration can co-occur under certain conditions: When overstimulation leads to boredom and this results in failing to achieve a desired outcome, the bored person might also become frustrated. However, if someone’s goal is blocked not due to the cognitive resources of the individual (e.g., a flight delay), frustration can arise without being accompanied by the sensation of boredom (Clore et  al., 1993). While frustration and boredom can co-occur as previously described, it is also conceivable that frustration may occur due to a prolonged experience of boredom. As boredom is understood to signal that something has to be changed, the experience of boredom leads to a new goal—namely, to end it. But when there is no possibility to stop boredom, this new goal—as well as the individual—gets frustrated.

Expanding on affective disorders and their symptoms Early boredom research has investigated the link between boredom and psychopathologies, such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, psychosis, and borderline personality disorder (Dekker et al., 2009; Farmer & Sundberg, 1986; Masland et al., 2020; Newell et al., 2012; Pironti et al., 2016; Sommers & Vodanovich, 2000; Todman, 2003; Westen, 1991). This research tends to find that boredom is high in such conditions. Specifically the overlap between depression and boredom has received considerable research interest 16

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(Farmer & Sundberg, 1986; Goldberg et  al., 2011; Sommers & Vodanovich, 2000; Vodanovich et al., 1991). In the following, we unpack this in more detail. DEPRESSION

Depression is an affective disorder which is characterized by feelings of sadness and hopelessness, as well as loss of joy and interest in activities (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Depression has been shown to correlate positively with boredom proneness (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986; Goldberg et  al., 2011; Lee & Zelman, 2019; Sommers & Vodanovich, 2000; Vodanovich et  al., 1991) and state boredom (Fahlman et  al., 2013; Goldberg et  al., 2011). Depression and boredom proneness overlap in terms of their relationships to other constructs. For example, both are positively related to hopelessness (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986), hypersensitivity to rejection and criticism (e.g., perceiving others as unfriendly; Davidson et al., 1989; Sommers & Vodanovich, 2000), to anxiety (Jacobson & Newman, 2017; LePera, 2011; Sommers & Vodanovich, 2000), and to stress (Black et al., 2015; Tam et al., 2021; Yan et al., 2021). The relationship between boredom proneness and depression seems to be largely driven by a more pronounced reliance on stimulation from the external environment and a failure to satisfy this reliance (Goldberg & Danckert, 2013). In addition, similar cognitive mechanisms—such as attention and memory deficits—play a role in depression and boredom (Carriere et al., 2008; Harris, 2000). Despite those apparent similarities, boredom and depression differ on definitional and on empirical grounds. Conceptually, depression and boredom differ for example with respect to the attributions people make: A  depressed person tends to attribute negative events internally and stable, whereas a bored person will attribute an aversive situation as being externally caused and unstable (Eastwood et al., 2012). In a very simplified sense: When depressed, we fault ourselves for not enjoying things; when bored, we fault the situation for not being enjoyable. Thus, the cause of boredom is seen in the situation and not in the bored person herself. Since being bored feels aversive but is attributed toward unstable external factors, boredom can act as a catalyst for change, and has been ascribed a crucial role as a driver of exploration (Bieleke & Wolff, 2021; Danckert, 2019; Smith, 1981; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). Consistent with this, boredom is related to reduced interest in the current situation and is characterized by an increased search for more rewarding activities, an increase in reward sensitivity (Milyavskaya et al., 2019), and an increase in physical and mental motion (Bailey et al., 1976; Elpidorou, 2018; Galton, 1885). In contrast with this, depression is often accompanied by a loss of energy, reduction of physical movement, and a diminished interest in almost all activities for most of the day and nearly every day (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In an effort to empirically differentiate boredom from depression, one influential study employed structural equation modeling and showed that statistical models that treated boredom and depression as distinct yielded a better data fit than a statistical model that did not (Goldberg et  al., 2011). More specifically, a latent variable that consisted of state boredom, boredom proneness, and coping with boredom was differentiated from depression and other negative affective states. This shows that despite high correlations between certain boredom measures and depression, both latent constructs are empirically distinct. Finally, some of the empirical overlap between depression and boredom—boredom proneness in particular—might be a measurement artifact. This might be due to how broadly boredom is measured by the boredom proneness scale: It emphasizes the negative consequences of being frequently bored and focuses less on how easily and intensely people get bored. Thus, emphasis is put on the self-regulatory failure of dealing effectively with boredom (i.e., perceiving 17

Wanja Wolff, Vanessa C. Radtke, and Corinna S. Martarelli

one’s life as boring; Tam et al., 2021). By focusing on these consequences, the boredom proneness scale (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986) taps into topics that are also included in measures of depression (Beck et al., 1996). For example, both focus on lack of interest, lack of acting (in order to change the situation), and on feeling unhappy or bored. To address this, “purer” measures of trait boredom that decouple boredom from its consequences have been put forward in recent years (Bieleke et al., 2021a; Tam et al., 2021). It will be interesting to see if measures that are more in line with the current understanding and definition of boredom are less strongly correlated with depression. APATHY

Apathy is a symptom that often co-occurs with depression but can also occur on its own (Marin et al., 1993). Similar to the link to depression, boredom proneness and apathy correlate (Goldberg et al., 2011) and seem to share certain conceptual similarities, but they are clearly differentiable constructs. Apathy is characterized by a loss of interest and motivation (Marin, 1991) towards all kind of stimuli (Meagher & Mason, 2012), and both concepts seem to overlap with respect to reduced interest (Douven et al., 2018; Hunter et al., 2016; Marin, 1991). Going one step further, exploratory analyses of the boredom proneness scale have even identified apathy as one factor of a three-factor solution of this instrument (Craparo et al., 2013). However, this three-factor solution has not been consistently replicated, and current research on boredom proneness tends to rely on a one-factor solution. Thus, again, some of the overlap seems to be due to the way the boredom proneness scale conceptualizes boredom and is less consistent with the current understanding of boredom as a functional state. Indeed, although apathy and boredom are accompanied by a decrease in interest (Meagher & Mason, 2012), in boredom this decrease in interest is directed at the current situation (i.e., is specific to the current experience, and increases with respect to other stimuli resulting in a shift of attention). This is markedly different to a decrease in interest with respect to most stimuli that occurs in apathy (Bench & Lench, 2013; Meagher & Mason, 2012). Similar observations can be made with respect to motivation. While apathy is associated with a decrease in motivation with respect to all stimuli, boredom may lead to an increase in motivation for seeking other stimuli (Bench & Lench, 2013; Meagher & Mason, 2012; Smith, 1981). Finally, statistical analyses revealed that boredom represents a latent construct that differs from apathy (Goldberg et al., 2011). AMOTIVATION

Amotivation has been characterized as “the absence of motivation” (Legault et al., 2006). Like apathy (Marin et al., 1993) and boredom (Dekker et al., 2009; Fahlman et al., 2013; Farmer & Sundberg, 1986; Goldberg et al., 2011; Masland et al., 2020; Newell et al., 2012; Sommers & Vodanovich, 2000; Todman, 2003; Westen, 1991), amotivation co-occurs with depression and other mental disorders (Cléry-Melin et al., 2019). Research shows that amotivation and boredom often occur together; decreases of motivation are often accompanied by increases of boredom (e.g., in traumatic brain injury; Al-Adawi et al., 1998; Chervinsky et al., 1998; Goldberg & Danckert, 2013), and both concepts are moderately to highly positively correlated (e.g., Caldwell & Faulk, 2013; Fernandez-Rio et al., 2014; Ntoumanis, 2001). Sometimes, both concepts are used interchangeably (e.g., Pulido et al., 2014), but boredom and amotivation should be distinguished from each other. Looking at the conceptual description of both concepts, they substantially differ with respect to desire. While amotivation can arise from the lack of any desire 18

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(Deci et al., 2001), boredom in contrast even leads to desire. In fact, the lack of motivation that a bored person feels applies only to the current activity or experience, not to all the other activities the person could follow instead. Therefore, in contrast to an amotivated person, when a person is bored, he or she will feel the desire or the motivation to do something (else). To sum up, although boredom is linked to the occurrence of various psychopathologies and their symptoms, it should not be equated with them. The differences are particularly relevant for symptoms and states that are characterized by a lack of motivation and a generalized depreciation of the external and internal world. This contrasts with boredom’s function as a motivator for change that is triggered by specific boring situations. Nevertheless, being consistently bored—either due to being unable to successfully reduce boredom, or simply by being very susceptible to get bored—is closely linked to affective and motivational symptoms. This indicates that a chronic failure to regulate boredom should not be taken lightly and the temporal order (simply put: Does one beget the other, or are they the joint result of a higher-order psychopathology [Fissler et al., 2022] of the interplay between high boredom proneness and depressive symptoms?) should be further investigated by future research.

Other boredom-related constructs Given its centrality in governing human affect, cognition, and behavior, boredom has also been discussed in context of psychological concepts that do not neatly fall into the categories of “affect/emotion” or “psychopathologies and symptoms”. In the last part of this chapter, we briefly discuss this “other” category. Specifically, we focus on self-control, curiosity, mindwandering, sensation seeking, and flow. SELF-CONTROL

Self-control refers to the efforts people make to override default behaviors and habits (De Ridder et al., 2012; Miller & Cohen, 2001). Recent empirical and theoretical work on boredom shows that self-control and boredom both play a role when it comes to steering goal-directed behavior (Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). Boredom has been linked to undirected exploration (Gomez-Ramirez & Costa, 2017), whereas self-control is highly relevant when it comes to exploitation (Bieleke & Wolff, 2021). Thus, both concepts are relevant for promoting a balance between exploration and exploitation. Crucially, boredom can act as a self-control demand in its own right (continuing with a boring task is self-control–demanding, per se) and recent work has shown that both self-control and boredom play a joint role as triggers of goal-directed behavior (e.g., leading a physically active life; Wolff et al., 2020). Consistent with these factors, an inverse association between trait self-control and boredom proneness has been frequently reported (e.g., Isacescu & Danckert, 2018). While boredom and self-control clearly differ in their function and their operating mechanisms, it is apparent that their interplay is intricate and highly relevant for the regulation of goal-directed behavior, but is still far from fully understood. With respect to these questions and a comprehensive account on boredom and self-control, we refer the interested reader to Chapter 9 in this book. CURIOSITY

Curiosity refers to the desire for new knowledge and experiences, including openness toward whatever is attended (Kidd & Hayden, 2015; see Dubey & Griffiths, 2020 for a current framework unifying novelty-based and complexity-based theories of curiosity). Curiosity and 19

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boredom have sometimes been defined as epistemic emotions and have been jointly investigated in the school setting (typically revealing a moderate negative relationship) (Muis et al., 2015). Attesting to both concepts’ proximity to each other, Berlyne (1966) already linked boredom and curiosity by distinguishing four forms of curiosity, including “diversive curiosity”, which is an unspecific stimulation seeking out to escape boredom. Thus, one aspect of curiosity might be a response to boredom. In addition, boredom and curiosity have been discussed as reward-oriented triggers of exploration (Bench & Lench, 2013; Kashdan & Silvia, 2009). However, boredom motivates attentional disengagement from the task at hand, whereas curiosity motivates attentional engagement with other more rewarding tasks (Agrawal et al., 2022). Consistent with this, empirical work has differentiated between boredom and curiosity, the first having been characterized as an aversive experience working as an undirected information-seeking trigger and the second as a positive experience working as a trigger for directed information-seeking (Seiler et al., 2022). Computational studies have tried to disentangle the effects boredom and curiosity have on learning. Interestingly, this research shows that boredom outperforms curiosity in terms of information-seeking behavior (Yu et al., 2018). Thus, it is possible to create artificial agents that can get bored or are curious, and this leads to differences in learning behavior. This further highlights that boredom and curiosity differ, despite their apparent similarities. MIND-WANDERING

Mind-wandering, also referred to as task-unrelated thought (Giambra, 1995), stimulus-unrelated thought (Antrobus, 1968; Teasdale et  al., 1995), and spontaneous thought (Christoff et al., 2016), has been studied extensively during the past 20 years (see Smallwood & Schooler, 2015 for a review). During mind-wandering, attention drifts away from the external perceptual world and is directed to self-generated thoughts. This off-task behavior is common to both boredom and mind-wandering; indeed, bored individuals experience difficulty in sustaining attention (Eastwood et al., 2012). On a state level, different researchers found a positive association between boredom and mind-wandering (Blondé et al., 2022; Danckert & Merrifield, 2018; Hunter & Eastwood, 2018)—an association that was also revealed by studies investigating trait variables (Isacescu et al., 2017; Martarelli et al., 2021). However, associations are not perfect, and distinct phenomenological experiences connected with the two constructs7 rather suggest that they have dynamical inter-relationships, with mind-wandering being a possible exploratory response to boredom when no other behavioral alternative is available. We refer the interested reader to Chapter 10 for a review of similarities and differences between mindwandering and boredom. SENSATION SEEKING

Sensation seeking refers to the “tendency to seek novel, varied, complex, and intense sensations and experiences and the willingness to take risks for the sake of such experience” (Zuckerman, 1994). Sensation seeking and boredom (sexual boredom; Watt & Ewing, 1996) and boredom proneness (Kass & Vodanovich, 1990) are sometimes positively correlated and the most frequently used measure of sensation seeking even includes a boredom susceptibility subscale (Zuckerman et al., 1978). This suggests that these constructs are not only related but boredom is subsumed within a broader sensation-seeking construct. Nevertheless, not all studies find correlations between those concepts. For example, one study did not find correlations of boredom proneness with the experience seeking subscale and not even with the boredom susceptibility 20

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subscale (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986). In some cases even negative correlations have been found between boredom proneness and sensation seeking (Vodanovich et al., 1991; Watt & Ewing, 1996). Upon closer inspection, the empirical association between both concepts is a modest one, primarily driven by the boredom subscale of the sensation-seeking scale. This can be underpinned by studies finding no correlation to sensation seeking but positive correlations to boredom susceptibility (Watt & Ewing, 1996). In addition, both concepts differ on a conceptual level: Sensation seeking is by definition linked to the search for „novel, varied, complex, and intense sensations”. Boredom has not been linked to such a directed search. Boredom as a state is understood to signal that one is in unsatisfying state and acts as a catalyst for any change of state. In addition, boredom proneness has been described as a “failure to launch” (Mugon et al., 2018, p. 1), highlighting that boredom-prone people are frequently in unsatisfying states. High and low sensation seekers are considered to differ in their normal levels of arousal, with high sensation seekers being probably under-aroused and therefore in need for more stimulation (Zuckerman, 2007), and always in search for something new (Zuckerman et al., 1972). In a similar vein, high boredom-prone individuals tend to habituate quicker to repeated exposure to the same stimuli than low boredom-prone individuals (Bornstein et al., 1990). As a result, both sensation seekers and boredom-prone people might find themselves in situations when they want to get exposed to novel stimulation more often than others. While high boredomprone individuals do not necessarily also score high on the other sensation-seeking subscales (and are therefore not high sensation seekers), however, sensation seekers tend to show higher susceptibility to boredom as this subscale is part of the whole sensation-seeking construct (Zuckerman, 1979). Thus, it is very plausible that higher sensitivity to boredom plays a role in sensation seeking; however, boredom proneness does not need to be linked to sensation seeking. In fact, boredom seems to covary with psychological concepts that differ drastically from each other (compare, for example, apathy and sensation seeking), which is consistent with the general signaling function we have proposed for boredom in the first section of this chapter. Finally, considering state boredom and sensation seeking more closely, one notices that seeking challenge or stimulation is one possibility to reduce boredom (Dahlen et al., 2004). However, in contrast to sensation seekers, bored individuals do not necessarily show sensationseeking behavior. They could, for example, stop the sensation of boredom by changing something about the situation (e.g., change the topic of a conversation) but without necessarily showing sensation-seeking behavior. FLOW

An experience diametrically opposed to boredom is flow. Flow is an experience during which one is entirely involved in the present moment. In early flow theories (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), the experience of boredom is modeled as a state occurring in underload situations8 (i.e., when the task is too easy regarding individual capabilities). Flow has been defined as an intrinsically rewarding experience of deeply focused attention, during which one is in control of one’s own actions and time seems to fly (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2002). This characterization is opposed to current definitions of boredom. Flow theories put forward that it is not possible to experience boredom and flow simultaneously (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), and empirical work has for example revealed a negative relation between boredom proneness and flow proneness (Harris, 2000). It seems reasonable to consider boredom and flow as opposing constructs because flow is a state of high engagement, whereas boredom is a state of disengagement. However, it is probably reductive to consider boredom the opposite of flow. This would negate the function and the mechanisms that are inherent to boredom (see the first section of this chapter) and that 21

Wanja Wolff, Vanessa C. Radtke, and Corinna S. Martarelli

allow for a plethora of non-boring states to occur (i.e., for a plethora of opposites of boredom). This cautions against pitting boredom at the end of a flow–boredom continuum. For deeper theorizing on the link between boredom and flow, we refer the interested reader to Chapter 11 of this book.

Conclusions In this chapter, our purpose was to define boredom by unpacking its constituents from its antecedents, correlates, and consequences. We suggest that conflating boredom with these aspects can explain some of the inconsistencies that characterize boredom theorizing and research. Based on an integration of Schopenhauer’s definition of boredom and concepts from predictive coding, we suggest that boredom is a state of insufficient function utilization, in which reward prediction error has been minimized. One of the major benefits of this definition is that it permits for differences between state and trait boredom and can explain mixed findings, e.g., regarding arousal. We further reviewed the most important constructs that have been shown to be associated with boredom. The review is not meant to be exhaustive but illustrative. It clearly appears that boredom is different. For example, boredom is not just another negative emotion. Research shows that boredom can beget various negative emotions, whereas boredom is rarely the result of specific discrete emotions. This is consistent with our conceptualization of boredom as a core state that can prompt a diverse range of affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses, but that does not fully fit the mold of negative emotions. Despite boredom being associated with different constructs (some yet to be formally investigated), boredom is different—it is at the center of human behavior, including physical, mental, and social activities. We believe that a critical direction for future research is to investigate and distinguish regulation of boredom across different time-scales: When do we become consciously aware of our boredom, and how does this alter the regulation of boredom? Finally, we hope that this chapter will support and invite future research to understand this fascinating sensation in ever more detail.

Funding This chapter was supported in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the German Research Foundation (grant number 10001CL_200468).

Notes 1 If many non-boring configurations and many boring configurations exist, at least two things become clear. First, defined by an inadequate function utilization, boredom can be a high or low arousal state (and any arousal level in between) without the need for making arousal part of the definition of boredom. Second, depending on preferences, capability and energy level, non-boring states might be energetic high-performance states (e.g., flow) or non-performance states (e.g., calm relaxation). Therefore, it is unlikely to have one specific state (e.g., flow) as the one exact opposite of boredom. 2 This process is tightly coupled to phasic firing of dopamine neurons, which have been shown to respond to reward prediction errors and not to correct reward predictions (Schultz, 2017). 3 Negative reward prediction errors are situations that generate less reward than predicted (i.e., are negatively surprising) and will thus lead to aversive emotions such as frustration (Schultz, 2017). 4 Please note how well this ties into the Seneca and Faust quotes. 5 Interestingly, caged animals also tend to exhibit abnormal motion patterns in situations where entropy is low, and boredom is likely. 6 Unpublished data from our lab (see https://osf.io/xg4dj/) reveal changes in eye-data associated with the experience of boredom. More specifically, 40 participants were tasked with a boring task, i.e., they

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Same same but different were presented with a random dot task and had to decide whether the dots seemed to move up, down, left, or right (each minute, a total of 18 responses per participant was collected). However, there was no explicit direction of the dots in the random movement. A timer that displayed the elapsed seconds since the start of the experiment (count-up) was presented in the upper right part of the screen. During the 18 repetitions of one-minute-long random dot display, we measured subject’s gaze behavior with an SMI Red500 eye tracker. After each minute, subjects were additionally prompted to report their feeling of boredom (“How bored are you right now?”). We found a positive association between the experience of boredom and the gaze away from the target stimulus (i.e., the percentage of time spent on the timer, Spearman r = .319, p = .045). 7 For example, time passing slowly during boredom (Witowska et al., 2020) vs. time passing fast during mind-wandering (Mooneyham & Schooler, 2013) or high effort experienced during boredom (Bieleke et al., 2021) vs. low effort experienced during mind-wandering (Christoff et al., 2016). 8 In this model, overload situations are linked with the experience of anxiety, rather than boredom. However, more recent work associate boredom with both situations of underload and overload (e.g., Westgate & Wilson, 2018.

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Same same but different Watt, J. D., & Ewing, J. E. (1996). Toward the development and validation of a measure of sexual boredom. Journal of Sex Research, 33(1), 57–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499609551815 Westen,  D. (1991). Cognitive-behavioral interventions in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of borderline personality disorders. Clinical Psychology Review, 11(3), 211–230. https://doi.org/10.1016/ 0272-7358(91)90101-Y Westgate, E. C., & Steidle, B. (2020). Lost by definition: Why boredom matters for psychology and society. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 14(11), e12562. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12562 Westgate, E. C., & Wilson, T. D. (2018). Boring thoughts and bored minds: The MAC model of boredom and cognitive engagement. Psychological Review, 125(5), 689–713. https://doi.org/10.1037/ rev0000097 White, R. L., Bennie, A., Vasconcellos, D., Cinelli, R., Hilland, T., Owen, K. B., & Lonsdale, C. (2021). Self-determination theory in physical education: A systematic review of qualitative studies. Teaching and Teacher Education, 99, 103247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2020.103247 Wikipedia. (Ed.). (2022). Faust. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Faust&oldid=1106850647 Wilson, R. C., Geana, A., White, J. M., Ludvig, E. A., & Cohen, J. D. (2014). Humans use directed and random exploration to solve the explore-exploit dilemma. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 143(6), 2074–2081. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038199 Wilson,  T. D., Reinhard,  D. A., Westgate,  E. C., Gilbert,  D. T., Ellerbeck,  N., Hahn,  C., Brown,  C. L., & Shaked, A. (2014). Social psychology. Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind. Science, 345(6192), 75–77. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1250830 Witowska, J., Schmidt, S., & Wittmann, M. (2020). What happens while waiting? How self-regulation affects boredom and subjective time during a real waiting situation. Acta Psychologica, 205(103061). https://doi.org/103061 Wolff, W., Bieleke, M., Stähler, J., & Schüler, J. (2021). Too bored for sports? Adaptive and less-adaptive latent personality profiles for exercise behavior. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 53, 101851. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2020.101851 Wolff, W., & Martarelli, C. S. (2020). Bored into depletion? Toward a tentative integration of perceived self-control exertion and boredom as guiding signals for goal-directed behavior. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(5), 1272–1283. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620921394 Wolff,  W., Martarelli,  C. S., Schüler,  J., & Bieleke,  M. (2020). High boredom proneness and low trait self-control impair adherence to social distancing guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(15). https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph17155420 Yan, L., Gan, Y., Ding, X., Wu, J., & Duan, H. (2021). The relationship between perceived stress and emotional distress during the COVID-19 outbreak: Effects of boredom proneness and coping style. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 77, 102328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102328 Yu,  Y., Chang,  A. Y. C., & Kanai,  R. (2018). Boredom-driven curious learning by homeo-heterostatic value gradients. Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2018.00088 Zuckerman, M. (1979). Sensation seeking: Beyond the optimal level of arousal. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Zuckerman, M. (1994). Behavioral expressions and biosocial bases of sensation seeking. Cambridge University Press. Zuckerman, M. (2007). Sensation seeking and risky behavior. American Psychological Association. https:// doi.org/10.1037/11555-000 Zuckerman, M., Bone, R. N., Neary, R., Mangelsdorff, D., & Brustman, B. (1972). What is the sensation seeker? Personality trait and experience correlates of the sensation-seeking scales. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 39(2), 308–321. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0033398 Zuckerman, M., Eysenck, S. B., & Eysenck, H. J. (1978). Sensation seeking in England and America: Crosscultural, age, and sex comparisons. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 46(1), 139–149. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.46.1.139

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3 METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO BOREDOM AND ITS MEASUREMENT Corinna S. Martarelli and Nathanael S. Jost

Introduction Most of us are familiar with the experience of boredom; however, when it comes to conceptualizing the experience, it is difficult to give a clear definition in lay terms. This might be because boredom is a multifaceted experience that includes different phenomenological aspects, such as unpleasantness, low arousal (but also high arousal), lack of engagement, lack of control, and lack of meaning, to mention only a few characteristics (see Chapter 2). A growing number of studies have investigated the construct of boredom in terms of its antecedents and consequences, but also more broadly in terms of its affective, behavioral, cognitive, and neurophysiological correlates (see Chapter 6). Furthermore, differences within and between the tendency to get bored have been observed. For example, the experience of boredom seems to peak during adolescence and diminish with age (e.g., Spaeth et al., 2015). As another example, individuals suffering from traumatic brain injury have been shown to score higher on boredom proneness when compared to healthy controls (Goldberg & Danckert, 2013). Also, boredom has been shown to share variance with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (Malkovsky et al., 2012). In a related vein, researchers have highlighted factors that depend on personality (i.e., internal factors), as well as those contingent upon the situation (i.e., external factors) to explain the experience of boredom. In sum, the past few years have seen a surge of empirical research and theoretical accounts of boredom in a wide range of domains, especially in psychology. Given the diversity, vagueness, and subjectivity of the experience of boredom, it is not surprising that methodological approaches to its measurement have sometimes been criticized as lacking a sound theoretical background (Gana et al., 2019). Recently, researchers have highlighted the challenges of measuring boredom, given its complexity and temporal instability (Mills & Christoff, 2018) and suggested placing emphasis on psychoneurophysiological approaches to systematically monitor fluctuations of boredom over time (Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). Is it possible to measure a construct such as boredom? What is the reliability and validity of existing methods? Some very good reviews of the existing measurements of boredom have been published in the past (e.g., Sharp et al., 2018; Vodanovich, 2003; Vodanovich & Watt, 2016; Vogel-Walcutt et al., 2012). The purpose of this chapter

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003271536-4

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is to provide an updated review of boredom assessments, with a focus on more recent developments. There are broadly two methodologies for assessing boredom: subjective and objective methods. Subjective methods refer to self-reporting methods (i.e., methods that are introspective in nature). This category includes questionnaires about trait and state boredom, as well as probe-caught methods to assess self-reported boredom. Subjective methods are the methods most frequently used to investigate boredom. Objective measures include behavioral (e.g., performance, reaction times, or eye movements), physiological (e.g., pupil size, heart rate, or skin conductance), and neurological measures (e.g., fMRI [functional magnetic resonance imaging] or EEG [electroencephalogram]). Moderate associations between subjective and objective measurements of boredom have been reported (Merrifield & Danckert, 2014), thus endorsing the use of subjective methodologies in this field of research. In the first part of this chapter, we will focus on subjective methods, and we will review the current state of research using objective methods in the second part of this chapter.

Subjective methods for investigating boredom In their 2016 publication, Vodanovich and Watt reviewed the psychometric measures of boredom in extensive detail. They reported on 16 boredom scales, including two domain-general trait measures, which consisted of the Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS; Farmer & Sundberg, 1986) and the Zuckerman Boredom Susceptibility Scale (ZBS; Zuckerman, 1979). To this list were added the five domain-specific trait measures of the Boredom Coping Scale (BCS; Hamilton et al., 1984), the Leisure Boredom Scale (LBS; Iso-Ahola & Weissinger, 1990), the Free Time Boredom Scale (FTBS; Ragheb & Merydith, 2001), the Sexual Boredom Scale (SBS; Watt & Ewing, 1996), and the Relational Boredom Scale (RBS; Harasymchuk & Fehr, 2012); the three domain-general state measures of the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale (MSBS, Fahlman et al., 2013), the State Boredom Measure (SBM; Todman, 2013), and the Boredom Experience Scale (BES; van Tilburg & Igou, 2012); and six domain-specific state measures, which included Lee’s Job Boredom Scale (LJBS; Lee, 1986), the Dutch Boredom Scale (DUBS; Reijseger et al., 2013), the Boredom Coping Scale (BCS-A; Nett et al., 2010), the boredom subscale of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ; Pekrun et  al., 2002), the Academic Boredom Scale (ABS-10; Acee et al., 2010), and the Precursors to Boredom Scale (PBS; Daschmann et al., 2011). We will not review these scales in detail in the present chapter, and we instead refer the interested reader to Vodanovich and Watt (2016) for more details on these assessment methods. Since 2016, research on boredom has been growing steadily. When it comes to the psychometric measurement of boredom, these past few years have seen the development of short forms of existing questionnaires; see, for example, the Short Boredom Proneness Scale (SBPS; Struk et  al., 2017) or the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale Short Form (MSBS-SF; Hunter et al., 2016), which we present in what follows. New scales that better represent the theoretical scope and complexity of boredom have also been developed (Bieleke et al., 2022; O’Dea et al., 2022; Tam et al., 2022). Furthermore, new domain-specific scales have been developed such as the Bored of Sports Scale (BOSS; Wolff et al., 2021c), which is to be used in a sporting context. Finally, in recent years, many validations of translated versions of these scales (e.g., Martarelli et al., 2021a; Peng et al., 2020), as well as adapted versions (e.g., Spoto et al., 2021), have been published. In the following subsections, we review these recent developments. See Figure 3.1 for a summary of the scales.

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General

Domain

Trait

Specific Stability

State

General Domain

Specific

Figure 3.1  Overview of boredom measures. Note: Scales denoted by an asterisk were reviewed in Vodanovich and Watt (2016). Scales are ordered by stability, domain specificity group, and alphabetically. The number of factors were only included if there was satisfactory confirmatory evidence for the respective factor structure.

Boredom proneness Boredom proneness is the most common conceptualization of trait boredom, and it has shown relevant associations with a host of variables, mainly in terms of negative emotions and behavior (despite boredom being a powerful motivator for both positive and negative behaviors alike; Bench & Lench, 2019). For example, boredom proneness has been found to relate to negative constructs, such as anger (Dahlen et al., 2004), anxiety (Sommers & Vodanovich, 2000), and lack of control (Wolff et al., 2021a). Despite the large amount of research correlating boredom proneness with other constructs—especially those with negative connotations—most theories focus on state boredom rather than trait boredom. However, some researchers have theorized of boredom as a trait-like construct (Elpidorou, 2018; Mugon et al., 2018; Tam et al., 2021b). On a phenomenological level, high–boredom-prone individuals seem to experience boredom more frequently and more intensely (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986), and it appears that they may not know what they really want to do with their lives (Tam et al., 2021a). Danckert et al. (see e.g., Danckert et  al., 2018b; Mugon et  al., 2018) propose that boredom-prone individuals might fail to adaptively respond to the signal of boredom, which is a trigger to action to stop 32

Methodological approaches to boredom and its measurement

the experience of boredom and find novel opportunities to increase reward. This proposition is further supported by the results of a recent study (Martarelli et al., 2023a) which found that while boredom-prone individuals are motivated to engage in other activities, they fail to do so. There is a large amount of empirical work on behaviors associated with boredom proneness, paired with rather underdeveloped theorizing on the concept, which has prompted researchers to call for more careful definitions of the boredom proneness construct (Mercer-Lynn et al., 2014; Tam et al., 2021a) and further investigation into the existence of trait boredom, as well as determining whether the existing questionnaires fully capture the construct (Gana et al., 2019). Given its high clinical and psychological relevance, further research—such as assessing whether trait-like boredom can be measured by current boredom proneness measures—is needed. For deeper theorizing on boredom proneness, we refer the interested reader to the Chapter 13. The most widely used boredom proneness questionnaire, already reviewed by Vodanovich and Watt (2016), is the BPS (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986). This questionnaire consists of 28 items composed in a true/false format, with questions in the form of statements such as, “Time always seems to be passing slowly.” Other studies have used a seven-point Likert scale with responses ranging from “highly disagree” to “highly agree” (e.g., Mercer-Lynn et al., 2014). The BPS (both formats) has shown good internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .75 to .91. However, its factor structure has been found to be unstable, with a number of identified factors varying between two and five (Vodanovich & Watt, 2016). The BPS was later shortened to the Boredom Proneness Scale Short Form (BPS-SF) by Vodanovich et al. (2005). The BPS-SF, a 12-item questionnaire using seven-point Likert scale responses, is a two-factorial measure of boredom, with an internal stimulation subscale assessing an individual’s inability to self-generate engagement and an external stimulation subscale assessing an individual’s inability to engage in nourishing activities (Sung et  al., 2021; Vodanovich et  al., 2005). Cronbach’s alphas were .86 for the internal stimulation subscale and .89 for the external stimulation subscale in the original validation study of Vodanovich et al. (2005). More recently, Struk et al. (2017) proposed and validated the SBPS. By rewording reverse-coded items of the BPS and excluding items with poor discriminatory value, they found a one-factorial measure of eight consistently worded items. This scale showed very good internal consistency on its own (e.g., .93 in Bieleke et al., 2021a) and also in its translated versions (e.g., .86 in Martarelli et al., 2023a). van Tilburg et al. (2019) were concerned by the fact that the SBPS includes items that not directly tag boredom (e.g., “I find it hard to entertain myself”); they thus created the Harthouse Boredom Proclivity Scale (HBP; item examples “How prone are you to feeling bored?” or “How often do you experience boredom”), a four-item scale to be answered in a seven-point Likert format with responses ranging from “not at all/never” to “very much/all the time.” The scale showed a one-factorial structure and very high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha of .94). The authors suggest using this scale in combination with the SBPS to create a boredom proneness index (see also O’Dea et al., 2022). In a recent study, Bieleke et al. (2022) developed new domain-general trait boredom scales that consider the urge to avoid and escape boredom, as well as the ways (maladaptive vs. adaptive) in which individuals deal with boredom. These authors developed the four-item Boredom Avoidance and Escape Scale (BAE; item example: “When I feel bored, I must do something about it immediately”) and the six-item Dealing with Boredom Scale (DWB; item example: “I try to be productive” or “I do things that are generally known to be bad”) to be answered in a seven-point Likert format, with responses ranging from “highly disagree” to “highly agree.” The BAE is a one-factorial measure with very good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha of .92), whereas the DWB is a two-factorial measure with satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha of .74). 33

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Tam et al. (2022) developed the Boredom Beliefs Scale, with the subscales Boredom Dislike and Boredom Normalcy. The three items of the Boredom Dislike Scale (item example: “I am afraid of being bored”) measure the extent to which one dislikes boredom, and the three-item Boredom Normalcy Scale (item example: “Boredom is a natural emotional response”) measures the extent to which one normalizes the experience of boredom. The scales are to be answered in a seven-point Likert format, with responses ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” The authors validated the two-factors structure of the scale and internal consistency was found to be satisfactory (Cronbach’s alpha of .74 for the Boredom Dislike Scale and Cronbach’s alpha of .59 for the Boredom Normalcy Scale).

Domain-specific trait boredom It is reasonable to assume that there are differences between domains and, at the same time, that boredom-prone individuals might report having experienced boredom more intensely and more frequently across domains (see also the notion of a “holistic perception of life being boring,” described by Tam et al., 2021a). Several studies show associations between boredom proneness (e.g., measured with the BPS) and the assessment of boredom in the academic context (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986), the sporting context (Martarelli et al., 2023b), or the work context (Baratta & Spence, 2018). To our knowledge, no study has compared the answers to different domain-specific scales and domain-general scales to give a precise estimation of the variance explained by a domain-general factor and that which is domainspecific. Modeling the different sources of variance could be an interesting approach for future research. Vodanovich and Watt (2016) reviewed five important domain-specific trait scales that are still used today (listed previously in this chapter). After 2016, other domain-specific trait scales were developed. For example, in the sporting domain, Wolff et al. (2021c) developed the BOSS to assess individual differences in boredom proneness in a sporting context, with items such as “Exercising is dull and monotonous” or “I find my mind wandering while I exercise.” The BOSS has shown very good internal consistency, with a Cronbach’s alpha of .97 in the original paper presenting the scale. Wolff et al. (2021b) have called for further development of sportspecific questionnaires to measure boredom in specific settings (e.g., individual vs. collective activities or competition vs. exercise). In addition, researchers have started to develop questionnaires that simultaneously assess both trait and state boredom in domain-specific contexts. An example is the AEQ, developed by Pekrun et al. (2002, 2011), which measures a number of achievement emotions, including boredom, experienced in academic settings. This modular questionnaire has to be answered on five-point Likert scales ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Bieleke et al. (2021b) have recently developed and validated a short version of the AEQ referred to as the AEQ-S. The AEQ-S includes eight boredom items (item examples: “I  get restless because I can’t wait for the class to end” and “studying for my courses bores me”), with Cronbach’s alphas for the boredom scales ranging from .80–.88. Confirmatory factor analysis provides evidence that the boredom items belong to one factor (Bieleke et al., 2021b). Another example is the Academic Boredom Survey Instrument (ABSI) of Sharp et al. (2021) for the assessment of trait and state boredom in higher education academic contexts. In this case, the authors identified three second-order factors of academic boredom (boredom proneness, class-related boredom, and study-related boredom), which were divided into seven subscales (time, tedium, and stimulation for boredom proneness; concentration and confinement for class-related boredom; and disinterest and distraction for study-related boredom). The ABSI has shown good internal 34

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consistency, with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .85–.90 for the three second-order factors (Sharp et al., 2021).

State boredom Is there a link between boredom proneness (viewed in terms of personal characteristics) and state boredom (viewed in terms of situational characteristics)? Despite their different origins (person vs. situation), the concepts have shown a moderate overlap, in the sense that boredom-prone individuals are more likely to experience boredom in a given moment (Mercer-Lynn et  al., 2014). Furthermore, correlates between state boredom and negative behavioral consequences, such as drug consumption, have been observed (e.g., Woodall, 2012), reflecting the relevant associations of trait boredom with many negative emotions and behaviors. Frequently used scales to investigate state boredom are the State Boredom Measure (SBM; Todman, 2013) and the MSBS (Fahlman et al., 2013). While the SBM focuses on the past two weeks, the MSBS assesses the actual experience of boredom at a given moment. The SBM is a short questionnaire of eight items to be answered on seven-point Likert scales (item example: “What is the longest period of time that you have been able to tolerate being bored before trying to do something about it?”). The items are usually not averaged into a single score; however, good internal consistency has been shown for a single score (Cronbach’s alpha of .81; Todman, 2013). The MSBS comprises five factors—disengagement, high arousal, inattention, low arousal, and time perception—consisting of 29 items to be answered on seven-point Likert scales ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” The internal consistency was good, with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .80–.92 for the subscales and of .95 for the overall boredom factor (Fahlman et al., 2013). This questionnaire was adapted for adolescents (Spoto et al., 2021) and translated into Spanish (Alda et al., 2015), among other changes. The MSBS 15-Item Version (MSBS-15) was proposed by Baratta and Spence (2015). To select the 15 items, they relied on item response theory, which allows for the identification of items that are more precise and thus provide more information. Three items came from the original time perception factor (item example: “Time is dragging on”), five were associated with the low arousal factor (item example: “I  feel empty”), two came from the inattention factor (item example: “It is difficult to focus my attention”), three were derived from the high arousal factor (item example: “I feel agitated”), and two came from the disengagement factor (item example: “I want something to happen, but I am not sure what”). This short version of the MSBS maintains the five-dimensional structure of the original scale. Hunter et al. (2016) proposed another short form of eight items, referred to as the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale Short Form (MSBS-SF). Five of the eight items came from the original disengagement factor, two were obtained from the inattention factor, and the last came from the time perception factor. The MSBS-SF is a one-factorial measure with high reliability in its original version as well as in its translations (Donati et al., 2019; Dursun & Tezer, 2013). Psychometric analyses of the different versions of the MSBS have been established, and the reliability of these scales has been found to be adequate (e.g., Mercer-Lynn et al., 2013; Oxtoby et al., 2018). For example, Oxtoby et al. (2018) assessed the psychometric properties of these three versions (full scale, MSBS-15, and MSBS-SF), as well as the construct validity and test— retest reliability. They found Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .91–.98 for the full scale and its short forms, and Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .90–.94 for the second-order factors of the MSBS and MSBS-15. Moreover, they found moderate correlations between the MSBS and the SBM (Todman, 2013) for depression, anxiety, and stress, as measured by the Depression 35

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Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). They replicated these correlations with the short forms of the MSBS. State boredom has also been assessed at the end of an activity with questions such as, “How bored do you feel at the moment?”, “How boring would you consider the tasks you just completed?”, and “Do you experience boredom right now?” (Chan et al., 2018; O’Dea et al., 2022; van Tilburg & Igou, 2013). Further, researchers have adopted probe-caught methods by stopping participants throughout a task and asking them to indicate how bored they are at that particular moment (e.g., Blondé et al., 2021; Merrifield & Danckert, 2014). Experience-sampling methods, whereby participants are probed about their feelings of boredom within their natural environment, have also been used successfully (e.g., Chin et al., 2017). Next to probe-caught and experience-sampling methods, one could envisage self-caught methods. Instead of interrupting the participants throughout a task, it would be the participants who voluntarily indicate, at any moment in a given task, whether they are bored. To our knowledge, self-caught methods have not yet been used in boredom research. There might be good reasons for this, as participants must be aware that they are bored without any prompting. We propose that future research could benefit from this methodology to also address the awareness of state boredom.

Domain-specific state boredom Baratta and Spence (2018) developed and validated the State Boredom Inventory (SBI), an 11-item measure to be answered on seven-point Likert scales ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” which assesses state boredom in the work context. This questionnaire comprises three factors (disengagement, e.g., “I wish there was something for me to do”; low arousal, e.g., “I feel lethargic”; and inattention, e.g., “I am having trouble concentrating”) and showed very good internal consistency (average Cronbach’s alpha of .91 for the three factors). Even though the authors presented their scale as a measure to be used in the work context, this questionnaire can easily be applied to other contexts. Another example of a domain-specific state boredom measurement is the Epistemically Related Emotion Scales (EES) of Pekrun et al. (2017). In this case, participants must evaluate different emotions (i.e., the extent to which they felt a particular way during a given academic activity), including their experience of boredom. These scales are well-validated and can be used in contexts other than the academic environment. For example, Martarelli et al. (2021b) used the three adjectives of the boredom subscale (bored, dull, and monotonous; Cronbach’s alphas for this scale in different contexts > .81) in a study investigating the experience of boredom during the COVID-19 pandemic. The AEQ (Pekrun et al., 2002) and AEQ-S (Bieleke et al., 2021b) previously mentioned are generally used as a trait measure; however, they can also be used to assess emotions in a specific situation (i.e., as a state).

Objective methods for investigating boredom Compared to the large number of subjective methods used to investigate boredom, the identification of objective measures of boredom has received little attention, and consensus about such measures that are sensitive to boredom has yet to be reached. Can, for example, eye measures (e.g., eye fixation, blinks, or pupil dilation) be used as an objective method to distinguish between bored and non-bored states? The advantage of measuring phenomena like eye movement or pupil dilation—both being detectable with non-invasive methods—is that they provide online and continuous independent measures of specific mechanisms. Complementing existing subjective methods with objective methods is especially important in the field of 36

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boredom research, given that social desirability may play a role in self-reported boredom. For instance, there may be certain groups (e.g., older people) who want to present themselves in a more positive fashion and thus systematically report lower levels of boredom. Furthermore, subjective measures rely on the ability to reflect on one’s own inner state, which might vary among individuals. Thus, more work is needed to test the convergent validity between objective and subjective measures of boredom.

Eye (and body) movements to investigate boredom So far, eye correlates of boredom have received surprisingly little attention. In one particular study, Danckert et  al. (2018a) found a positive relationship between trait boredom proneness and blink rate. This result is intriguing, given that state boredom showed no association with blink rates in the same study. These results thus deserve further research. Eye movements (i.e., fixations, saccades, fixational eye movements, blinks, and ocular vergence) and pupillary responses are measures of attention, insofar as they disclose where attention is deployed (fixations; Duc et al., 2008), sustained attention (blinks; Smilek et al., 2010), cognitive load (pupil dilation; Wel & Steenbergen, 2018), and arousal (pupil dilation; Unsworth & McMillan, 2013), to mention just a few of these indications. Given that boredom is linked to attention and effort (e.g., Eastwood et al., 2012), eye-tracking might be a promising tool in boredom research. Empirical work has revealed an association between pupil dilation and the locus coeruleus, as Laeng et al. (2012) have shown in their discussion of the value of pupillometry in understanding mental activity. In this work, the authors put forward pupillometry (phasic and tonic pupillary changes) as a measure of the two modes (phasic and tonic) of the locus coeruleus, which directly links to different patterns of attention (“focused exploitation” vs. “diffuse exploration”; see Laeng et al., 2012). There is a lot of evidence of time-locked phasic pupillary changes when one is engaged in a task (Wel & Steenbergen, 2018). Tonic pupillary changes are especially evident in situations of fatigue, when pupil dilation variability augments and pupil size diminishes steadily (Karatekin et al., 2007). Pupil size, which is difficult to control voluntarily, may be a valuable method to investigate bored vs. non-bored states, as well as to understand the intricate interconnection of complex constructs such as boredom, attention, and self-control (Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). Eye-tracking can be used not only as a research tool, but also in an educational settings, to improve learning. D’Mello et al. (2012) used real-time eye-tracking to detect and decrease boredom to promote engagement and learning. More specifically, they developed an eye gaze reactive tutor and showed that gaze reactivity was efficient to reorient attention in students, and thus had a positive impact on learning. In the same vein, D’Mello et al. (2007) investigated posture as predictor of engagement in a learning setting and found that boredom was related to an increase in the pressure exerted on the back, as well as with a change in seat pressure. These two postures associated with boredom might relate to laying back and restlessness, respectively. The researchers used the seat pressure, the back pressure, and the seat pressure change with a machine learning approach (three algorithms, i.e., a Bayesian model, a neural network, and a simple nearest neighbor classifier) to predict engagement/disengagement states and found that the three algorithms were able to discriminate boredom from flow above chance level.

Electroencephalography and neuroimaging to investigate boredom Some studies have investigated the neural signature of boredom with EEG; for example, Perone et al. (2019) found that low levels of trait boredom were associated with a leftward shift in frontal activity during boredom induction. The authors interpret this finding as evidence 37

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of active regulatory processes that emerge in low boredom-prone individuals during a boring task. Yakobi et  al. (2021) extended this work and used EEG to investigate boredom by including the study of event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically the stimulus-locked P300 and the response-locked error-related negativity (ERN), as indices of attention. Indeed, they found an association between higher levels of experienced boredom and reduced amplitudes in P300 and ERN, thus confirming diminished attentional control as a core aspect of boredom. Recent studies have also investigated the neural signature of boredom with neuroimaging, which has mainly revealed higher activation in the default mode network (including the prefrontal regions, cingulate cortex, and hippocampal areas, among others) during the experience of boredom (Danckert & Merrifield, 2018). It remains an open question whether the implication of the default mode network is directly linked to boredom, or whether it is mediated by the failure to engage attention, which is a core dimension of the experience of boredom (Eastwood et  al., 2012). Indeed, a large amount of research has shown the implications of the default mode network in disengaged states (e.g., mind-wandering; Mason et al., 2007). By taking a different approach, Dal Mas and Wittmann (2017) studied the neural correlates of boredom in an approach/avoidance context. More specifically, they tasked their participants with choosing between carrying out a boring task (i.e., deciding whether the frame of the same landscape is blurred over approximately five minutes) and paying to listen to music (among other control choices). The authors showed an association between the willingness of participants to pay higher prices (when the other option was a boring task) and enhanced activity in the caudate nucleus. In sum, this study revealed that the caudate nucleus is implicated in decisions to relieve boredom. For further developments in EEG and fMRI findings on boredom, we refer the reader to Chapter 12.

Galvanic skin response and biopotentials to investigate boredom Some earlier work in the context of human–computer interaction reported on the use of physiological measures to model affective states. For example, Mandryk and Atkins (2007) used galvanic skin response, electrocardiography, electromyography, and heart rate to infer arousal and valence during a computer game experience (five-minute period of hockey), which were in turn used to infer the experiences of boredom, challenge, excitement, frustration, and fun. The authors used fuzzy logic to model their data. However, the modeling seemed to work best with fun and excitement, whereas the correlations between objective and subjective boredom were non-significant. This lack of consistency can be explained by the fact that the experience of boredom was low in general, which is to be expected, since a computer game situation is mainly characterized by experiences of fun and excitement. In the same vein, Jang et al. (2015) analyzed several physiological signals to identify boredom, pain, and surprise. In this case, the authors used various stimuli to induce the emotions (e.g., presentation of a “+” symbol on the screen combined with a repetitive sound of numbers from 1–10 for three minutes to induce boredom) and collected 27 physiological parameters. Using a data-driven approach, they identified six physiological measures (heart rate, skin conductance level, skin conductance response, mean skin temperature, blood volume pulse, and pulse transit time) to distinguish among the three affective states. With a theory-driven approach, Merrifield and Danckert (2014) showed increased heart rate and reduced skin conductance levels associated with boredom when compared to sadness, both of which were induced with a video (e.g., two men hanging laundry) to induce boredom. These results suggest that boredom might be related to increased arousal and attentional 38

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disengagement, thus keeping the discussion open on whether bored individuals feel aroused (agitated) or not (apathic).

Keystroke analysis to detect boredom Keystroke analysis is concerned with the time points of keypresses and releases while writing a text on a computer. It was originally and still is primarily used in user authentication (for an overview, see Sullivan & Lindgren, 2021), whereby algorithms typically create a profile of the users typing rhythm by evaluating training data, which is then used for password-free authentication. Early work in the field (Shepherd, 1995) showed that rollover patterns (e.g., overlapping keypresses as a record of a keypress while the previous has not been fully released) are distinct and therefore useful for identification purposes. However, there is not only inter- but also intra-individual variability in keystroke patterns. Vizer et al. (2009) used a decision tree to detect changes in the typing patterns of people experiencing cognitive and physical stress compared to a control group. They found some of the most important differences to be average pause length, time per keystroke, and backspace key rate. In a related vein, Khanna and Sasikumar (2010) tried to infer positive, negative, or neutral emotional states from keystroke patterns. By using various classification algorithms, they correctly identified up to 89% of both positive vs. neutral and negative vs. neutral classifications. Bixler and D’Mello (2013) used a similar technique; however, they tried to classify affect more specifically by creating models that differentiated between the affective states of engagement, neutrality, and boredom while also considering task appraisals and trait measures. The authors showed that their model could classify the affective states about 17% more accurately than chance level. Notably, the best model was a combination of keystroke dynamics, task appraisals, and trait measures, since keystroke dynamics alone were not as predictive. More specifically, individual differences at the trait level were necessary for a good model fit. Considering this finding, it makes sense to take individual differences into account when analyzing keystroke dynamics. Note that the authors did not have any previous keystroke data about the participants. However, it would be interesting to evaluate whether these individual differences could also be accounted for by generating keystroke profiles based on (perhaps individual) training data.

Natural language processing to detect boredom Natural language processing (NLP) uses machine learning algorithms to analyze natural language data (i.e., to comprehend natural text and extract meaning from it; Nadkarni et  al., 2011). A multitude of different applications exist for NLP algorithms. For example, they are widely used in the fields of translation, human–computer interactions with smart assistants, and customer service chatbots. NLP-based analyses are as diverse as their fields of application. Sentiment analysis is a special case of applying NLP with the goal of recognizing affective states. Sentiment analyses assess textual polarity (i.e., differentiating between negative, neutral, and positive text). Recently, Slater et al. (2017) applied more advanced models to detect different affective states such as confusion, engaged concentration, frustration, and boredom, as experienced by middle-schoolers through an investigation of the linguistic properties of an online mathematics tutor. One of the predictors of boredom was how common the combination of words in the mathematical problems was, and students were less bored when exposed to word sequences that were more common in academic contexts. Note that in this study, the linguistic properties were analyzed to predict boredom, whereby a different approach may concentrate on 39

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the semantics of the words and their combinations. Additionally, more advanced models could combine keystroke analysis and NLP models to detect boredom (e.g., by analyzing text in the process of writing). Furthermore, since NLP is based on machine learning methods, the models predicting boredom could be highly customized to groups of people (e.g., high school classes) or even to individuals by training the model on the respective data. Even though the subject area is still in its infancy, the study by Slater et al. (2017) seems to be particularly promising, as the field of sentiment analysis is rapidly evolving, and we can expect more complex and differentiated NLP models in the future. Such developments may allow us to reliably predict more complex emotions like boredom, especially when combined with keystroke analysis and with consideration of the high customizability of the respective models.

Outlook In the present chapter, we reviewed subjective and objective methods to assess boredom, with a focus on recent developments. During recent years, great progress has been made in the conceptualization and measurement of boredom. There has been an uptick in boredom research, including the validation of existing questionnaires, the development of new questionnaires, and triangulation of methods, including self-report, behavioral, and neurological measures. Despite the significant advancements, there is a need for future boredom research. For example, studies testing the construct validity of different measurement approaches are needed. Do we obtain the same results when using different measurement methods? Do we obtain the same results when testing in a laboratory or in an online setting? What is the predictive validity of current boredom measurements? As self-report methods are characterized by poor measurement (Flake & Fried, 2020), it is thus primordial to consider different related aspects, such as whether asking about boredom influences the experience of boredom, whether different measurement methods bias the responses, and whether it is possible to study both the appearance of boredom and its duration (how long does a boredom episode last?), to mention a few. To conclude, all measurements (subjective and objective) are important to study boredom; the choice of measurement method largely depends on the research question. We believe that combining methods will advance boredom measurement, as well as exchange and adversarial collaborations (in the sense of Daniel Kahneman, n.d.) if boredom researchers with opposing views work together.

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Corinna S. Martarelli and Nathanael S. Jost Flake, J. K., & Fried, E. I. (2020). Measurement schmeasurement: Questionable measurement practices and how to avoid them.  Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 3(4), 456–465. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245920952393 Gana, K., Broc, G., & Bailly, N. (2019). Does the boredom proneness scale capture traitness of boredom? Results from a six-year longitudinal trait-state-occasion model. Personality and Individual Differences, 139, 247–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.11.030 Goldberg, Y., & Danckert, J. (2013). Traumatic brain injury, boredom and depression. Behavioral Sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 3(3), 434–444. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs3030434 Hamilton, J. A., Haier, R. J., & Buchsbaum, M. S. (1984). Intrinsic enjoyment and boredom coping scales: Validation with personality, evoked potential, and attention measures. Personality and Individual Differences, 5, 183–193. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(84)90050-3 Harasymchuk, C., & Fehr, B. (2012). Development of a prototype-based measure of relational boredom. Personal Relationships, 19, 162–181. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2011.01346.x Hunter, J. A., Dyer, K. J., Cribbie, R. A., & Eastwood, J. D. (2016). Exploring the utility of the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 32(3), 241–250. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000251 Iso-Ahola, S. E., & Weissinger, E. (1990). Perceptions of boredom in leisure: Conceptualization, reliability and validity of the leisure boredom scale. Journal of Leisure Research, 22(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/00222216.1990.11969811 Jang, E.-H., Park, B.-J., Park, M.-S., Kim, S.-H., & Sohn, J.-H. (2015). Analysis of physiological signals for recognition of boredom, pain, and surprise emotions. Journal of Physiological Anthropology, 34(1), 25. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40101-015-0063-5 Kahneman, D. (n.d.). Adversarial collaboration [An EDGE lecture]. https://www.edge.org/ adversarial-collaboration-daniel-kahneman Karatekin, C., Marcus, D. J., & Couperus, J. W. (2007). Regulation of cognitive resources during sustained attention and working memory in 10-year-olds and adults. Psychophysiology, 44(1), 128–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2006.00477.x Khanna, P., & Sasikumar, M. (2010). Recognizing emotions from keyboard stroke pattern. International Journal of Computer Applications, 11(9), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.5120/1614-2170 Laeng, B., Sirois, S., & Gredebäck, G. (2012). Pupillometry: A window to the preconscious? Perspectives on Psychological Science: A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 7(1), 18–27. https://doi. org/10.1177/1745691611427305 Lee, T. W. (1986). Toward the development and validation of a measure of job boredom. Manhattan College Journal of Business, 15, 22–28. Lovibond, S. H., & Lovibond, P. F. (1995). Manual for the depression anxiety stress scales (2nd ed.). Psychology Foundation of Australia. Malkovsky, E., Merrifield, C., Goldberg, Y., & Danckert, J. (2012). Exploring the relationship between boredom and sustained attention. Experimental Brain Research, 221(1), 59–67. https://doi. org/10.1007/s00221-012-3147-z Mandryk, R. L., & Atkins, M. S. (2007). A fuzzy physiological approach for continuously modeling emotion during interaction with play technologies. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 65(4), 329–347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2006.11.011 Martarelli, C. S., Baillifard, A., & Audrin, C. (2023a). A trait-based network perspective on the validation of the French Short Boredom Proneness Scale. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 39(6), 390–399. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000718 Martarelli, C. S., Berthouzoz, P., Bieleke, M., & Wolff, W. (2023b). Bored of sports? Investigating the interactive role of engagement and value as predictors of boredom in athletic training. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 12(2), 141–154. https://doi.org/10.1037/spy0000320 Martarelli, C. S., Bertrams, A., & Wolff, W. (2021a). A  personality trait-based network of boredom, spontaneous and deliberate mind-wandering. Assessment, 28(8), 1915–1931. https://doi. org/10.1177/1073191120936336 Martarelli, C. S., Wolff, W., & Bieleke, M. (2021b). Bored by bothering? A cost-value approach to pandemic boredom. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 218. https://doi.org/10.1057/ s41599-021-00894-8 Mason, M. F., Norton, M. I., Van Horn, J. D., Wegner, D. M., Grafton, S. T., & Macrae, C. N. (2007). Wandering minds: The default network and stimulus-independent thought. Science, 315(5810), 393–395. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1131295

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Methodological approaches to boredom and its measurement Mercer-Lynn, K. B., Bar, R. J., & Eastwood, J. D. (2014). Causes of boredom: The person, the situation, or both? Personality and Individual Differences, 56, 122–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. paid.2013.08.034 Mercer-Lynn, K. B., Flora, D. B., Fahlman, S. A., & Eastwood, J. D. (2013). The measurement of boredom: Differences between existing self-report scales. Assessment, 20(5), 585–596. https://doi. org/10.1177/1073191111408229 Merrifield, C., & Danckert, J. (2014). Characterizing the psychophysiological signature of boredom. Experimental Brain Research, 232(2), 481–491. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3755-2 Mills, C., & Christoff, K. (2018). Finding consistency in boredom by appreciating its instability. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(9), 744–747. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.07.001 Mugon, J., Struk, A., & Danckert, J. (2018). A failure to launch: Regulatory modes and boredom proneness. Frontiers in Psychology, 9(1126). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01126 Nadkarni, P. M., Ohno-Machado, L., & Chapman, W. W. (2011). Natural language processing: An introduction. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 18(5), 544–551. https://doi. org/10.1136/amiajnl-2011-000464 Nett, U. E., Goetz, T., & Daniels, L. M. (2010). What to do when feeling bored: Student strategies for coping with boredom. Learning and Individual Differences, 20, 626–638. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/ O’Dea, M. K., Igou, E. R., Tilburg, W. A. P. van, & Kinsella, E. L. (2022). Self-compassion predicts less boredom: The role of meaning in life. Personality and Individual Differences, 186, 111360. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111360 Oxtoby, J., King, R., Sheridan, J., & Obst, P. (2018). Psychometric analysis of the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale and its condensed versions. Assessment, 25(7), 826–840. https://doi. org/10.1177/1073191116662910 Pekrun, R., Goetz, T., Frenzel, A. C., Barchfeld, P., & Perry, R. P. (2011). Measuring emotions in students’ learning performance: The achievement emotions questionnaire (AEQ). Contemporary Educational Psychology, 36, 36–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2010.10.002 Pekrun, R., Goetz, T., Titz, W., & Perry, R. P. (2002). Academic emotions in students’ self-regulated learning and achievement: A program of qualitative and quantitative research. Educational Psychologist, 37(2), 91–105. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326985EP3702_4 Pekrun, R., Vogl, E., Muis, K. R., & Sinatra, G. M. (2017). Measuring emotions during epistemic activities: The epistemically-related emotion scales. Cognition and Emotion, 31(6), 1268–1276. https://doi. org/10.1080/02699931.2016.1204989 Peng, J., Guo, W., Zhao, L., Han, X., & Wu, S. (2020). Short boredom proneness scale: Adaptation and validation of a Chinese version with college students. Social Behavior and Personality, 48, 1–8. https:// doi.org/10.2224/sbp.8968. Perone, S., Weybright, E. H., & Anderson, A. J. (2019). Over and over again: Changes in frontal EEG asymmetry across a boring task. Psychophysiology, 56(10), 13427. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13427 Ragheb, M. G., & Merydith, S. P. (2001). Development and validation of a multidimensional scale measuring free time boredom. Leisure Studies, 20(1), 41–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614360122569 Reijseger, G., Schaufeli, W. B., Peeters, M. C. W., Taris, T. W., Beek, I., & Ouweneel, E. (2013). Watching the paint dry at work: Psychometric examination of the Dutch Boredom Scale. Anxiety, Stress & Coping: An International Journal, 26, 508–525. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ Sharp, J. G., Sharp, J., & Young, E. (2018). Academic boredom, engagement and the achievement of undergraduate students at university: A review and synthesis of relevant literature. Research Papers in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2018.1536891 Sharp, J. G., Zhu, X., Matos, M., & Sharp, J. C. (2021). The Academic Boredom Survey Instrument (ABSI): A measure of trait, state and other characteristic attributes for the exploratory study of student engagement. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 45(9), 1253–1280. https://doi.org/10.1080 /0309877X.2021.1947998 Shepherd, S. J. (1995). Continuous authentication by analysis of keyboard typing characteristics. European Convention on Security and Detection, 1995, 111–114. https://doi.org/10.1049/cp:19950480 Slater, S., Ocumpaugh, J., Baker, R., Allen, L., Almeda, M. V., & Heffernan, N. (2017). Using natural language processing tools to develop complex models of student engagement. In 2017 7th international conference on affective computing and intelligent interaction, ACII 2017 (Vol. 2018, pp.  542–547). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. https://doi.org/10.1109/ ACII.2017.8273652

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Corinna S. Martarelli and Nathanael S. Jost Smilek, D., Carriere, J. S. A., & Cheyne, J. A. (2010). Out of mind, out of sight: Eye blinking as indicator and embodiment of mind wandering. Psychological Science, 21, 786–789. https://doi. org/10.1177/0956797610368063 Sommers, J., & Vodanovich, S. J. (2000). Boredom proneness: Its relationship to psychological- and physical-health symptoms. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 56(1), 149–155. https://doi.org/10.1002/ (SICI)1097-4679(200001)56:1 Spaeth, M., Weichold, K., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2015). The development of leisure boredom in early adolescence: Predictors and longitudinal associations with delinquency and depression. Developmental Psychology, 51(10), 1380–1394. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039480 Spoto, A., Iannattone, S., Valentini, P., Raffagnato, A., Miscioscia, M., & Gatta, M. (2021). Boredom in adolescence: Validation of the Italian version of the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale (MSBS) in adolescents. Children, 8(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/children8040314 Struk, A. A., Carriere, J. S. A., Cheyne, J. A., & Danckert, J. (2017). A short boredom proneness scale: Development and psychometric properties. Assessment, 24(3), 346–359. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1073191115609996 Sullivan, K., & Lindgren, E. (2021). Computer key-stroke logging and writing. Brill. https://doi. org/10.1163/9780080460932 Sung, B., Lee, S., & Teow, T. (2021). Revalidating the Boredom Proneness Scales Short From (BPS-SF). Personality and Individual Differences, 168, 110364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110364 Tam, K. Y. Y., Chan, C. S., van Tilburg, W. A. P., Lavi, I., & Lau, J. Y. F. (2022). Boredom belief moderates the mental health impact of boredom among young people: Correlational and multi-wave longitudinal evidence gathered during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Journal of Personality. https://doi. org/10.1111/jopy.12764. Tam, K. Y. Y., van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Chan, C. S. (2021a). What is boredom proneness? A comparison of three characterizations. Journal of Personality, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12618 Tam, K. Y. Y., van Tilburg, W. A. P., Chan, C. S., Igou, E. R., & Lau, H. (2021b). Attention drifting in and out: The Boredom Feedback Model. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 25(3), 251–272. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683211010297 Todman, M. (2013). The dimensions of state boredom: Frequency, duration, unpleasantness, consequences and causal attributions. Educational Research International, 1(1), 32–40. Unsworth, N., & McMillan, B. D. (2013). Mind wandering and reading comprehension: Examining the roles of working-memory capacity, interest, motivation, and topic experience. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 832–842. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029669. van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Igou, E. R. (2012). On boredom: Lack of challenge and meaning as distinct boredom experiences. Motivation and Emotion, 36, 181–194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Igou, E. R. (2013). On the meaningfulness of behavior: An expectancy x value approach. Motivation and Emotion, 37(3), 373–388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-012-9316-3 van Tilburg, W. A. P., Igou, E. R., Maher, P. J., Moynihan, A. B., & Martin, D. G. (2019). Bored like hell: Religiosity reduces boredom and tempers the quest for meaning. Emotion, 19(2), 255–269. https:// doi.org/10.1037/emo0000439 Vizer, L. M., Zhou, L., & Sears, A. (2009). Automated stress detection using keystroke and linguistic features: An exploratory study. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 67(10), 870–886. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2009.07.005 Vodanovich, S. J. (2003). Psychometric measures of boredom: A review of the literature. The Journal of Psychology, 137(6), 569–595. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980309600636 Vodanovich, S. J., Wallace, J. C., & Kass, S. J. (2005). A confirmatory approach to the factor structure of the Boredom Proneness Scale: Evidence for a two-factor short form. Journal of Personality Assessment, 85(3), 295–303. https://doi.org/doi:10.1207/ Vodanovich, S. J., & Watt, J. D. (2016). Self-report measures of boredom: An updated review of the literature. The Journal of Psychology, 150(2), 196–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2015.1 074531 Vogel-Walcutt, J. J., Fiorella, L., Carper, T., & Schatz, S. (2012). The definition, assessment, and mitigation of state boredom within educational settings: A  comprehensive review. Educational Psychology Review, 24, 89–111. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-011-9182-7 Watt, J. D., & Ewing, J. E. (1996). Toward the development and validation of a measure of sexual boredom. Journal of Sex Research, 33, 57–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224499609551815

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Methodological approaches to boredom and its measurement Wel, P., & Steenbergen, H. (2018). Pupil dilation as an index of effort in cognitive control tasks: A review. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25, 2005–2015. https://doi.org/10.3758.13423-018-1432. Wolff, W., Bieleke, M., Englert, C., Bertrams, A., Schüler, J., & Martarelli, C. (2021a). A  single item measure of self-control-validation and location in a nomological network of self-control, boredom, and if-then planning. Social Psychological Bulletin, 17, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.32872/spb.7453 Wolff, W., Bieleke, M., Martarelli, C. S., & Danckert, J. (2021b). A primer on the role of boredom in selfcontrolled sports and exercise behavior. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 535. https://doi.org/10.3389/ fpsyg.2021.637839 Wolff, W., Bieleke, M., Stähler, J., & Schüler, J. (2021c). Too bored for sports? Adaptive and less-adaptive latent personality profiles for exercise behavior. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 53, 101851. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2020.101851 Wolff, W., & Martarelli, C. S. (2020). Bored into depletion? Toward a tentative integration of perceived self-control exertion and boredom as guiding signals for goal-directed behavior. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(5), 1272–1283. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620921394 Woodall, J. (2012). Social and environmental factors influencing in-prison drug use. Health Education, 112(1), 31–46. https://doi.org/10.1108/09654281211190245 Yakobi, O., Boylan, J., & Danckert, J. (2021). Behavioral and electroencephalographic evidence for reduced attentional control and performance monitoring in boredom. Psychophysiology, 58(6), e13816. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13816 Zuckerman, M. (1979). Sensation seeking: Beyond the optimal level of arousal. Erlbaum.

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4 THE NATURE AND VALUE OF BOREDOM Andreas Elpidorou

Introduction In his discussion of the cognitive character and epistemic value of art, philosopher Nelson Goodman suggests that artworks have the capacity to “inform what we encounter later and elsewhere” (Goodman, 1968, p. 260). Indeed, for Goodman, if art has cognitive value, it lies, at least partly, in its ability to change how we experience the world. “What a Manet or Monet or Cézanne does to our subsequent seeing of the world,” Goodman writes, “is as pertinent to their appraisal as is any direct confrontation” (ibid.). Goodman’s position carries an air of plausibility. Artworks (in particular, literary works or films) have an uncanny ability to stay with us: to affect our thoughts and the ways in which we relate to, perceive, and imagine the world. Literary works chronicling experiences of boredom often do the same. Even if they can’t offer us a psychologically and physiologically precise anatomy of boredom, they present us with a way of thinking about boredom—a filter, a lens, a map—that licenses, if not the derivation of a cognitive insight, at least an invitation to reorientate ourselves in relation to boredom. Alberto Moravia’s La Noia issues precisely such an invitation. By emphasizing both the need for action and the felt impatience inherent in boredom, Moravia enjoins us to give up on an understanding of boredom that conceives of it as a purely apathetic state. Those familiar with La Noia know that Dino, the deeply bored protagonist of Moravia’s novel, is—on account of his boredom—active, impulsive, impatient, desperate, even violent. Readers also discover in Dino’s boredom a disrupted sense of agency. Dino is trapped in and by his own boredom, knowing neither how to alleviate it nor how to act in a meaningful way. As he tells us: my boredom resembles a repeated and mysterious interruption of the electric current inside a house: at one moment everything is clear and obvious—here are armchairs, over there are sofas, beyond are cupboards, side tables, pictures, curtains, carpets, windows, doors; a moment later there is nothing but darkness and an empty void. (Moravia, 2011, p. 5) Boredom is described by Moravia as a disruption of the electric current that illuminates something that is all too familiar to us—namely, our home. Such a description is as informative as 46

DOI: 10.4324/9781003271536-5

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it is suggestive. First, insofar as it is a disruption, boredom signifies a break or deviation from normalcy of some sort (be it flow, intimacy, or engagement). During boredom, we become aware of a disconnect between our situation and our desires (Fenichel, 1953; Greenson, 1953). Our situation is no longer interesting, engaging, or absorbing to us; it appears instead to be devoid of significance, meaning, or opportunities for satisfactory engagement. Second, and not unlike what occurs when power goes out, the disruption that boredom brings about calls for a response. Boredom disturbs and changes our mode of engagement with the world and ourselves. In doing so, it throws us back to ourselves prompting us to find a way out of it (in this vein, see also Chapter 2). I quote Moravia not to wax speculatively regarding boredom. Instead, my aim is to use La Noia, and in particular the quoted passage, in order to introduce the reader to a way of thinking about boredom that is especially helpful when attempting to understand the workings and value of boredom. What I take from Moravia’s passage is a license to think of boredom as a psychological mechanism that both indicates the presence of a cognitive disequilibrium and aims to resolve this disequilibrium. Boredom, in other words, is both a disruption of a satisfactory cognitive connection to the world and a prompt to re-establish it. The chapter proceeds as follows. The following section (“Boredom and Cognitive Engagement”) offers a description of boredom by exploring its relationship to cognitive engagement and advances a functional understanding of boredom. Specifically, it argues that boredom should be understood to be the psychological state that: (a) arises due to the presence of an unmet need for satisfactory cognitive engagement; and (b) aims to fulfill this need by facilitating a set of behaviors that, under the right conditions, can restore satisfactory cognitive engagement. The subsequent section (“The Value of Boredom”) examines the potential value of boredom in light of findings that show that the experience of boredom often leads to maladaptive or harmful behaviors. It articulates how a functional view of boredom allows us to account for the hybrid nature of boredom (how it can be both harmful and beneficial) and explores the different ways in which boredom can confer an advantage to the experiencing agent. The section also makes a case that whatever benefit boredom carries stems from its ability to contribute to self-regulation. Although such a conclusion supports the view that boredom can be a beneficial psychological state, it highlights clearly that its benefits are contingent upon both environmental and psychological factors.

Boredom and cognitive engagement The question “What is boredom?” is not univocal. Because of that, it is necessary to distinguish between different ways of asking it. First, when posing the question, one could be asking about the ontology of boredom: What type of entity is boredom? Second, the question can be thought to concern the character of boredom: What is boredom’s experiential signature, and how is it commonly realized in human agents? Finally, the question can be understood as a prompt for determining boredom’s function: What sort of outcomes does boredom instigate, and how does it affect the experiencing agent? I take these three readings of the question to be instrumental in investigating the phenomenon of boredom. A preliminary answer to the first question allows us to define our subject matter and to narrow the scope of our investigation; it does so by setting up the parameters necessary in order to study boredom carefully. An answer to the second question permits us to individuate boredom and to assess its presence. Finally, by answering the third question, we can clarify not only boredom’s role in our behavioral and mental economy, but also its potential value in our lives. 47

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In this section, I do not aim to settle the ontology, character, or function of boredom. Nonetheless, I will offer preliminary answers to the three questions. In doing so, I aim to advance a description of boredom that will eventually allow us to engage in a productive examination of its value.

The ontology of boredom Boredom has been understood to be both a psychological state and a personality trait—the latter is often called “trait boredom” or “boredom proneness” and is assessed by a multi-item self-administered questionnaire (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986; Vodanovich 2003; Vodanovich & Watt, 2016). For the purposes of this chapter, I restrict my attention to state boredom. This is mainly for three reasons. First, state boredom is the phenomenon of interest—at least for me and at least for this chapter—for it corresponds to our everyday experience of boredom: it is the affective state that most of us experience relatively frequently, and which arises in all-too-familiar circumstances (e.g., in waiting rooms, in meetings, at airports, at home with nothing to do, in classes, or at work) (Chin et al., 2017; Goetz et al., 2014; Smith & Page, 2015). Second, any attempt to understand the ontology, nature, and function of a psychological state on the basis of the study of its corresponding trait faces important theoretical and methodological obstacles. With respect to boredom, the theory behind trait boredom remains obscure (Tam et al., 2021a), there are known issues with the instruments meant to assess the presence of trait boredom (Gana et al., 2019; Struk et al., 2017; Vodanovich, 2003), and measures of trait boredom correlate only weakly with state boredom (Westgate & Steidle, 2020). Third, and as already announced, part of the aim of this chapter is to examine the value of boredom. Trait boredom does not appear to be valuable or beneficial to the agent—if anything, this personality trait has been thought to be a contributing factor to a number of harmful and maladaptive behaviors (Vodanovich 2003; Vodanovich & Watt, 2016); it has even been suggested that the presence of trait boredom is detrimental to one’s hedonic and eudaemonic well-being (Elpidorou, 2017). As a psychological state, boredom is a biologically realized and subjectively felt experience that human agents (and animals) can undergo. Stated otherwise, there is something that it is like to be bored and the onset of boredom brings about a host of cognitive, volitional, physiological, behavioral, and expressive changes. As a state, boredom is transient, occurrent and not dispositional (i.e., it exists as long as its concomitants last), and largely situation dependent (it can be often induced and alleviated by situational factors) (Chin et al., 2017). This preliminary explication of boredom as a psychological state does not fully determine its ontology. For one, it fails to specify the exact type of psychological state that boredom is: Is it a feeling, an emotion, a desire, a drive, a mood, a cognitive attitude, or something else? For another, our preliminary answer to the ontology of boredom does not provide us with insight into the essence of boredom, if such a thing exists. Is boredom, in other words, primarily a cognitive, affective, volitional, or physiological phenomenon? Or is it something else? Regardless of how we settle these difficult issues, the preliminary answer offered to the ontological question remains valuable.1 It reveals that boredom is a psychological, episodic state that is felt, that can be individuated in virtue of its concomitants, and that can be induced and alleviated by changes in environmental factors.

The character of boredom Subjective reports on the experience of boredom suggest that boredom is the affectively unpleasant realization that one’s current need for satisfactory engagement is not currently met (Harris, 2000; Hartocollis, 1972; Mikulas & Vodanovich, 1993; Pekrun et al., 2010; Todman, 48

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2003; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012). Still, boredom is more than a painful realization of the lack of unsatisfactory engagement. Bored individuals also comment on the presence of a strong desire to escape their current situation (Eastwood et al., 2012; Fahlman et al., 2013; O’Brien, 2014). This first pass on the character of boredom will serve as the focal point of the present investigation. It highlights three key elements of boredom. Boredom is: (a) an aversive (negatively valenced) experience that (b) indicates lack of satisfactory engagement and dissatisfaction with one’s situation and (c) involves a desire to alter one’s current situation. Boredom’s cognitive profile is characterized by difficulties in the effective and desirable deployment of one’s attentional resources, and also by the presence of negative appraisals regarding one’s situation (Eastwood et  al., 2012; Tam et  al., 2021b; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012, 2017a; Westgate & Wilson, 2018). On the one hand, tasks that resist one’s attention have been shown to elicit the experience of boredom (Hunter & Eastwood, 2018; Malkovsky et al., 2012); phenomenological characterizations of state boredom describe it as involving a difficulty in sustaining one’s attention (Harris, 2000); and finally, the physiological and neurological correlates of boredom are indicative of suboptimal attentional performance (Merrifield & Danckert, 2014; Danckert & Merrifield, 2018; Ulrich et  al., 2014). On the other hand, researchers have explored the type of negative appraisals that are connected to boredom either as antecedents or as elements of the experience of boredom. An influential theory maintains that the experience of boredom is associated with the appraisal that one’s situation is meaningless (or insufficiently meaningful) (Chan et  al., 2018; Fahlman et  al., 2009; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011, 2017a). Other accounts have suggested that boredom involves negative appraisals regarding the amount of autonomy, simulation, or challenge afforded to one by one’s situation (Caldwell et al., 1999; Csikszentmihalyi, 1975; Daschmann et al., 2011; Fahlman et al., 2013; Martin et al., 2006; Shaw et al., 1996; Steinberger et al., 2016; van Hooft & van Hooff, 2018). Both the attentional difficulties associated with boredom and the presence of negative appraisals strongly suggest that boredom is intimately related to lack of satisfactory engagement and dissatisfaction with one’s situation. In turn, boredom is a psychological state with a pronounced volitional character. Indeed, what sets boredom apart from apathy is the fact that only boredom involves a desire to escape one’s current situation (Goldberg et al., 2011; Nisbet, 1982). Specifically, boredom involves a desire to alleviate one’s boredom by seeking engagement with an alternative situation. Such a desire could give rise to the pursuit of novel but aversive experiences (Bench & Lench, 2019). Worse, experimental studies and real-world stories demonstrate that one’s desire to escape boredom can lead to actions that are harmful to oneself and others (Bench & Lench, 2019; Danckert, 2021; Elpidorou, 2020; Nederkoorn et al., 2016; Pfattheicher et al., 2020; Wilson et al., 2014). Such findings underscore the motivational power of boredom. What is worth noting is that the desire for alternative engagement, although strong, is not always well formed. Even though bored individuals are often aware that they do not wish to be doing what they are currently doing, they might not be able to articulate clearly what else they would rather be doing. Finally, numerous studies and subjective reports have established that boredom is a state of negative valence. Boredom’s unpleasantness is first and foremost reflected in its phenomenology (Harris, 2000; Hartocollis, 1972; Mikulas & Vodanovich, 1993; Pekrun et al., 2010; Todman, 2003; Vogel-Walcutt et al., 2012). In addition to a felt dissatisfaction with one’s situation, the experience of boredom also involves feelings of restlessness and listlessness (Goetz et al., 2014; Harris, 2000; Martin et al., 2006; O’Brien, 2014; Steinberger et al., 2016), and often a sense of restricted autonomy (Caldwell et al., 1999; Martin et al., 2006; Shaw et al., 1996; Steinberger et al., 2016; van Hooft & van Hooff, 2018) and a disruption of one’s capacity to be an efficacious agent (Danckert & Eastwood, 2020; Eastwood et al., 2012). Boredom’s negative 49

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character is also grounded in its volitional and cognitive elements. Boredom motivates agents to withdraw from the perceived object (or cause) of their boredom (Berlyne, 1960; Fahlman et al., 2013; Fenichel, 1953; Fiske & Maddi, 1961; Greenson, 1953; Mikulas & Vodanovich, 1993; Pekrun et al., 2010; Todman, 2003; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012); it is intimately connected to negative appraisals of one’s situation and to attentional difficulties (Eastwood et al., 2012; Tam et al., 2021b; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012, 2017a); and its presence is assessed by agents to be incongruent with their goals (Elpidorou, 2018a; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012). Such features of boredom make its experience all the more aversive. These three features of boredom offer a preliminary and informative answer to the question of the character of boredom. They highlight that boredom is both a state of discontent with one’s situation and a motivational push to seek escape from this situation.2

The function of boredom Our discussion so far offers some clarity as to the type of entity that boredom is and describes, to a certain extent, its experiential profile. Importantly, it also makes a case for the claim that boredom is a state that occupies a role in the behavioral and mental economy of the experiencing agent. This realization has led several researchers to assert that boredom is a functional state (Bench & Lench, 2013; Danckert et al., 2018; Elpidorou, 2014, 2018a, 2018b, 2020, 2022a; see also: Kurzban et al., 2013; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020; as well as Chapter 2 and Chapter 5). The claim that boredom is a functional state is a key premise in arguments that maintain that boredom is a valuable state. Because of that, the task of examining the value of boredom requires a clear articulation of the functional nature of boredom. The view that boredom is a functional state is ambiguous between at least two readings. According to the first reading (the “strong functional view”), boredom ought to be identified with a specific function (Elpidorou, 2022a). Boredom is not some psychological state that happens to play a certain role in our mental and behavioral economy. Rather, boredom is simply what boredom does. As such, whatever state possesses boredom’s function must be identified with boredom, and any state that fails to have this function cannot be boredom. This view deserves the label “strong” because it does not merely argue that boredom performs a function. Instead, it insists that boredom simply is the execution of (or the capacity to execute) a specified function.3 Accordingly, the strong view understands boredom to be the organismic (or system-level) property of having properties that meet a certain description; namely, those that are jointly capable of executing the function assigned to boredom. An organism (or system) is in a state of boredom just in case it exhibits the properties that are capable of executing the function. The strong view leads naturally to a revision of our answers to the ontological question and to the character question. On the one hand, it renders boredom an essentially functional state and identifies it with a role (or a second-order property). On the other hand, it permits us to revisit our characterization of boredom and examine whether the aspects of boredom previously discussed contribute to its function or not. The strong functional view would insist that only those features that are integral to the execution of boredom’s function are in fact elements of boredom. The strong functional view is not the only way to understand the functional nature of boredom, however. There is an additional way (the “weak functional view”) which is entailed by, but does not entail, the strong view. Unlike the strong view, this view has no ontological aspirations. It does not attempt to settle what boredom is, and consequently, it does not identify boredom with a function. All the same, the view holds that boredom is still functional in the sense that 50

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its onset brings about (or attempts to bring about) changes in the physiology, psychology, and behavior of the experiencing agent with the aim of altering the agent’s relationship to their environment. For what follows, I understand the functional view to mean the weak functional view, and I shall remain noncommittal as to whether one should also accept the strong view. If boredom is functional, then what is its function? Given our description of boredom as the affective realization of an unmet desire for satisfactory engagement, boredom’s function turns out to be a regulatory one. Specifically, boredom aims to regulate behavior such that one’s engagement with a situation does not remain unsatisfactory. Boredom must then arise in situations that are deemed to offer unsatisfactory engagement (that is, a type of engagement that does not meet the agent’s standards for satisfactory engagement) and should fail to arise in situations that do offer satisfactory engagement. Moreover, given its presumed regulatory function, boredom should motivate the agent to turn to situations that have the potential to meet their need for satisfactory engagement. These expectations are corroborated by available evidence. On the one hand, the objective and subjective elicitors of boredom are indicative of a failure of satisfactory engagement. These include monotonous, meaningless, and repetitive situations (Daschmann et al., 2011; Fisher, 1993; Ralph et al., 2017; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012); situations that make the efficient deployment of attention difficult, if not impossible (Hunter & Eastwood, 2018; Westgate & Wilson, 2018); and situations that are characterized by suboptimal constraint and challenge (Acee et al., 2010; Harris, 2000; Martin et al., 2006). On the other hand, both common outcomes of boredom (such as stimulating, novel, or exciting situations) and psychological states that are diametrically opposed to boredom (flow, concentration, or meditation) are ones that are thought to involve satisfactory engagement. Still, what is the nature of unsatisfactory engagement that boredom alerts us to and from which it potentially protects us? Following a number of theoretical and experimental attempts to investigate the function and character of boredom, I propose that an adequate explication of “unsatisfactory engagement” is one that involves the notion of cognitive engagement. Accordingly, boredom pertains to the manner in which we cognitively relate to our environment: It signals the presence of an unmet desire for satisfactory cognitive engagement (Eastwood et al., 2012; Elpidorou, 2022a; Tam et al., 2021b; Todman, 2021) and motivates the restoration of satisfactory levels of cognitive engagement. It is no trivial matter to define satisfactory cognitive engagement. Here, I advance one possible explication of this notion—without, however, insisting that this is the only way of defining it. I propose that satisfactory cognitive engagement requires: (a) a direct cognitive engagement with the object of our engagement (i.e., paying attention to it); and (b) the assessment that the psychological costs of sustaining such a direct cognitive engagement are acceptable to us (for a development of this position, see Elpidorou, 2022a; for related views, see Bieleke & Wolff, 2021; Tam et al., 2021b; Todman, 2021). Thus, we are engaging cognitively and satisfactorily with a situation if we can pay attention to it while also accepting that doing so is worthwhile given the psychological costs necessary to sustain our direct cognitive relationship with the situation. I should be quick to emphasize that the proposed explication of satisfactory cognitive engagement does not require that all forms of satisfactory engagement ought to meet conditions (a) and (b). Relaxion and spacing out, for example, can still be forms of satisfactory engagement even if they arguably fail to meet (a). Still, according to the provided account, they won’t count as forms of satisfactory cognitive engagement.4 Accepting this characterization of satisfactory cognitive engagement offers clarity regarding the conditions under which boredom would typically arise. As a signal of unsatisfactory cognitive engagement, boredom would arise if there is nothing with which we can cognitively engage or if we cannot satisfactorily engage with the object of our cognitive engagement. The former 51

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would occur when we find ourselves in a situation with nothing to do. The latter would occur when we are unable (or unwilling) to form a direct cognitive relationship with the object of our engagement, or when the psychological costs of sustaining a direct cognitive relationship are too high. Lack of attention becomes thus a sufficient but not a necessary condition for boredom (see also Westgate & Wilson 2018). In other words, the proposed account allows for the possibility that we can be bored with a task even while paying attention to it. A sustained attention task (Pattyn et al., 2008; Scerbo, 1998; Thackray et al., 1977), a movie riddled with clichés, or an activity that we were forced to perform may all give rise to boredom, even if they are the objects of our attention. The proposal also highlights the relevance of judgments concerning the meaningfulness of our situation (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012, 2017a). A judgment that our situation lacks meaning can be a cause of unsatisfactory engagement and thus lead to boredom. It can do that by precluding us from forming a direct cognitive relationship with the object of potential cognitive engagement: Because the object has been appraised to be meaningless, we choose not to cognitively engage with it. Alternatively, a judgment that our situation is meaningless can contribute to the psychological costs of sustaining a direct cognitive relationship with our situation: even though we are paying attention to the situation, we don’t think that it is worth the effort of doing so precisely because it lacks meaning or significance. Finally, the view offered here underlines the importance of understanding boredom through an opportunity-cost lens (Kurzban et al., 2013; Martarelli et al., 2021; Struk et al., 2020; Todman, 2021; Wojtowicz et al., 2019). The onset of boredom is not solely determined by the objective characteristics of the task we are performing, but also by our perception of the effort and value associated with our present task and alternative tasks. In sum, boredom is a psychological state that seeks to restore satisfactory cognitive engagement when such engagement is deemed to be absent. It arises when one wishes for but cannot achieve satisfactory cognitive engagement and motivates the pursuit of actions that can restore satisfactory cognitive engagement. We have now reached a description of boredom that explicates its role in our mental and behavioral economy, and one that is both consistent with and accounts for the reported findings on boredom’s antecedents, concomitants, and outcomes. What remains to be demonstrated is how the proposed characterization of boredom also permits us to make progress in our attempt to understand its value.

The value of boredom The bad Any discussion of the value of boredom faces an obvious and immediate difficulty—boredom does not seem adaptive. The experimental induction of state boredom has been shown to lead to self-harm (Nederkoorn et  al., 2016; Wilson et  al., 2014), the harm of others (Danckert, 2021; Elpidorou, 2020; Pfattheicher et al., 2020), the pursuit of aversive experiences (Bench & Lench, 2019), and increased consumption of unhealthy food (Havermans et al., 2015). Moreover, if we turn our attention to trait boredom, the potential harms of boredom quickly multiply. Throughout numerous studies, trait boredom has been consistently shown to correlate with a host of physical, psychological, and social harms (see Vodanovich, 2003; Elpidorou, 2017). Is it still meaningful, then, to investigate the value of boredom? How can we claim that boredom is somehow beneficial or valuable in light of the numerous maladaptive and harmful behaviors that are either instigated by or correlated with it? The functional view offers a solution to this puzzle. The assertion that a psychological state carries a function does not entail 52

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that the onset of the state necessarily confers to the experiencing agent a benefit. Indeed, not only can a functional state fail to perform its function, but it can also perform its function when it should not. Drawing upon the resources of the functional view, we can divide the etiology of the potential harms of boredom into the following four broad categories. Category 1—Failure to execute: Boredom arises when there is no satisfactory cognitive engagement but fails to restore satisfactory levels of cognitive engagement. Category 2—Non-beneficial exercise: Boredom arises when there is no satisfactory cognitive engagement and restores satisfactory levels of cognitive engagement, but the execution of its function does not benefit the agent. Category 3—Failure to arise: Boredom is not experienced in situations that should give rise to boredom; these are situations that do not afford the agent with satisfactory cognitive engagement. Category 4—Inappropriate onset: Boredom arises in situations that are not the typical elicitors of boredom; these are situations that afford the agent opportunities for satisfactory levels of cognitive engagement. Category 1 describes cases in which boredom properly arises, but its onset does not lead to the execution of its regulatory function. Thus, one remains bored without being able to reestablish satisfactory cognitive engagement. The prolonged or frequent experience of boredom has been shown to pose severe risks to the well-being of subjects (Bargdill, 2000; Vodanovich, 2003). Such a regulatory failure could be due to either exogenous or endogenous factors. For an example of the former case, consider a situation that fails to offer the subject any satisfactory cognitive engagement and yet the subject is forced to remain in it. This can be a boring meeting, a tedious work shift, or having to wait to be seen by a doctor. In such situations, boredom would arise, but it could fail to restore satisfactory cognitive engagement. Situational factors could make it exceedingly hard for the subject to find satisfactory cognitive engagement— perhaps not even mind-wandering could offer solace from boredom. In other cases, boredom’s regulatory failure can be attributed to some endogenous factor. It is possible, for example, that the inability to deploy attentional resources effectively or the possession of inappropriate expectations regarding the value or difficulty of one’s tasks might impede the successful regulation of cognitive engagement. In addition, boredom may not contribute to the restoration of satisfactory cognitive engagement if the subject lacks the psychological resources needed to initiate departure from the situation that is believed to be the cause of unsatisfactory cognitive engagement (Mugon et al., 2018; Struk et al., 2016). A failure to perform its regulatory function is not the only reason why boredom could lead to undesirable consequences. Even the successful execution of boredom’s function does not guarantee that boredom will be beneficial to the agent. This realization reveals a second type of possible harms associated with boredom: Category 2. It is crucial to emphasize that boredom’s function is a regulatory one. What this means is that the execution of boredom’s function is not necessarily associated with the promotion of the prudential interests of the subject nor with the promotion of their moral interests (and those of others). It is easy to see how the regulatory function of boredom can diverge from the prudential and moral interests of the agent. Although not conducive to the well-being of the agent, dangerous or risky activities (e.g., speeding, drug use, gambling, self-harm, increased consumption of unhealthy foods) are often exciting or stimulating, and because of that, they offer relief from boredom (Bench & Lench, 2019; Nederkoorn et al., 2016; Wilson et al., 2014). What is more, the regulatory function of 53

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boredom can give rise to actions that are even harmful to others (Danckert, 2021; Elpidorou, 2020; Fromm, 1973; Pfattheicher et al., 2020). Finally, it is common for individuals to find a situation boring even though doing so is contrary to their own interests. A typical example of this situation is the experience of boredom within academic contexts (Belton & Priyadharshini, 2007; Mann & Robinson, 2009; Pekrun et al., 2010; Vogel-Walcutt et al., 2012). The academic activity is thought to be important for the subject, but the experience of boredom makes it difficult for the student to focus, leading to outcomes (daydreaming, using one’s phone, looking out the window, etc.) that can hinder academic success. Even though the experience of boredom in such settings does not help the agent to achieve their aims, it still successfully performs its function. Boredom regulates cognitive engagement and helps the agent to re-establish a satisfactory cognitive connection with the world. All the same, the satisfactory cognitive connection is not necessarily beneficial for the agent. Category 3 cases do not reveal that boredom is itself harmful. Instead, what they show is that the absence of the experience of boredom can be potentially harmful to an agent (for a development of this position, consider Elpidorou, 2015). A failure to experience boredom in conditions that typically elicit boredom means that an agent can be in a situation that does not offer satisfactory cognitive engagement and yet the agent does not respond through the means provided by boredom. In the absence of the experience of boredom, the agent could remain stuck in monotonous, repetitive, banal, or meaningless situations. On the one hand, such situations, if frequent, could hinder personal growth and the pursuit of meaningful projects (Elpidorou, 2018a, 2020). On the other hand, these situations likely represent the inefficient use of one’s limited resources: because one is not informed by one’s emotions that it is time to move to a new project (Bench & Lench, 2013; Danckert, 2019), one keeps engaging with a project that likely has nothing more to offer to them. Even though Category 3 cases do not establish that the experience of boredom is harmful, their existence carries important ramifications for our understanding of boredom. If there are indeed situations in which boredom should arise but does not, then this suggests that boredom is subject to fitting or appropriateness conditions. There are, in other words, situations to which boredom is an appropriate response. Indeed, the converse also appears to be true (Elpidorou, 2022b). If we allow the possibility of Category 4 cases, then there could be situations in which boredom arises even though it is not the appropriate response. Perhaps this is a characteristic of high boredom-prone individuals—they experience boredom even in situations that afford them the possibility of satisfactory engagement. Meaningful conversations, rich social interactions, beautiful musical compositions, excursions in nature, etc., could fail to properly engage one and could be perceived as boring. It is, of course, difficult to proclaim that such situations should never give rise to boredom. Still, they do carry the promise of satisfactory cognitive engagement: they contain features that are informationally rich, stimulating, engaging, or meaningful. Category 4 cases thus pose a danger because subjects are motivated to leave behind and ignore situations and goals that offer opportunities for satisfactory cognitive engagement. Put together, Category 3 and Category 4 cases strongly suggest that boredom can fail to arise when it should arise and can arise when it should not arise. The realization that boredom may possess fitting conditions is theoretically important for the following three reasons. First, if boredom is subject to fitting conditions, then boredom is shown to be similar to most other emotions, insofar as they are also subject to fitting conditions. Second, the existence of fitting conditions can be used as a premise in support of the conclusion that boredom has a formal object in addition to its intentional target. In general, most emotions are characterized by a double intentionality: in addition to their particular intentional object (or target), they also possess a formal object (de Sousa, 1987; Kenny, 1963). The formal object of an emotion 54

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is the axiological property represented by or correlated with the emotion type. Consider a particular instance of the emotion type of fear—I am afraid of the approaching spider. The particular object of my fear is the spider, whereas its formal object is danger (or the property being harmful). A formal object is considered to be an indelible part of the intentional structure of emotions (Teroni, 2007). Among other things, formal objects allow us to explain why our emotional experiences can sometimes be correct (fitting) and sometimes incorrect. An emotion is fitting when its particular object is such that it exemplifies its formal object. To determine whether an instance of fear is fitting or not, we must assess whether the feared object (that is, the particular object of fear) is in fact dangerous. Following this analysis, we can propose that boredom’s formal object is the axiological property of being cognitively unsatisfactory. Boredom would be fitting just in case the specific object of one’s boredom exemplifies the axiological property that boredom (as a type) is thought to represent. Consequently, the fact that boredom appears to have fitting conditions implies that boredom has a formal object. Third and finally, if boredom possesses fitting conditions, then it is subject to various normative standards. This illustrates that boredom is not a mere sensation but a part of our normative existence. Not everything should bore us, even if in principle everything could bore us. Category 3 and Category 4 cases are admittedly contentious—perhaps not everyone would be willing to concede that boredom can misrepresent its object either by representing it as cognitively unsatisfactory when it is not, or by failing to represent it as cognitively unsatisfactory when it is in fact that. Even so, our discussion of Category 1 and Category 2 cases has done enough to highlight the potential harms of boredom—yet, we should take care not to conclude from such cases that boredom is never beneficial. A clear understanding of the harms of boredom is necessary in order to offer an accurate portrayal of its potential benefits. There is no doubt that many of our emotional states (e.g., fear, anger, pride, joy) bring about both harmful and beneficial outcomes. The same is true about boredom. Indeed, the value of boredom was already intimated by our presentation of Category 3 cases. Such cases illustrate that the capacity to experience boredom can be beneficial for an agent. What I would like to offer now is a more detailed discussion of the potential benefits of the actual experience of boredom.

The good What are the benefits of experiencing boredom? When can the experience of boredom be valuable? In this section, I distinguish between different ways in which boredom can be beneficial and discuss how they relate to each other.

Regulatory benefit The most fundamental type of benefit that boredom can confer to an agent or organism is the benefit associated with its regulatory function. Without a doubt, it is greatly beneficial for agents to be capable of regulating their psychological and behavioral states. Thus, if we accept the idea that boredom aims for or contributes to the restoration of satisfactory cognitive engagement, then boredom becomes beneficial. It supports and enhances the overall regulatory capacities of an agent insofar as it can help an agent avoid or escape situations that are characterized by low levels of satisfactory cognitive engagement. This regulatory benefit of boredom deserves, I believe, to be called “fundamental”—it is the primary and most important way in which boredom can be beneficial. As I show in what follows, all other kinds of benefits that boredom carries (or might carry) stem from its ability to contribute to self-regulation. 55

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Evolutionary benefit Previous work has touched upon the issue of whether boredom carries an evolutionary advantage (Danckert, 2019; Elpidorou, 2018b; Lin & Westgate, in press). Although it is exceedingly difficult to confidently address this issue (especially given ongoing debates regarding the exact workings of natural selection, epigenetics, and random mutations), the acceptance of an evolutionary account of emotions allows us to consider boredom from an evolutionary perspective (Hasselton & Ketelaar, 2006; Keltner & Gross, 1999; Keltner et al., 2006; Tooby & Cosmides, 2008). The evolutionary view conceives of emotions as responses to recurring problems of physical or social survival. Applied to boredom, the view would hold that boredom is a psychological state that has been selected because of its ability to provide solutions to ancestrally recurring problems. But what is the adaptive advantage that boredom offers? The regulatory function of boredom suggests a possible answer to this question. Self-regulation is vital for the well-being and survival of an organism. Insofar as boredom contributes to the regulatory capacities of an organism, it can be understood as a psychological tool that promotes survival. Through its ability to regulate cognitive engagement, boredom protects agents from prolonged engagement with situations that no longer offer opportunities for satisfactory cognitive engagement. Boredom could thus have been selected because of its capacity to promote forms of exploration (Danckert, 2019) or because of its ability to push an organism to pursue alternative situations and goals when the organism’s current situations and goals are no longer meaningful, interesting, or cognitively engaging to them (Bench & Lench, 2013). Ultimately, by accepting an evolutionary account of boredom, one could propose that an organism that is equipped with a mechanism that allows for the regulation of cognitive engagement is, evolutionarily speaking, better off than an organism that does not.

Prudential benefit An experience or psychological state is prudentially beneficial if it serves (or is conducive to) the pursuit of our goals. Under certain conditions, the experience of boredom could turn out to be prudentially beneficial. This potential benefit of boredom is once again intimately connected to its regulatory abilities. On the one hand, boredom can motivate us to abandon projects that no longer appear to us to be meaningful, interesting, or exciting. On the other hand, boredom could prompt us to pursue projects and goals that we would not have otherwise pursued (a new career, task, or talent) or, more broadly, activities that—compared to our present ones—seem to be more enjoyable, engaging, or meaningful. The experience of boredom makes it likely that one would disengage from one’s situation if such a situation is no longer cognitively engaging. Moreover, boredom is capable of urging us to seek out alternative forms of engagement (Bench & Lench, 2013; Elpidorou, 2018a, 2018b). Whether disengagement from one’s current situation is beneficial to the agent depends on many factors, including the agent’s material and social circumstances, goals, desires, opportunities, and abilities (Elpidorou, 2021c; Todman, 2021). The same holds for what kind of alternative situations one should pursue should they decide to abandon their present situation due to boredom. Consequently, although the experience of boredom could prove to be prudentially beneficial for subjects with sufficient resources (psychological, material, or social) at their disposal, it could harm others who lack those resources.

Epistemic benefit Boredom can help us in our capacity as knowers. Specifically, boredom can facilitate a better understanding of our environment and enhance our self-understanding (Bortolotti & Aliffi, 56

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2021; Elpidorou, 2014, 2020; Westgate & Steidle, 2020). The experience of boredom is revelatory of how we appraise a situation. If a situation bores us, then that situation does not cognitively engage us in a satisfactory manner—the situation does not capture our attention, it is deemed to be meaningless, or it is found to be unworthy of our time and effort. Such information is important not only because it discloses characteristics of our situation, but also because it helps us to think about how we should respond to our situation. For example, the realization that a romantic partnership, vocation, or hobby bores us can help us determine future courses of action and to examine our behaviors, attitudes, and assumptions. In addition, boredom also reveals something about who we are as individuals and about our goals (Elpidorou, 2014). A situation that elicits boredom is likely a situation that is not in line with our goals and personal values. Hence, boredom is an informationally rich state capable of aiding us in our endeavors as epistemic agents.

Eudaemonic benefit Boredom also carries the potential to promote our eudaemonic well-being. Without having to rehearse details concerning debates surrounding the nature of well-being, a eudaemonic perspective insists that the notion of well-being is not captured by the presence of pleasure and happiness. Instead, in order to live well, an individual must be able to realize their potential—or, at the very least, they must be in a position to exercise certain human capacities (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Ryff, 1989; Ryff & Singer, 1998, 2000; Waterman, 1993). Following Ryff and Singer’s (1998) development of the eudaemonic view of well-being, the good life is thought to involve—among other things—personal growth and the perception that one’s life is purposeful and meaningful. Accordingly, a good life is characterized by progress by which one becomes better (intellectually, socially, and even morally). One often achieves this type of growth by realizing one’s abilities and talents, and by being open to new experiences and challenges (Ryff, 1989; Ryff & Singer, 1998). Moreover, the good life is a life that makes sense to the agent, that coheres with the agent’s selfidentity, and that contains activities that are perceived by the agent to be meaningful. The experience of boredom can contribute to both aforesaid dimensions of the good life. First, if experienced occasionally and responded to correctly, boredom can lead us into situations that are more conducive to our interests (Elpidorou, 2014, 2018a, 2018b, 2020, Sansone et al., 1992; Smith et al., 2009; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011, 2012). Boredom is capable of promoting movement (Wolff & Martarelli, 2020) and of relieving us from cognitively unsatisfactory situations, thereby helping us to achieve our predetermined goals and develop our projects. It calls on us to engage our minds in ways that are conducive to the exercise and development of our skills and talents (Danckert, 2019). In doing so, boredom can foster personal growth. Second, boredom can also contribute to the development of a meaningful life. Boredom itself is not a meaningful experience, but a crisis of meaning (Barbalet, 1999; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011, 2012)—during boredom, we perceive our situation as lacking in meaning. All the same, boredom offers the agent with information about their circumstances and motivates them to pursue alternative projects when their current projects are no longer meaningful or significant to them. By both signaling a lack of meaning and spurring the pursuit of meaningful activities, boredom can be the catalyst for establishing or re-establishing a sense of meaningfulness and coherence (Barbalet, 1999; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011, 2012).

Moral benefit Boredom is neither inherently moral nor immoral. Nonetheless, it appears to be morally significant. Previous work has articulated different ways in which boredom (as both a trait and a state) 57

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carries moral significance (Danckert, 2021; Elpidorou, 2017, 2020; Fromm, 1973; Russell, 1930; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2021; Yucel & Westgate, 2021; for a review, see Elpidorou, 2021b). It was shown how boredom can: (a) motivate prosocial/antisocial behavior; (b) influence our moral judgments; (c) facilitate or hinder moral perception; (d) promote or hinder the pursuit of a good life; or (e) be morally appropriate or inappropriate insofar as one is—morally speaking— either better off or worse off when experiencing boredom or possessing the trait of boredom. In light of this body of work, it is clear that boredom carries moral significance. It can profoundly affect our moral behavior and existence. What is particularly relevant to our purposes is that the manner in which boredom affects moral behavior and existence depends on numerous factors such as situational constraints, opportunities for alternative engagement, and the subject’s skills, attitudes, and psychological states. Because of that, the outcomes of boredom may be immoral (Danckert, 2021; Elpidorou, 2020; Pfattheicher et al., 2020; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2021), but they may also be moral (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2017b) or amoral. Boredom is not a mechanism that facilitates moral or immoral conduct, but one that regulates cognitive engagement. Moral or prosocial outcomes are thus possible, but only if they promise to yield satisfactory levels of cognitive engagement.

Conclusion Boredom is complicated. In this chapter, I  offered a functional account of boredom that understands it to be a psychological mechanism capable of regulating satisfactory cognitive engagement. Boredom arises due to the presence of an unmet need for satisfactory cognitive engagement and motivates psychological and behavioral changes that are conducive to restoring satisfactory cognitive engagement. The proposed description of boredom allows us to make progress in our examination of the potential harms and benefits of boredom. As a psychological mechanism that aims to regulate cognitive engagement, boredom is without a doubt a beneficial state. Nonetheless, the fact that boredom possesses this function does not guarantee that the experience of boredom would lead to beneficial outcomes. Although boredom can help our lives, it can also make them worse.

Notes 1 Regarding the issue of the essence of boredom, I take boredom to be essentially a functional state (see Elpidorou, 2022a). Regarding the question of what type of psychological state boredom is, my preferred view is that boredom should be treated to be an emotion (Elpidorou 2022b; see also: Westgate & Steidle, 2020). 2 One could develop this section further by presenting boredom’s physiological, neurological, expressive, and behavioral correlates and by articulating how they contribute to its character. Such a task would have taken us too far afield from present purposes, so I decided not to undertake it here. Interested readers should consult the following works: Dal Mas & Wittmann (2017); Danckert & Merrifield (2018); Elpidorou (2021a), (2022a); Perone et al. (2019); Raffaelli et al. (2018); Ulrich et al. (2014); Yakobi et al. (2021). 3 I have chosen to present the strong functional view as the view that identifies boredom with a role and not with the realizer of a role (Levin, 2018). An example can help to illustrate the distinction between role and realizer functionalism. Suppose that we decided that declarative memory is a functional process and have defined it functionally as the ability to store and recall information. According to role functionalism, declarative memory is a role, and as such, it is not necessarily defined in terms of what realizes this role. So, regardless of its material constitution, any system with the ability to store and recall information is a system that possesses declarative memory. According to realizer functionalism, declarative memory is the underlying process (a set of neurological states or processes) that realizes the function of declarative memory in humans. By identifying boredom with a role, boredom becomes a

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The nature and value of boredom second-order property of an organism (or system): It is the property of having a set of features capable of jointly executing its function. In contrast, if boredom is taken to be the realizer of its role, then it should be identified with the specific neurological state (or process) that is capable of exercising boredom’s function in humans. In the case of boredom, empirical findings and theoretical considerations strongly suggest that boredom should be identified with a role and not with the realizer of this role (Elpidorou, 2022a). 4 The proposed account of boredom renders boredom an affective state that is intimately connected to the monitoring of how we cognitively engage with our (“inner” or “outer”) world. As a result, one could ask whether boredom could also be related to non-cognitive forms of engagement (or lack thereof). In light of existing articulations of the character of boredom and findings regarding its possible antecedents and cognitive components, it is hard to conceive of the state of boredom in the absence of some form of dissatisfaction with the manner in which we cognitively engage with our situation. Even in cases whereby the object of boredom is some kind of physical activity (e.g., manual labor), one becomes bored and not just tired or exhausted precisely because of a perceived mismatch between desired cognitive engagement and actual cognitive engagement.

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5 THE FUNCTION OF BOREDOM Driving us to explore the new and different Noah T. Reed, Nazim Asani, Van Dang, and Heather C. Lench

In his essay “De Tranquillitate Animi” (“On the Tranquility of the Mind”; 2016), the ancient Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca speaks directly to the nature of boredom. He provides a situation in which a man who would much rather be engaged in a task involving action or public affairs is instead isolated in his own studies, with the thoughts in his mind as the only source of stimulation. This undesirable circumstance gives rise to feelings of boredom, which is accompanied by disappointment and melancholy. While in this state of boredom, the mind becomes restless and sick of itself because its nature is to be active and moving. Seneca then provides an analogy: In the same way that people change positions when parts of their body become uncomfortable, they are motivated to change their circumstances and seek out new experiences when they grow tired of their current situations. And so, being discontent with the present, people begin to explore new parts of the world and travel the land and seas. While Seneca attributes this pursuit of new adventure to humans’ incessant existential desire to flee from themselves, we believe there is something more primal at play. We propose that the emotion of boredom is the driving force that motivates individuals to seek out alternative goals and experiences, and that it is one of the most (if not the most) essential emotions to understand human behavior.

Defining the construct of boredom Before addressing the nature of boredom, it is necessary to ask: What is “boredom”? Is it merely a lack of interest in the current task, or perhaps an unpleasant feeling that arises from absence of stimulation? Discrepancies in how boredom is conceptualized, defined, and measured have led to difficulties in studying this phenomenon as a state (in this vein, see also Chapter 2). There has been relatively extensive work on the trait of boredom proneness, which is a tendency to experience boredom frequently (for an in-depth treatment of boredom proneness, please see Chapter 13). However, much less is known about the emotional state of boredom itself. Boredom has been defined as wanting but not finding satisfying activity (Eastwood et al., 2012), a low-arousal state (Mikulas & Vodanovich, 1993; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2017), a high-arousal state (Berlyne, 1960; Merrifield & Danckert, 2014), a lack of meaningful activity or challenge (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012), and an inability to fully engage attention (Westgate & Wilson, 2018). There have also been suggestions that boredom could be multidimensional in nature 64

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and that there are different types of boredom that are separated by valence and arousal (Goetz et al., 2014; Goetz et al., 2019; Schimmack & Rainer, 2002). Defining any psychological construct is challenging, particularly in early stages of research into a phenomenon. How boredom is operationalized in any theory or study has important implications for understanding the boundary conditions of that theory/study. Much like the boredom represented by Seneca’s “De Tranquillitate Animi,” we classify boredom as an emotional state resulting from a lack of other emotional responses, which causes motivation to seek out alternative goals and experiences that do elicit emotional response (Bench & Lench, 2013; Bench & Lench, 2019). This is quite different than feeling apathetic or unmotivated, which can be linked with helplessness about the experience of or ability to escape boredom. Feeling boredom as we classify it is defined by a motivation to find something different. This perspective is rooted in functional accounts of emotion, which are a broad class of theories that posit that emotions are elicited by specific situations that have evolutionary significance (Eich et al., 2000; Lench et al., 2015; Mauss et al., 2005), including those situations involving perceived discrepancies between goals and the environment, and emotions then motivate responses to resolve the situation that elicited them (Arnold, 1960; Carver, 2004; Lench et al., 2011). According to goal-focused functional accounts, emotions function as indicators of goal status and also facilitate changes across systems (behavior, cognition, and physiology) to enable action necessary for goal attainment (Carver, 2004, Lench et al., 2011, Tracy, 2014). For example, happiness indicates success toward achieving a desired outcome and motivates continuing engagement with the environment to build on success. Anxiety is experienced when there is a potential threat to an important goal and motivates avoidance of the threat (Fredrickson, 2001; Gross & Levenson, 1995; Lench et al., 2019). This goal-related account has been explicated for numerous emotional states, but the preponderance of the empirical studies to date have focused on happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety. There is extensive evidence that supports the theorized assumptions behind functional accounts of emotion for happiness, anger, sadness, and anxiety (for reviews, see Lench et al., 2011; Lench et  al., 2015). Therefore, functional accounts remain plausible explanations for understanding emotions and their consequences. However, this does not necessarily mean that every state considered to be an emotion operates in a way that is functional, is elicited by specific situations that have an evolutionary basis, or that motivates behavior which resolves the situation that elicited the emotion. Empirical evidence is needed to support a functional account for any emotion before reaching a conclusion. Emotions, like all psychological states, are identified through language by people with particular learning histories within a broader cultural context (Barrett, 2006). To study this type of construct, it is critical to elaborate on the features which characterize the psychological state—in this case, the emotion of boredom. To examine the extent to which an emotion is functional, it is also necessary to hypothesize a specific situation thought to give rise to the emotional state and the types of responses that could reduce the adaptive challenge posed by that situation.

A functional account of boredom Building on previous functional accounts of emotion, we have developed and begun to test a model of boredom that has far-reaching implications for human functioning and well-being. This model began with a simple but unanswered question about human behavior: Why do people give up on goals? Multiple theories of goal pursuit and emotion include the premise that emotions are responses to the discrepancy between goals and the environment, signaling 65

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whether one is doing well or poorly in relation to attaining a goal. The question for these models is why people do not continue pursuing the same goal and constantly responding emotionally to progress toward that goal. A person with a goal to have a healthy relationship with their spouse, for example, would respond with happiness when they perceive they are succeeding and would respond with anger or sadness when they perceive they are failing. Emotion models do include the possibility that people will give up on a goal when they perceive that the goal has irrevocably failed and there is nothing they can do to attain a healthy relationship (Lench & Levine, 2008; Wrosch et al., 2003), but we know from lived experience that people constantly give up goals that have not failed. For example, people with goals to have healthy relationships with their spouse pursue extramarital relationships that appear to run counter to those goals; they also pursue other unrelated goals in their careers, finances, friends, and personal development that take energy away from a relationship goal. Goal hierarchies and cognitive goal prioritization strategies have been proposed as the methods by which people switch between and change goals (Carver & Scheier, 2001). These cognitive explanations for why people switch and give up on goals seem insufficient, given the frequency with which this occurs in daily life (Aarts et al., 2007) and the subjective intensity of the experience of goal changes. Think about the man in Seneca’s story: His current situation and goal pursuits were not satisfying, and he felt driven to seek something different and new. To seek adventure. To explore. Similarly, in the example of people with a goal to maintain a healthy relationship with their spouse, people do not typically just happen to pursue extramarital affairs—they often become bored and dissatisfied with their marriage and feel driven to find something different (Roscoe et al., 1988). That drive for the new and different, we theorized, was the motivation created by the emotion of boredom (Bench & Lench, 2013). Specifically, we posited that boredom is a response to the experience of a lack of other emotional response. This can arise in the following three situations that result in a lack of emotional response. 1 A lack of emotional response can result when the intensity of response to a discrepancy between goals and the environment fades over time. Multiple studies have demonstrated that the intensity of emotion fades after an emotion is initiated or an outcome is known (e.g., Wilson & Gilbert, 2008). This occurs even for very intense emotion such as the fear experienced during skydiving—the intensity of fear is highest when first jumping and then lessens during the few moments of free fall. Fading intensity is the result of physiological and cognitive adaptation to events as people’s bodies and minds return to homeostasis. When the emotion fades to a neutral state, we theorized that boredom would arise. 2 A lack of emotional response can also, obviously, result from situations that include no stimulation that a person responds to emotionally. From a functional perspective, these would be situations that do not relate to current goals in any way and therefore do not evoke any emotional response. Importantly, it is not the situation itself that evokes no emotional response but the relationship of the situation to goals. For example, two people could be sitting alone on a couch in a room with no noise and no movement. One person might hold the goal to relax, in which case there is a match between the environment and their goal, resulting in happiness. One person might hold the goal to succeed at their career, in which case the environment is irrelevant to the goal, resulting in a lack of emotional response. Essentially, there is nothing goal-relevant in the current environment. This would be the case with either salience accessible goals that people are striving toward or with goals made salient by environmental cues (e.g., a desire to consume freshly baked cookies upon smelling them).

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3 A lack of emotional response can also result when people have no goals or no prioritized goal. From a functional perspective, it would be impossible to tell if there is a match between the environment and current goals if there is no goal. Even in a highly stimulating environment with multiple events occurring, people will not respond emotionally to those events unless they hold a goal and the events represent progress toward attaining or avoiding those goals.

Boredom as a seeking state When people experience a lack of emotional response and the resulting emotion of boredom, we theorized that boredom motivates them to seek experiences that evoke emotion. Like with other emotions, this seeking state should be represented in changes across systems that facilitate action, including physiological, cognitive, and behavioral responses. The experiential response associated with boredom is a negative-aversive state (Perkins & Hill, 1985; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012; Vodanovich et al., 1991). Boredom is also associated with the feeling of time passing too slowly (Raffaelli et al., 2018). In fact, when translated literally, the German word for boredom is expressed as “long time” (Greenson, 1953). Indeed, studies have shown that the longer a task is perceived to last, the more bored an individual is likely to become. Cognitively, boredom is associated with reduced attention and a reduced ability to pay attention (Bench & Lench, 2013), and physiologically, boredom is commonly associated with high arousal and readiness for action (although the relationships are highly dependent on methodological choices and how boredom is operationalized; Bench et al., 2015). All of these changes—in a theoretical account that boredom is functional—are responses that prepare people to respond to the situation that elicited boredom by moving toward new situations that are relevant to goals and evoke emotion. One of the more interesting aspects of viewing boredom as a motivating emotion for goal transition is that it would apply both to situations whereby goals fail and the emotion is negative and to situations whereby goals succeed and the emotion is positive. Failing an exam in a subject that is required for entry into a desired field might cause an individual to view this field as less desirable and ultimately dissuade them from pursuing this career altogether. This type of goal disengagement in the presence of a negative outcome can be explained by accounts that do not include boredom or emotional responses (Bench et  al., 2021). However, these accounts do not explain instances when goals are abandoned following neutral or positive experiences. People feel bored as their negative and positive emotions fade after an event, and boredom can motivate them to pursue new positive states, as well as new hedonically negative states. Across three studies conducted by our team (Bench & Lench, 2019), bored participants were more likely to choose novel and affectively different experiences, including negative ones. Specifically, participants who had been repeatedly exposed to images that elicit positive emotions were more likely to choose to view images that are hedonically negative, such as dirty dishes, cockroaches, and a disgusting toilet. Participants’ self-reported desire for novelty mediated the relationship between boredom and choosing the new experience. In other words, those who felt more bored were more likely to desire novelty, and therefore were more likely to choose novel (and in some conditions negative) experiences. Viewing boredom as an emotion that motivates seeking responses explains why feeling bored could cause people to pursue new and different experiences, even when those experiences generate negative emotions. Essentially, such findings suggest that people prefer feeling bad over feeling nothing at all.

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Implications for well-being A drive to explore the new and different has inherent benefits and risks. From a functional perspective, emotions like boredom are always functional in the sense that they motivate people to address the situation that caused the emotion—in this case, the lack of emotional responding that elicited the boredom. Exploring new and different options is likely to elicit emotions, some of which will be intense. However, that does not mean that the emotions or the outcomes will be uniformly beneficial for the individual or society—and indeed, many of them are likely to be detrimental as exploration inherently comes with risk. Panksepp (1982) argues that the basic emotion of interest enticed early humans (and other species) out of their caves to explore the environment. In other words, the enticement of discovering something interesting beyond the familiar is the “carrot” that leads people to explore. We view boredom as the “stick” that similarly drives people to leave familiar situations and explore. If people never felt interest or boredom, as defined through the functional account, they would never pursue anything new at all (Yu et al., 2019). For example, imagine watching the same video on repeat and feeling the same amount of interest in that task four hours into it as you did the first minute. You would be stuck in this never-ending cycle without a need to explore new situations, hindering your potential growth. So what happens to people when they explore new and unfamiliar situations? Perhaps most importantly, they are not bored. However, just because the responses associated with boredom reduce the negative state of boredom itself does not necessarily mean that people are choosing new and different activities that are good for themselves or good for society as a whole. Other negative emotions, such as anger, have a clear motivation toward action such as overcoming an obstacle to goals. Boredom, in contrast, does not directly relate to motivation toward a goal and instead motivates a transition from one’s current state (Bench & Lench, 2013). Perhaps this is one of boredom’s “fatal flaws”—that it drives people, but not in any particular direction. There are multiple studies demonstrating that trait boredom, characterized by frequent experiences of boredom, is associated with impulsive behaviors such as gambling, smoking, and substance abuse (LePera, 2011; Mercer & Eastwood, 2010), as well as lower academic performance (Maroldo, 1986). Thus, people can make poor choices about the new stimulating activities they pursue. But they also can make beneficial choices that drive them toward a better future more aligned with their goals and values. The drive associated with boredom to identify new goals and opportunities can have beneficial implications for well-being over time. Boredom acts as an indicator that the current situation is no longer relevant to people’s goals, and is failing to engage their interests and motives. In this vein, boredom can be characterized as a “regulatory state” to ensure that an individual does not become trapped in a state of meaninglessness (Elpidorou, 2014). If everyone was continuously in a perpetual state of engagement in activities that aligned with their core interests, and their success and failure in achieving progress fluctuated regularly, they would most likely never experience boredom. Therefore, boredom has significant implications for well-being over time: Not only does boredom motivate people to explore new goals and experiences, but it pushes them to find and engage with the things they care most about (Bench & Lench, 2013; Elpidorou, 2014). This is well illustrated in daily life as people change their jobs and relationships with the intention of finding ones that are more fulfilling. It is likely that boredom functions as the initial signal that a change is needed, which prompts an individual to carry out the actions necessary to find new people and activities that better align with what they truly value. And while leaving one job or relationship for another may eventually result in the same feelings of boredom 68

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and desire for something new, this pursuit of different experiences is necessary for enhanced well-being over time. Indeed, even the smallest decisions to move away from an activity that is not meaningful to engage with new activities can have significant consequences as their effects aggregate across time. Given the ubiquity of boredom across the array of experienced emotions and its proposed effects on goal adjustment, it is likely that boredom is necessary for maintaining and improving well-being. Of course, people can explore new and different opportunities not just through their behavioral choices, but also through their cognitive focus and engagement with ideas. There is some evidence that boredom can improve learning and achievement outcomes in certain situations through enhanced creativity, innovation, and self-reflection (Schubert, 1978; Harris, 2000; Vodanovich, 2003). For example, Mann and Cadman (2014) recorded that participants who were assigned boring activities (e.g., a boring reading or writing task) and engaged in daydreaming had higher levels of creativity. Future research should continue to validate these assumptions, as it may be the case that simply being motivated to avoid experiencing boredom and successfully doing so is related to more creativity (Danckert et al., 2018).

Failure to engage Interestingly, people vary in how frequently they experience boredom in their daily lives, and this “boredom proneness” has negative implications for well-being and self-regulation—and it might actually be the result of poor regulation of boredom states (Bielek et al., 2022). People who experience boredom more frequently also experience difficulty in sustaining attention and interest in their activities and finding purpose in what they do (Eastwood et  al., 2012; Fahlman et al., 2009). Further, people higher in boredom proneness are less likely to adhere to safety protocols (e.g., social distancing guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic; Wolff et al., 2020) and are more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior, dysfunctional anger expression, and impaired anger control after accounting for impulsiveness and sensation seeking (Dahlen et al., 2004). People with these frequent experiences of boredom have higher rates of adverse psychological, physical, existential, and social outcomes. These include depression and anxiety (Sommers & Vodanovich, 2000; LePera, 2011); loneliness, hopelessness, and withdrawal (Sharp et al., 2020; Farmer & Sundberg, 1986); and alexithymia and somatic disorders (Sommers & Vodanovich, 2000). A sense of meaning or purpose appears central to how people respond to long or frequent periods of boredom (Chan et  al., 2018; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2017). A sense that life is meaningful is associated with a myriad of positive outcomes, such as psychological well-being and work enjoyment (Bonebright et al., 2000; Steger et al., 2006, 2008, 2009). A lack of meaning, on the other hand, engenders a host of negative outcomes, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and decreased well-being (e.g., Adler & Fagley, 2005; Steger et al., 2009). Boredom that is not effectively responded to and reduced has been conceptualized as meaning withdrawal where the need for meaning is not being fulfilled (Gardiner & Haladyn, 2016). Arndt et al. (1997) postulate that existential escapes involve distraction or suppression to remove meaning threats from consciousness, which allows people to effectively cope in the short-term (Goldenberg et  al., 2005; Heatherton et  al., 1992; Wisman, 2006). Within this framework, bored people engage in a variety of behaviors (e.g., alcohol, drug, or food consumption) aimed at diminishing a sense of meaninglessness. Directing attention away from the self, toward impulsive behaviors, buffers the threat of meaninglessness in order to escape the negative experiences associated with boredom. When boredom becomes frequent or feels 69

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inescapable, it is more closely aligned with what is termed “apathy,” a more chronic sense of meaninglessness and disconnection. Goldberg et  al. (2011) demonstrate that boredom is empirically distinct from apathy, anhedonia, and depression. The state of apathy is highly aversive but only slightly arousing, resembling a state of learned helplessness or depression (Goetz et al., 2014). It is characterized by a lack of motivation (Marin, 1990) and a failure to change one’s current state or pursue alternative goals. This leads us to an important question: What determines the way in which an individual responds to the experience of boredom? Evidently, some people respond to boredom more effectively than others, resulting in enhanced well-being and creativity. Others do not respond effectively, experiencing boredom frequently, resulting in behavioral and psychological difficulties. One individual difference that could predict the efficacy of responses to boredom is the extent to which people have an existing sense of well-being and meaningfulness in their lives (Bieleke et al., 2022). People higher in well-being and with a greater sense of purpose in life are more likely when bored to identify new opportunities that align with their goals and values. For example, imagine someone begins their shift at work and quickly becomes bored with their assigned duties. If that person is higher in these characteristics, they are more likely to find meaning in their current task or engage themselves in a new task that aligns with their sense of purpose. In contrast, a person who is lower in well-being and sense of purpose may experience greater difficulty in attaching meaning to their assigned tasks or engaging in a new task that aligns with their core motives. Essentially, they do not have a clear sense of purpose with which to align their drive to discover new and different activities. This could result in any number of negative consequences, including the behavioral and psychological issues associated with trait boredom, further exacerbating the sense of meaninglessness. An important direction for future research is to explore the specific ways that people respond to boredom that are effective or ineffective in reducing the experience of boredom. Emotion regulation is typically conceptualized as the up- or down-regulation of emotions. Some specific emotion-regulation strategies are associated with beneficial outcomes for the individual, such as positive reappraisal of situations and seeking social support. Other specific regulation strategies, such as substance abuse or self-blame, tend to be detrimental to the individual. These strategies appear to cross emotional responses, from the up- or down-regulation of happiness to anger or sadness. We suspect, however, that boredom may require a specific set of strategies that will differ in important ways from other emotion-regulation strategies. This is because boredom is accompanied by a drive to increase emotional responses, regardless of whether those responses are positive or negative. Thus, in terms of emotion regulation, boredom is directional and pushes people toward up-regulation of other responses to down-regulate the emotion of boredom. This suggests that at least some of the strategies that are effective in reducing boredom could be unique to the emotion of boredom.

Conclusions Boredom is arguably one of the most influential emotions which humans experience. It was initially dismissed within the experimental psychological literature, potentially because it occurs so frequently that people viewed it as ephemeral and inconsequential (Bench & Lench, 2013). We have argued that the very fact that boredom occurs frequently suggests that it is foundational to human behavior and responds effectively to the environment. Without boredom, people would never explore, never push beyond what is familiar and safe into new opportunities and new directions. In many ways, this is the defining characteristic of humanity—and we believe that boredom is integral to this drive. 70

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6 BOREDOM A Control-Value Theory approach Reinhard Pekrun and Thomas Goetz

In this chapter, we use Control-Value Theory (CVT) to explain antecedents, outcomes, and regulation of boredom. CVT is built on the premise that appraisals of control and value are prime drivers of human emotions, including boredom. In its original version, the theory focused on achievement emotions (Pekrun, 2000, 2006, 2018; Pekrun & Perry, 2014; see also Pekrun et al., 2023a). More recently, the theory has been revised to explain human emotions more generally (Pekrun, 2021), thus making it possible to derive general hypotheses on the origins and functions of boredom. By considering a broad range of emotions, CVT also allows us to analyze similarities and differences between boredom and other emotions. Based on CVT, we first outline how we conceptualize boredom and why we consider boredom an emotion. Next, we discuss control and value as antecedents of boredom, as well as resulting implications for the impact of other individual factors and social environments. We then address outcomes, regulation, and the relative universality of boredom. In conclusion, we discuss implications for practice and directions for future research.

Boredom—an exceptional emotion What is boredom? Is it an emotion? Emotions are typically conceived as psychological responses to important events (e.g., Scherer & Moors, 2019). For example, joy about positive news is a response to the news, anxiety before an upcoming exam a response to possible failure, and anger about being hit by an enemy a response to being hit. Events that lack relevance do not trigger these emotions, or only a faint version of the full-blown response. Boredom differs from this description in two ways. First, boredom typically does not occur in response to single events but to ongoing situations. Second, boredom typically occurs in response to situations that lack relevance and meaning. Accordingly, it would be possible to classify boredom as a non-emotional state. In the psychological literature on emotions, this is a prevailing view. Despite being fundamentally important from an evolutionary perspective, boredom is lacking in Ekman’s lists of basic emotions (e.g., Ekman, 1992; Ekman et al., 2002). Major theories of emotion—including classic appraisal theories such as the models of Lazarus, Scherer, and Roseman, as well as related approaches like attributional theory—do not address boredom (e.g., Lazarus, 2006; Roseman & Evdokas, 2004; Scherer, 2009; Weiner, 1985). Boredom is not mentioned in the seminal account of appraisal 74

DOI: 10.4324/9781003271536-7

Boredom

theory by Scherer and Moors (2019). Similarly, textbooks of emotion psychology usually do not address boredom, and major handbooks of emotion research do not include chapters on boredom (e.g., Barrett et al., 2016). Alternatively, if we believe boredom is sufficiently similar to classic emotions such as joy, anxiety, or anger, then we would need to modify our conception of emotions. We believe that this alternative strategy is sensible, because boredom manifests a profile of components that is equivalent to the profile of classic emotions. As it is usually understood, emotions comprise a range of component processes, with affective, cognitive, physiological, motivational, and behavioral-expressive processes deemed especially important—such as nervous feelings, worries about possible failure, physiological arousal, avoidance motivation, and anxious facial expression in fear of failure before an exam. Boredom comprises the same set of processes (albeit with different contents; see below). Following this reasoning, CVT uses an expanded definition of emotions to accommodate affective states such as boredom. First, according to this definition, emotions are responses that can occur not only in response to events, but also in response to ongoing situations, actions, persons, and various other phenomena, together called “objects” (Pekrun, 2006, 2021; Pekrun et al., 2023a; for similar conceptions of emotion in philosophy, see Montague, 2009; Scarantino & de Sousa, 2018). Second, sets of coordinated affective, cognitive, motivational, physiological, and behavioral-expressive responses to objects are called emotions, regardless of the perceived relevance or meaning of the object. From this perspective, it is imperative to consider boredom an emotion. Boredom represents a coordinated set of responses to specific situations or actions (i.e., situations and actions that lack relevance and meaning), and these responses comprise the same component processes as other emotions, at least in the prototypical case of boredom. Prototypical boredom comprises: (a) unpleasant affective feelings; (b) specific cognitive processes, including mind-wandering and daydreaming, as well as altered perceptions of time; (c) motivation to escape from the current situation; (d) physiological responses (typically physiological deactivation); and (e) bored facial, postural, and vocal expression (e.g., Bench & Lench, 2019; Danckert et al., 2018; Fahlman et al., 2013; Harris, 2000; Pekrun et al., 2010; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012, 2017). Defined this way, boredom clearly differs from other emotions. Some of its single component processes can occur in other emotions as well, such as daydreaming in pleasant relaxation or motivation to escape in anxiety. However, the composition of the full set of component processes is unique. Furthermore, as argued by Pekrun et al. (2010), our definition of boredom also implies that boredom is more than the absence of positive emotion. A lack of enjoyment simply implies an absence of positive feelings and related approach motivation. In contrast, prototypical boredom comprises negative feelings that can be extremely intense, and avoidance motivation that can be equally strong. Surely, situations that are not enjoyable can generate boredom, suggesting that lack of enjoyment can contribute to boredom. Alternatively, however, situations that are not enjoyable can cause frustration, anger, or anxiety. Boredom is unique and cannot be explained by the absence of positive emotions alone.

Antecedents of boredom Appraisals as proximal antecedents Human thought, emotion, and action in response to situations are typically shaped by perceptions of the situation, with only few exceptions. CVT shares this premise with social-cognitive theories more generally, and appraisal theories of emotion specifically. Two groups of appraisals 75

Reinhard Pekrun and Thomas Goetz Environment

Cultural context - Causal beliefs - Values - Gender sterotypes Social environments - Demands and expectations - Autonomy support

Appraisal

Emotion

Outcome

Control - Action-control expectancies

Boredom

Attention

- Self-concepts of ability

- Underchallenge boredom

Thought

Values

- Overchallenge boredom

- Intrinsic - Extrinsic

Action Performance and behavioral outcomes

- Value messages - Need fulfillment - Outcome contingencies

Gender

Genes

Intelligence

Personal goals

Temperament

Competencies

Situation-oriented regulation

Appraisal- & attention-oriented regulation

Emotion-oriented regulation

Competenceoriented regulation

Design of tasks and environments

Cognitive treatment

Emotion-oriented treatment

Competence training

- Feedback

Figure 6.1  Control-Value Theory and boredom: overview of propositions

are deemed especially important for the generation of emotions, including perceptions of control and of value (Figure  6.1). The CVT concepts of these two appraisals integrate various dimensions of appraisals considered in other appraisal theories, such as controllability, coping potential, and power (control), as well as valence, relevance, goal congruency, and moral significance (value; see Moors et al., 2013). Thus, CVT provides an integrated account of appraisals that synthesizes and simplifies existing models of appraisals. In addition, the CVT approach to classify appraisals also makes it possible to link the appraisal view of emotions with cognitive theories of motivation, such as expectancy-value theories (e.g., Eccles & Wigfield, 2020; Pekrun, 1993). Succinctly stated, CVT posits that emotions typically are triggered when one feels in control over, or out of control of, situations that are subjectively important. For example, working on a project is enjoyable when one feels competent to perform the work well (control), and when the work is meaningful (value). Anxiety before an important exam (high value) is instigated when one feels out of control over one’s performance, implying that failure is possible (lack of control). However, boredom diverges from this general pattern. In contrast to other emotions, boredom is thought to be instigated when value is lacking, which contributes to the uniqueness of this emotion. CVT proposes that there are five types of cognitions contributing to emotionally relevant perceptions of control (Pekrun, 2006, 2021): action-control expectancies to be able to initiate 76

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and perform an action, action-outcome expectancies that actions generate specific outcomes, situation-outcome expectancies that the situation will generate these outcomes even without one’s own action, causal attributions of outcomes to specific causes, and self-concepts of one’s attributes (such as ability) which influence expectations and attributions. CVT distinguishes between two broad groups of values of actions: Intrinsic values which comprise perceptions of features that make the action itself attractive (or undesirable), regardless of any outcomes, and extrinsic values that make the action attractive (or undesirable) because it is instrumental for attaining outcomes. Both intrinsic and extrinsic value can be either positive or negative, making performance of the action either desirable or undesirable. Boredom is an emotion that is experienced in relation to current ongoing activities rather than single outcome events. Using CVT language, this object focus makes boredom an activity emotion rather than an outcome emotion (Pekrun et al., 2023a). For activity emotions, CVT proposes that action-control expectancies, along with underlying self-concepts of ability, are the most relevant control cognitions, and perceptions of intrinsic value are the most important value cognitions. More specifically, boredom can be instigated when self-concept and actioncontrol expectancies are either very high, indicating insufficient challenge (underchallenge), or very low, meaning that the challenges to successfully perform cannot be met (overchallenge). This conception extends prior approaches that focused on underchallenge as a cause of boredom (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). From considering both under- and overchallenge as precursors of boredom, it follows that control and boredom are linked in a curvilinear rather than linear fashion. In terms of value, the theory proposes that boredom is triggered when the activity lacks intrinsic value. CVT posits that control and value interact in generating emotions. Taking the examples cited earlier, work is enjoyable when one feels competent and the work is meaningful; when feeling out of control or perceiving the task as meaningless, work is not enjoyable. Both conditions need to be fulfilled to make the work enjoyable. Similarly, you may experience fear of failure before an exam when feeling out of control and perceiving the exam as important; when you are confident to succeed or just do not care, why should you be nervous? For boredom as well, control and value are thought to interact: It is assumed that the effects of control on boredom depend on value. Boredom is thought to be instigated when overly high control (underchallenge) is coupled with lack of value, or when low control (overchallenge) is coupled with lack of value. In contrast, when high control is combined with high value, pleasant relaxation and confident feelings (“assurance”; Pekrun et al., 2023a) should result. When low control is combined with high value, anxiety or frustration are aroused. As such, over- or underchallenge alone are not sufficient to prompt boredom. Rather, it is their combination with lack of value that generates boredom. Although perceived control and perceived value represent distinct appraisals, they are not independent but can influence each other. For understanding the generation of boredom, it is especially important to consider that control can influence value. Underchallenge (high control) can reduce the intrinsic value of the activity, thus contributing to boredom through undermining value. If tasks are too easy, they become boring over time. Overchallenge (lack of control) implies that the task is not well understood, which reduces meaningfulness and thus also undermines intrinsic value. For example, if you attend a lecture that you do not understand, the lecture is meaningless for you (even if it is an intellectual joy for others), thus leaving you bored. In addition to these immediate effects of control on value, value can reciprocally influence control over time: Valued activities are those in which we invest, thus increasing competencies and control; activities lacking value are those we try to abandon, which may lead to lack of competence and control. 77

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An intriguing open question is the interplay of intrinsic and extrinsic values in causing boredom. Clearly, boredom is instigated when both types of value are lacking. However, what happens if an activity lacks intrinsic value but leads to important outcomes, thus acquiring meaningfulness through extrinsic value (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2013)? We predict that this combination can lead to a blend of different emotions. Specifically, we assume that lack of intrinsic value makes the activity boring, while the anticipation of outcomes simultaneously generates other emotions. For example, monotonous assembly line work can cause boredom (Shackleton, 1981), but the expectation of being paid for each hour of the work can, at the same time, trigger anticipatory joy of receiving and spending the money. To the extent that neither of the two emotions is too strong, they can co-exist (Moore & Martin, 2022). Similarly, if preparing for an exam is repetitive and boring, but anticipating possible failure triggers anxiety, then preparation can instigate both boredom and fear—an especially toxic mix of negative emotions. Again, such a blend likely requires that neither of the two emotions is too strong; intense panic before an exam likely extinguishes any feelings of boredom. Blends of emotions resulting from complex patterns of appraisals may also help to explain the inconsistent evidence on boredom and arousal (see Goetz et al., 2014; Raffaelli et al., 2018). If boredom is coupled with emotions that involve physiological arousal, then the resulting state may be characterized by low arousal, high arousal, or fluctuations of arousal, depending on which of the emotions dominates. For example, if boredom is experienced during a monotonous class that lacks personal value, but not being allowed to leave the class simultaneously triggers anger, then the resulting blend of deactivating boredom and activating anger may involve various levels of arousal. The extant empirical evidence supports the importance of control and value appraisals for boredom. Most of the existing studies were conducted in educational settings and focused on students’ boredom during achievement activities (for overviews, see Goetz et al., 2019; Pekrun & Perry, 2014; see also Chapter 15). The results show that perceived control typically correlates negatively with boredom, in contrast to earlier accounts that focused on boredom in students who are not sufficiently challenged (e.g., Sisk, 1988). It seems likely that today’s demands in K–12 and postsecondary education are too high to let the average student be bored due to underchallenge. Nevertheless, boredom has also been reported for gifted students who may lack challenge, especially when being a member of regular classrooms. For example, Fredricks et al. (2010) found that regular classrooms (as compared with gifted and advanced classrooms) undermined gifted students’ passion for schoolwork and induced boredom instead. Studies that included separate measures of over- and underchallenge have confirmed that both can generate boredom (see Krannich et al., 2022). The existing evidence also supports the notion that value relates negatively to students’ boredom. Negative correlations have been reported for different types of value, including intrinsic value as well as achievement value and utility value (i.e., instrumental usefulness of academic work for students’ current and future life). However, supporting CVT propositions, the negative relations with boredom are stronger for intrinsic value than for other types of value. For example, in the analysis by Pekrun et al. (2023a, Study 3), the intrinsic value of learning materials was a strong negative predictor of students’ boredom in a university course, whereas the perceived value of achievement in the course did not contribute to predicting boredom. There also are a few studies that examined links between control-value appraisals and boredom in non-academic settings. For example, studies in sports psychology have shown that control and value beliefs are negatively related to boredom during physical activity (see, e.g., Simonton, 2021; Simonton et  al., 2021; Chapter  19). Similarly, research on work emotions

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supports the role of control and value for work-related boredom (see Chapter 16). For example, research on job boredom has found that overqualification, presumably leading to underchallenge (i.e., overly high control), as well as lack of meaningfulness in one’s work contribute to boredom (e.g., Sánchez-Cardona et al., 2020).

Distal individual antecedents: achievement goals as an example To the extent that appraisals are proximal causes of emotions, other individual factors can affect emotions by shaping appraisals (Figure  6.1). Relevant factors include all individual dispositions and momentary processes that influence perceptions of control and value, such as gender, personality traits, individual memories, stereotypes, cognitive biases, etc. An example in the achievement domain is personal achievement goals (Elliot & Hulleman, 2017). These goals can be grouped according to the achievement standards individuals can use to define them, including mastery standards judging achievement relative to mastery of the task domain, and social comparison (“normative”) standards judging achievement relative to others. In addition, achievement goals differ by either referring to attaining success (approach goals) or to avoiding failure (avoidance goals). As proposed by Elliot and McGregor (2001), the two dimensions yield a 2 × 2 taxonomy that includes performance-approach goals (aiming to outperform others), performance-avoidance goals (aiming not to perform worse than others), masteryapproach goals (aiming to acquire competence), and mastery-avoidance goals (aiming not to lose competence; for an extended 3 × 2 taxonomy differentiating between performance, selfimprovement, and task mastery goals, see Elliot et al., 2011). From a CVT perspective, these different goals help to focus attention on different aspects of performance attainment, thus influencing control-value appraisals and related emotions (Pekrun et al., 2006, 2009). Performance-approach goals focus attention on the controllability of success relative to others and on the importance of success, thus strengthening outcome emotions such as hope for success, and pride once success has been attained. Performanceavoidance goals focus attention on possible lack of control and the importance of avoiding failure, thus triggering anxiety, shame, and hopelessness. In contrast, mastery goals focus attention on the achievement activities themselves, and on the competence attainment that they can produce. As such, it is mastery goals that are most relevant for boredom. Specifically, mastery-approach goals are expected to focus attention on one’s competence and the meaningfulness of achievement activities, thus promoting enjoyment of these activities and reducing boredom. Certainly, performance goals as well as mastery-avoidance goals may also influence boredom, although in more indirect ways through instigating other emotions that are not compatible with boredom. For example, intense anxiety before an exam as triggered performance-avoidance goals may prevent any boredom during preparation for the exam. The extant evidence supports this view. For example, Pekrun et al. (2006) analyzed the predictive relations between students’ initial achievement goals for a psychology course and their subsequent emotions in the course later in the semester. Mastery-approach goals positively predicted enjoyment of learning and negatively predicted boredom and anger. Similarly, in the prospective study by Pekrun et al. (2009), exam-related mastery goals positively predicted undergraduates’ enjoyment in preparing for the exam and negatively predicted their boredom and anger. Subsequent research confirmed the negative link between mastery- and task-related approach goals and boredom (e.g., Daniels et al., 2009; Lüftenegger et al., 2016; Ranellucci et al., 2015). Importantly, mastery-approach goals and boredom were negatively related both

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in between-person analysis of trait-like measures of goals and boredom, and in within-person analysis of the intraindividual links between daily goals and state boredom over time (Goetz et al., 2016).

The role of social environments For the influence of situational factors, CVT proposes that the same logic holds as for individual factors: If perceptions of control and value are proximal antecedents, then any external factors that influence boredom should do so by affecting these appraisals in the first place (Figure 6.1). Any factors that influence control and value can also affect boredom. Different factors influence the two appraisals, but some factors influence both, and sometimes in opposite ways—the influence of environments on emotions can be manifold and complex. Important factors that are expected to influence boredom via changing perceived control are task demands, social expectations, goal structures, autonomy support, and feedback. Task demands relative to individual competencies determine the level of challenge. If demands are too high, control can be reduced to the extent that the task becomes meaningless, thus generating boredom if it is not possible to leave the situation. If demands are too low, as in work characterized by monotonous assembly line activities, red tape, or automated production processes, boredom can result as well (Cummings et al., 2016; Harju et al., 2022; see also Chapter 16). Similarly, social expectations and goal structures that generate overly high challenges can influence control and, therefore, boredom. If expectations from parents, teachers, supervisors, or coaches are too high, anxiety may be triggered in the first place. However, if it is not possible to meet the expectations, then anxiety may be replaced by boredom over time, especially if the stakes are not very high. Conversely, if expectations in the environment are very low, or if there are no expectations at all (such as in laissez-faire parenting), then challenge may be lacking and boredom may result, unless the individual is able to create challenges themselves. Autonomy support implies creation of environments that offer a range of opportunities, thus making it possible to self-select tasks that meet competencies and increase a sense of control. For example, if students are provided with multiple tasks among which they can choose, then boredom may be prevented, especially if task selection is eased by teachers’ guidance and scaffolding (for negative empirical relations between autonomy support and boredom, see Tvedt et al., 2021). Finally, feedback about one’s actions and their outcomes, such as feedback about achievement conveyed by school grades, can change control perceptions and resulting boredom (see Forsblom et  al., 2022, for supporting evidence). Repeated failure feedback can reduce perceived control to the extent that no chances to succeed are seen anymore, which can create hopelessness if success is still perceived as desirable, but boredom if the task domain is devalued and loses meaning due to lack of control. Factors that influence value include value messages, need fulfillment, and outcome contingencies. Value messages—or value induction—can be direct or indirect. Direct messages consist of information about values, such as parents’ instructions about desirable behavior. However, often indirect messages as implied by the behavior of role models are more powerful. An especially important mechanism underlying such effects is emotional contagion (Herrando & Constantinides, 2021). Emotions can be directly transmitted between persons through contagion, such as teachers’ enthusiasm immediately sparking excitement in students, thus preventing boredom (Pekrun et al., 2023a). Similarly, it is sensible to assume that displays of boredom in the environment can immediately cause boredom (see also Tam et al., 2020). Need fulfillment and outcome contingencies influence perceptions of the intrinsic and extrinsic values of actions. If environments ease actions that fulfill needs for competence, autonomy, and 80

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relatedness (Ryan & Deci, 2017), these actions become valuable, thus preventing boredom. From a theory perspective, this is a point where CVT and self-determination theory meet: Selfdetermination theory explains the generation of value; CVT explains how value generates emotions. Relevant factors include all situational contingencies and behaviors of others that make it possible to satisfy one’s needs. Of special importance is the cognitive quality of environments that makes it possible to fulfill needs for competence and cognitive stimulation (Pekrun et al., 2023a), the variety of opportunities provided which helps fulfill needs for autonomy, and social affordances in the environment that are suited to fulfill needs for relatedness. From these propositions, it follows that some features of social environments influence perceptions of both control and value. Examples are factors that help fulfill needs for competence and autonomy. Helping persons to develop competencies supports them to develop a sense of control. At the same time, increased competencies may open doors to select tasks and environments that are stimulating and meet one’s aspirations, thus promoting a sense of value. Similarly, if environments provide a range of options for task selection, then needs for autonomy, a sense of control, and selection of personally valuable options can be promoted at the same time, thereby enhancing both control and value.

Consequences of boredom How does boredom influence behavior and performance? To explain the impact of emotions, the cognitive-motivational model of emotion effects that is part of CVT can be used (Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun et  al., 2023a). This model proposes that it is not sufficient to only consider valence and distinguish between positive and negative emotions (or affect). Rather, it is necessary to also consider level of arousal and object focus of emotions. Considering valence and arousal makes it possible to distinguish between four broad groups of emotions: positive activating (e.g., excitement, hope, pride), positive deactivating (e.g., relief, contentment, pleasant relaxation), negative activating (e.g., anger, anxiety, shame), and negative deactivating (e.g., boredom, hopelessness). Additionally considering object focus makes it possible to distinguish between discrete emotions within these four categories. For example, both enjoyment of learning and pride about resulting success are positive activating emotions—however, enjoyment focuses attention on the activity, whereas pride about success relates to an outcome of the activity. All three dimensions (valence, arousal, and object focus) combined render a threedimensional taxonomy of emotions (see Pekrun et al., 2023a, for achievement emotions, and Pekrun, 2021, for human emotions more generally). Within this taxonomy, boredom can be classified as a negative, low-arousal emotion focused on the current situation or activity. The model proposes that these different emotions can affect behavior and performance through various mediating mechanisms. According to the model, prime mechanisms include the following. First, by focusing attention on the object of emotion, emotions affect working memory resources available for behavioral performance. Positive emotions related to the task focus the available resources on performing the task, such as enjoyment of climbing a mountain making it possible to fully concentrate on each single step. In contrast, task-irrelevant emotions focus attention away from the task, such as pride about an award distracting from current task performance, or anxiety focusing attention on worries about possible failure. Second, emotions influence intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation to initiate and perform actions. Activityrelated emotions are thought to affect intrinsic motivation; outcome emotions are expected to trigger extrinsic motivation. Third, emotions change the mode of information processing. Based on mood-as-information approaches (Schwarz & Clore, 2003), it is assumed that positive emotions enhance flexible, creative thinking and a broad activation of memory networks. Negative 81

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activating emotions like anxiety are expected to promote more rigid, detail-oriented ways of thinking and a focused activation of memories. Negative deactivating emotions are thought to undermine any more systematic and effortful processing of information. Finally, emotions affect ways to regulate behavior. Positive task-related emotions like enjoyment are thought to promote self-regulation. Setting goals, monitoring behavior, and evaluating outcomes in a self-directed way requires flexible thinking that is responsive to task demands, which is eased by positive emotions. In contrast, anxiety can prompt motivation to rely on external guidance to avoid negative outcomes, thus promoting external regulation. How does boredom influence these mechanisms, and what are the resulting outcomes? First, boredom draws attention away from the current activity (Eastwood & Gorelik, 2019). Instead, attention is invested in daydreaming and mind-wandering, thus reducing the resources available for task performance. Second, boredom prompts motivation to leave the current situation and instead turn to more rewarding activities (Bench & Lench, 2013). Boredom is especially detrimental to intrinsic motivation. Third, as negative deactivating emotions more generally, boredom is likely to reduce any systematic processing of task information and focused use of behavioral strategies. Fourth, by implication, boredom is also likely to reduce task-related self-regulation. The impact of boredom on the four mechanisms combined amounts to negative effects on current task performance (for supporting evidence, see, e.g., Haager et al., 2018). Distracted attention, lack of intrinsic motivation, and shallow information processing do not promote performance. However, as we posit in our “abundance hypothesis” (Goetz et al., 2023), the strength of these negative effects may depend on type of task. Specifically, performance on easy tasks that require few cognitive resources may be less affected by negative resource consumption than performance on difficult or complex tasks. For easy tasks, even reduced resources may still be abundant relative to task demands. For difficult and complex tasks, resource consumption through daydreaming and mind-wandering may be devastative for task performance, similar to the resource consumption effects of emotions like anxiety, shame, or hopelessness that are due to worrying about negative outcomes (Derakshan & Eysenck, 2009; Mikels & Reuter-Lorenz, 2019). From this perspective, the negative activity emotion boredom undermines performance through attentional mechanisms that are functionally similar to the mechanisms prompted by negative outcome emotions. The contents of task-irrelevant thinking are different (typically positive daydreaming in boredom; negative thinking in anxiety, shame, or hopelessness), but the functional pathway affecting performance is the same. Nevertheless, even with easy tasks, the negative motivational effects of boredom should reduce overall performance on these tasks as well. However, in contrast to immediate negative effects on current task performance, boredom can have positive effects on subsequent tasks and long-term performance (see also Danckert & Eastwood, 2020; Westgate, 2020). Boredom can induce strong motivation to engage in alternative thinking and alternative tasks. As such, although thoughts drifting away from the current task do not enhance current performance, they can enhance overall creative performance in a series of activities (e.g., Mann & Cadman, 2014). The precondition for such positive effects is autonomy to select and modify tasks. In situations providing such autonomy, boredom may unfold positive long-term effects, such as creative artwork or scientific discoveries driven by initial boredom and enabled by the artist’s or scientist’s freedom to self-define tasks. In restricted situations not providing such freedom, we expect boredom to be detrimental to overall performance. This view is supported by the extant evidence. The link between students’ boredom and their academic achievement is a case in point. In current education systems, students do not have much of a choice about academic tasks. Consequently, students’ boredom 82

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relates negatively to their achievement. In the meta-analysis by Camacho-Morles et al. (2021), the true-score correlation between boredom and academic achievement averaged across 66 independent effect sizes (total sample size: 28,410 students) was ρ = −.25. Furthermore, longitudinal evidence indicates that this correlation is due, in part, to effects of boredom on achievement over time. For example, in a study of university students’ boredom during a two-semester course, Pekrun et al. (2014) showed that boredom negatively predicted students’ performance on course tests, controlling for autoregressive effects and possible confounders. Similarly, secondary school students’ boredom predicted their achievement in mathematics, both in between-person analysis using classic cross-lagged panel modeling (Pekrun et al., 2017; see also Lichtenfeld et al., 2023) and in within-person analysis using Hamaker et al.’s (2015) random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM; Pekrun et al., 2023b).

Reciprocal causation and boredom regulation CVT proposes that emotions affect motivation and action, but actions and their outcomes reciprocally influence the appraisals and environmental factors generating emotions (Figure 6.1). As such, emotions, outcomes, and antecedents are thought to be linked by reciprocal causation. For boredom, reciprocal effects can involve both positive feedback loops (two variables A and B positively influencing each other) and negative feedback loops (effects in the two directions bearing opposite signs, such as A negatively influencing B, but B positively influencing A; see also Tam et al., 2021). For example, boredom can reduce performance, and resulting failures can further increase perceptions of lack of control and value that instigated boredom in the first place. This type of feedback loop implies a vicious cycle that can exacerbate boredom and low performance over time, thus undermining positive developmental trajectories (see Pekrun et al., 2014; Hunter & Eastwood, 2021). Alternatively, if boredom stirs motivation to change direction in productive ways, the long-term effects of boredom on outcomes can be positive; these positive outcomes, in turn, can strengthen perceptions of control and value, thus reducing the likelihood of future boredom. Importantly, the feedback processes linking emotions, outcomes, and antecedents make it possible to regulate and treat emotions by targeting any of the elements involved in these cyclic processes. Considering Gross’s (2015) model of emotion regulation and perspectives from CVT, four especially important groups of regulatory processes include the following (Figure 6.1; Pekrun & Stephens, 2009). First, it is possible to upregulate adaptive emotions and downregulate maladaptive emotions by appropriately selecting and modifying situations (situation-oriented regulation). Second, emotions can be managed by changing one’s thinking and the direction of attention (appraisal-oriented and attention-oriented regulation). Third, emotions can be regulated by directly changing one or several of their component processes (emotion-oriented regulation). Finally, emotions can be influenced by increasing one’s competencies and behavioral repertoire (competence-oriented regulation), which facilitates successful action and all the positive appraisals and emotions resulting from success. Strategies from these four groups can also be used to regulate and treat boredom. As far as the context allows, selecting non-boring situations or modifying situations such that they are less boring (Sansone et al., 1992) are especially promising ways to fight boredom. If it is possible to select or modify the situation such that joy and excitement are stirred, then boredom can be extinguished immediately, and if the selected situation continues to provide sufficient stimulation and meaning, then the fight against boredom can prove sustainable. An example is gifted students who may experience new and continuous challenges when changing from regular to gifted classrooms. Similarly, increasing one’s competencies can generate multiple benefits 83

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that can help to counter boredom. With increased competencies, it is easier to select and change situations in personally satisfying ways. Changing appraisals is promising as well, especially if modified perceptions of control or value are backed up by the situation. In contrast, it is likely more difficult to directly change components of the boredom experience, such as suppressing task-irrelevant thoughts. As with regulation of other emotions, it is more promising to change antecedent processes rather than wanting to reduce the emotion once it has been instigated. Existing models of coping with boredom fit nicely with this view. For example, Nett et al. (2010) have adapted models of coping with stress to explain how boredom can be regulated. Four types of coping are distinguished: cognitive approach (changing one’s perception of the situation), cognitive avoidance (focusing on thoughts not related to the situation), behavioral approach (taking actions to change the situation), and behavioral avoidance (taking actions not related to the situation) (see also Tam et al., 2021). Cognitive approach and avoidance coping represent appraisal-oriented and attention-related regulation, respectively. Behavioral approach and avoidance coping represent situation modification, either by changing features of the situation itself or by redefining the situation in terms of pursuing alternative actions.

Relative universality of boredom CVT posits that the basic mechanisms linking emotions to their antecedents and outcomes are universal, with few exceptions (e.g., young infants and persons with diseases of the central nervous system). From CVT propositions, it follows that overchallenge, underchallenge, and lack of value should universally instigate boredom—across persons, genders, ethnicities, cultures, etc. It also follows that boredom should universally reduce immediate performance on cognitive tasks (for the universality of boredom-achievement links, see Camacho-Morles et al., 2021), and that it can generally be managed using the regulatory strategies outlined above. In contrast, the contents, distributions, and process parameters (such as intensity and decay rates) of boredom and other emotions are thought to vary across persons, domains, and socio cultural contexts. It is this combination of universality and diversity that is called “relative universality” in CVT (Pekrun, 2009, 2018; Pekrun & Goetz, 2024). Specifically, to the extent that boredom-generating appraisals of control and value vary across persons and contexts, frequency and intensity of resulting boredom should vary as well, according to CVT. Related evidence is sparse, but the few existing studies support this contention (Pekrun & Goetz, 2024). For example, Goetz et al. (2007) have shown that students’ boredom shows zero or weak correlations across academic domains, such as boredom in mathematics versus language classes. This finding implies that levels of boredom can vary substantially across domains—we cannot infer from students’ boredom in math if they are bored in English class, and vice versa. Boredom can also differ between genders (e.g., de Oliveira et al., 2021; Pekrun et al., 2010; Spaeth et al., 2015). Similarly, given that perceptions of control and value can differ substantially across cultures, it is to be expected that levels of boredom differ as well. For example, Ng et al. (2015) have shown that higher levels of boredom were reported by European Canadians than by Chinese participants.

Implications for practice and future directions From the CVT propositions on antecedents and ways to regulate boredom, recommendations for how to prevent or reduce boredom can be derived. Beyond individual coping, treatment interventions and practices in education, work, sports, and arts could use the same set of regulatory strategies as outlined earlier. Changing environments and tasks in boredom-preventive 84

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ways and supporting individuals in increasing their competencies may be especially promising. As discussed in the section on situational antecedents, suitable measures may include adapting task demands and expectations, sharing enthusiasm rather than boredom, and fulfilling needs for cognitive stimulation, competence, autonomy, and relatedness. However, directly targeting control and value appraisals may also be promising, especially for boredom-prone individuals who suffer from this emotion despite favorable situational circumstances. Multimodal approaches combining several methods may be particularly helpful, especially if there are problems with several of the presumed cognitive and situational antecedents of boredom. For example, if a student attends demanding classes and suffers from a perceived lack of control triggering boredom, then selecting less demanding classes, increasing competencies through skills training, and modifying perceptions of control may help reduce boredom. Suitable treatment interventions are available, such as behavioral training to increase skills, attributional retraining changing perceptions of control (Perry et  al., 2014), or utility value interventions changing perceptions of value (Lazowski & Hulleman, 2016). Although these recommendations are theoretically well grounded, it is important to note that cumulative, consistent evidence on antecedents, outcomes, and treatment of boredom is still largely lacking. This stands in contrast to the wealth of evidence on other major negative emotions, such as anger or anxiety. Whereas some of the propositions outlined in this chapter found strong support, such as the proposed negative relations between boredom and achievement, others still await empirical scrutiny. Furthermore, even for relations of boredom with other variables that are well established, evidence on the causal effects generating these links is sparse. For example, from the few existing longitudinal studies on the effects of boredom on achievement, we cannot firmly conclude that boredom affects achievement in the same way in different persons, settings, and socio-cultural contexts. Three lines of research may be especially important to further test CVT propositions and make headway in this field. First, we need more experimental evidence on boredom that is ecologically valid, beyond findings from artificially constrained situations that are typically used in the laboratory. Lab research can be helpful in generating hypotheses and evidence on possible causal links, but cannot replace an analysis of boredom in the real world. To an extent, however, it may be possible to bring the real world into the lab by creating experimental settings that resemble natural environments. An example is experimental variation of technology-based learning environments to investigate boredom during learning (see, e.g., Azevedo et al., 2022). Second, we need more field-based research that captures the dynamics of boredom, as well as links with antecedents and outcomes, over time and across populations and contexts. Such research can include short-term studies with high granularity to assess boredom within single situations, days, or weeks, as well as long-term studies tracing the development of boredom across the life course. To increase the validity of dynamic assessments, it would be important to consider various channels of emotion assessment, including self-report but also indicators derived from expression analysis, physiological parameters, or behavioral trace data. Finally, research is needed on how to design treatment interventions and change practices across settings to prevent or reduce boredom (see Chapter 23). The motivation interventions cited earlier, such as attributional retraining and utility value intervention, could be evaluated for their effects on emotions, including boredom. Similarly, existing treatments for anxiety and depression could be evaluated for effects on boredom. In the same vein, field-based research should investigate the benefits of changing practices in education, work, and sports to reduce boredom and instead spark enthusiasm, enjoyment, and the ensuing benefits for human development and society at large. 85

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7 BOREDOM AND THE QUEST FOR MEANING Eric R. Igou, Muireann K. O’Dea, Katy Y. Y. Tam, and Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg

The experience of boredom is a fundamental ingredient in human life (e.g., Chin et al., 2017; Goetz et al., 2014; Ros Velasco, 2019a). Similarly, experiences of meaning or meaninglessness are fundamental in life (e.g., Heintzelman & King, 2014; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2013). Usually, people avoid boredom (e.g., Fromm, 1973; Wilson et al., 2014) and instead strive for meaning (e.g., Van Tilburg et al., 2013). Thus, we have two sets of essential experiences, and both are embedded in people’s real-life goal pursuits and self-regulatory behaviors. The question then is: How do boredom and meaning relate to one another? To understand this relationship, we will first describe the centrality of ‘meaning’ in human life and how people regulate such experiences. These existential, self-regulatory assumptions will then be used as a framework to describe the experience of boredom and how people (can) attempt to avoid or compensate for it. Finally, recent research on attentional processes associated with boredom will be considered to describe how they help understand people’s relatively flexible and creative self-regulatory processes that minimize the experience of boredom and its potential consequences.

The centrality of meaning in boredom Human history is (likely) a history of meaning-making. In the social sciences, the notion that humans are meaning-makers is well established (e.g., Frankl, 2006; Heine et al., 2006; Postman & Weingartner, 1969). Meaning can be defined and conceptualized in different ways (e.g., O’Brien, 2021; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2019). Meaning may refer to different processes. It can be gleaned from the degree to which one understands the world—which is referred to as epistemic meaning (e.g., Maher et al., 2019)—or it can be gleaned from the degree to which one’s goals and needs (e.g., self-esteem, belongingness) are satisfied (Heine et al., 2006), which is referred to as teleological meaning (e.g., Van Tilburg & Igou, 2013). And although the literature defines meaning in different ways—for example, as a mental representation of relationships between different aspects of life (Baumeister, 1992), as feelings of coherence (Heintzelman & King, 2014), or as personal growth and self-transcendence (e.g., Deci & Ryan 2000; Kasser & Sheldon 2004)—overwhelming evidence accumulated over the past decades points to the frequency and importance of perceptions of meaning in relation to people’s subjective experiences and well-being (e.g., Barrett et al., 2001; Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2008; Fredrickson,

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2001). Specifically, higher levels of meaning have been associated with life satisfaction, happiness, and work enjoyment, while lower levels of meaning in life have been associated with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse (e.g., Adler & Fagley, 2005; Bonebright et al., 2000; Debats et al., 1993; Steger et al., 2006; Steger et al., 2008; Steger et al., 2009). These real-life consequences confirm the ‘existential’ notion that perceptions of meaning in life are not merely a construct in academic or philosophical discourse but an actual psychological variable that is central to human life (e.g., Greenberg et al., 2004; Heine et al., 2006; Heintzelman & King, 2014; Steger et al., 2006).

Finding meaninglessness in boredom Boredom is a common unpleasant experience (Berlyne, 1960; Chin et  al., 2017; Larson & Richards, 1991), typically arising in situations when people show no interest (O’Brien, 2021; Sansone et al., 1992; Silvia, 2006) or when stimulation or challenges are low (e.g., Blaszczynski et  al., 1990; Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012). Usually, boredom comes with low arousal, while sometimes, some episodes might come with high or mixed arousal (e.g., Leary et al., 1986; Harris, 2000; Merrifield & Danckert, 2014; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2017a). Importantly, boredom is a state of low levels of attention (e.g., Eastwood et al., 2012; Hunter & Eastwood, 2018) and perceptions of meaninglessness (Chan et  al., 2018; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012, 2017a). Conceptualizing boredom as a threat to one’s meaning system has a history in philosophy (for overviews, see Svendsen, 2005; Ros Velasco, 2019b, 2021). This perspective is well expressed by Schopenhauer (1851 [trans. 2009], p. 357): Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom. This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? While Schopenhauer focused on the experience of boredom as proof of the senselessness of human existence, Kierkegaard (1852) highlighted the escape from boredom as a driving force for human reproduction and culture. Similarly cynical was Nietzsche’s suspicion that human— and animal—existence can be attributed to a bored god (quoted in O’Brien, 2018). Similarly, Heidegger portrayed boredom as a “monstrosity” (quoted in Thiele, 1997, p. 491) in life, and Sartre referred to it as “leprosy of the soul” (quoted in Martin et al., 2006, p. 195), thus pointing to its profound negative existential connotations. These Western philosophical perspectives on boredom created the grounds for common conceptualizations of this affective state. Namely, boredom highlights the meaninglessness of human existence, and people (or gods) try to counter it by engaging in creative processes (e.g., producing human life or culture). Linking boredom to the meaninglessness of one’s existence, self-regulatory attempts, and culture or society continued to affect reflection about the role of boredom in life and society. For example, Fromm (1955, 1968, 1973) combined both existential-psychological and historical-sociological perspectives to understand boredom and its consequences. Specifically, he examined how boredom—a human experience rooted in the person and the social situation, including the societal structures—leads to negative social, and indeed societal, consequences such as drug use, sexual addictions, unhealthy eating, aggression, and even large-scale destructiveness. The

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importance of boredom for society is reflected in Fromm’s terrifying warning about the future (1955, p. 102): The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots. True enough, robots do not rebel. But given man’s nature, robots cannot live and remain sane, they become “Golems”. They will destroy their world and themselves because they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life. In sum, boredom has long been linked to people’s sense of meaninglessness, existential reflections, and attempts to overcome these states, with positive or negative consequences, individually and socially. Barbalet’s (1999) review of largely 20th century approaches to boredom and the emphasis on meaning has been essential for the development of boredom research. Crucial for Barbalet’s perspective on boredom is Gaylin’s (1979) analysis that this affective state serves as a threat to people’s meaning of life. The analysis of research on boredom’s phenomenology and etiology led Barbalet to sketch the basic existential, self-regulatory processes and functions characteristic of boredom (p. 641): Boredom is anxiety about the absence of meaning in a person’s activities or circumstance. If meaning cannot be found in the activity or circumstance itself, boredom will produce in the subject a disposition toward finding or constructing meaning in the activities in question or in other activities. Boredom, then, is a restless and irritable feeling which sets in train a process leading to curiosity, invention, and associated activities in which not merely variety and novelty but meaningfulness in activity and circumstance are sought. More recently, research provided empirical support for the assumption that boredom and meaning are strongly related in that boredom goes hand in hand with low levels of meaning (e.g., Fahlman et al., 2009; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011, 2012). In one longitudinal and one experimental study, Fahlman et al. reported the inter-relatedness of boredom and meaning in life. Confirming these findings, Van Tilburg and Igou (2011, 2012) reported results from correlational and experimental studies that boredom was reliably associated with perceived meaninglessness. Going beyond this association and in keeping with Barbalet’s (1999) selfregulatory assumptions, the authors report that bored individuals consistently searched for meaning in life (see also Bench & Lench 2013, 2019), and that experiences of boredom were distinct from other negative emotions (sadness, anger, frustration; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012).

Meaning-regulation: three basic processes Principal strategies that model human behavior to preserve or enhance perceptions of meaning when faced with boredom are rooted in recent literature on existential psychology. The Meaning Maintenance Model (Heine et al., 2006) describes strategies that people use to manage an overall sense of meaning, whether to maintain a sufficient level of meaning or to re-establish meaning after experiences that reduced it (see also Proulx & Inzlicht, 2012). According to the model, people have various core needs (certainty, self-esteem, belongingness, symbolic immortality). The degree to which these needs are fulfilled contributes to an overall sense of meaning. Given this joint contribution to a sense of meaning in life, deficiencies concerning one core need may be compensated by the fulfillment of other needs. With that, people can more or less 92

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flexibly use the meaning gleaned from the fulfillment of one need to compensate for the deficiencies relating to a different need. This is what the model describes as ‘fluid compensation’ in the process of meaning-regulation (see Heine et al., 2006 for more details). Building on this notion of ‘fluid compensation’, the pragmatic meaning-regulation hypotheses on boredom of Van Tilburg and Igou (2011, 2012) largely rested on the notion that people strive for meaning in life and use a range of strategies to enhance or maintain satisfying levels of meaning. The existential escape hypothesis (Wisman, 2006; Wisman & Koole, 2003) describes an alternative route to maintaining meaning, namely by engaging in ‘pre-symbolic’ courses of action. These refer to meaning-regulation processes involving behaviors that are rather basic biological or rudimentary in nature (e.g., eating, sexual activities, sleeping) as opposed to symbolic processes that build on cultural advances of the human species (e.g., Wisman, 2006). Successful meaning-regulation involving ‘pre-symbolic’ courses of action protects from deliberations that give attention to the discrepancy between one’s existential needs and reality. In this sense, engagement in ‘pre-symbolic’ courses of action functions as an escape from the existential conflict. These processes have been demonstrated to be instrumental when people experience existential threats such as the salience of one’s future mortality (see Wisman, 2006), and this notion has been used to examine self-regulation under boredom (for an overview, see Moynihan et  al., 2021a). We distinguish three typical models of meaning-regulation for boredom: enhancement, escape, and buffering (e.g., Igou & Van Tilburg, 2021; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2019).

Enhancement Boredom motivates change (e.g., Elpidorou, 2018a, 2018b, 2021; Schubert, 1977, 1978; Vodanovich & Kaas, 1990). Consistent with Barbalet (1999), the change coming from boredom can be conceptualized as a drive toward meaningful experiences. The Meaning Maintenance Model (Heine et al., 2006) serves as a useful framework for predicting self-regulatory processes that enhance perceptions of meaning. As boredom challenges the desirable notion that life or one’s current activity is meaningful, the model helps to explain how people respond to boredom. Consequently then, when people experience boredom—which comes with reduced meaning in life—they pragmatically rely on psychological resources that help to re-establish a sense of meaning in life. This form of meaning-regulation is consistent with the basic notion of approach motivation (e.g., Elliot & Church, 1997) or promotion mindsets (e.g., Higgins, 2012) in self-regulation. The meaning-regulation process crucially depends on a search for meaning (Steger et al., 2006), a process of motivated cognition with the existential goal of enhancing meaning in life. That is, when meaning is threatened by boredom, people engage in a search for alternative sources of meaning as a means of compensation. For example, bored people show higher levels of social identity (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011), greater nostalgic reverie (Van Tilburg et  al., 2013), more prosocial behavior (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2017b), and stronger political attitudes (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2016). It has even been shown that higher levels of boredom proneness predict higher levels of aggression (Dahlen et al., 2004) via increased levels of search for meaning (Van Tilburg et al., 2019a), indicating that such behavior is a possible course of action when aggression makes sense to people or serves core goals. The search for meaning in life subscale of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ; Steger et al., 2006) has proven very useful in demonstrating this existential-motivational process. Consistent with these findings, Pfattheicher et al. (2021) found that boredom enhances sadism via novelty-seeking, a specific form of meaning search. 93

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Escape Meaning enhancement works well for many when people have the capacity to search for sources of meaning and when such sources are available (e.g., Igou & Van Tilburg, 2021; Moynihan et al., 2021a; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2019). However, other ways of maintaining meaning in life when facing boredom are rooted in basic processes of avoidance via distraction by activities and information that reduce the salience of the meaning threat. The psycho-functional tools humans typically choose when engaging in this form of regulatory behavior are associated with hedonic food consumption, sex, alcohol, and other drugs, all of which have basic biological effects, directed at feeling comfortably numb (Gilmour & Waters, 1979; Fromm, 1973; Heatherton & Baumeister, 1991; Hull, 1981) regarding existential concerns or conflicts (for an overview, see Wisman, 2006). This form of meaning-regulation has been referred to as ‘presymbolic’ (e.g., Wisman, 2006), reflecting its ontogenetically and evolutionarily rudimentary nature. Characteristically, these strategies function rather directly through biological processes and less through reasoning (e.g., focus on hedonic pleasure by eating tasty but unhealthy food). Related concepts of self-regulation (e.g., distraction, withdrawal, self-escapes) can be found within psychodynamic and cognitive-clinical psychological (Vaillant, 1977; Todman, 2021), coping (e.g., Carver et al., 1989), and self-regulation approaches (e.g., Baumeister, 1991). Consistent with the existential escape hypothesis (Wisman, 2006), it has been demonstrated that boredom increases interest in unhealthy but exciting foods (Moynihan et al., 2015). In a different set of studies, it has been demonstrated that boredom increased another form of excitement that is often quite basic: engagement with sexual stimuli and behavior. Specifically, Moynihan et al. (2021b) found that boredom susceptibility (Zuckerman et al., 1978)—among heterosexual and bisexual men—predicted greater interest in sensational and uncommitted sexual behavior (Gaither & Sellbom, 2003; Simpson & Gangestad, 1991). Consistent with this perspective, Moynihan et  al. (2022) found that boredom proneness (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986; Struk et al., 2017)—among men and women—predicted an enhanced frequency of engagement with pornographic material (see also Gana et al., 2001) and emotional avoidance (a subscale of the Pornography Consumption Inventory, Reid et al., 2011) as a coping strategy that explained the relationship between boredom and the frequency of pornography consumption. What explains the typical pattern of existential escape behavior? Given that this meaningregulation process seems rather spontaneous and risky as opposed to deliberative and rooted in reason, Moynihan et al. (2017) argued that impulsiveness might be a key process variable for existential escape: Thus, they directly investigated the relationship between boredom and impulsiveness (see also Dahlen, 2005; Fahlman et al., 2013; Watt & Vodanovich, 1992). As expected, higher levels of state—as well as trait—boredom predicted higher levels of impulsiveness on the Barrett Impulsiveness Scale-11 (Patton et al., 1995) and on a behavioral task in which reduced waiting times on trials could be exchanged for reduced financial rewards. This research thus further supports the notion that ‘pre-symbolic’ meaning-regulation can be characterized as spontaneous and unthoughtful. In future research and applications, impulsiveness might serve as an important psychological variable to consider, as it is likely to explain a broad set of behaviors rooted in impulsiveness (e.g., taking risks, causing harm to the self and others; Kılıç et al., 2020; Mercer & Eastwood, 2010; Rupp & Vodanovich, 1997, Stanford et al., 1996, 2009). Future research might also contrast functional against dysfunctional impulsiveness (e.g., Leone & Russo, 2009) and their relationship to boredom (Moynihan et al., 2017). Consistent with existential perspectives, perceived meaninglessness is strongly associated with boredom and predicts responses to boredom (Moynihan et al., 2017, 2021a). Also, the 94

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existential escape hypothesis rests on the assumption that people engage in a set of activities that functionally reduce the awareness of the existential conflict (see Moynihan et al., 2021a, for a detailed description; see also Wisman, 2006, on the rationale). Specifically, this existential process assumption builds on the notion that conflicts within the self are more salient and pronounced for people with high (vs. low) levels of self-awareness (Arndt et al., 1998; Baumeister, 1991; Duval & Wicklund, 1972; Kesebir & Pyszczynski, 2012). In this sense, self-awareness has the potential to fuel such psychological conflicts, thus motivating an ‘escape’ from them. In line with this reasoning, Moynihan et al. demonstrated that the typical boredom-escape patterns, such as unhealthy eating (Moynihan et al., 2015; see also Crockett et al., 2015) and interest in sexual activities (Moynihan et al., 2021b), were more likely for people with high levels of self-awareness.

Buffering Life offers a wide range of experiences and activities that give people meaning. Given that meaninglessness is a core feature of boredom (e.g., Van Tilburg & Igou, 2017a), a paradigm to examine the containment of boredom focuses on factors that instill meaning. That is, experiences, mindsets, or traits can foster a sense of meaning in life, which reduces boredom and the associated threat to an overall sense of meaning (Igou & Van Tilburg, 2019, 2021). This reasoning builds on a long history of literature that has examined how positive and meaningful experiences mitigate negative experiences (e.g., Fredrickson, 2001; Snyder et al., 2016), also proactively (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997). Close to the existential perspective put forth here is research by Steele (1988), for example, linking the theory of cognitive dissonance (e.g., Festinger, 1957; Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959) to the self and self-regulatory processes. Specifically, Steele argued that inconsistent cognitions and behavior are unpleasant and motivate adjustments in cognitions and behavior because they threaten the integrity of the self. Based on this analysis, Steele then demonstrated that selfaffirmation alleviated the consequences of cognitive and behavioral inconsistencies. The value of self-affirmation for confronting information that is unpleasant due to its inconsistency with personal beliefs and needs has been demonstrated, for example, when unpleasant health-risk information is otherwise easily avoided (Reed & Aspinwall, 1998). From the perspective of the Meaning Maintenance Model (Heine et al., 2006), one source of meaning (self-affirmation) provided a buffer against a meaning threat (inconsistencies of cognitions and behavior). Related to Steele’s (1988) work, however, constituting a large research domain in its own right is the research tradition of positive psychology (for an overview, see Snyder et al., 2016). Essentially, this tradition examines and promotes the notion that a range of experiences contributes to flourishing (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; for an overview, see Peterson & Seligman, 2004). For example, flow, contentment, gratitude, love, and pride have the potential to broaden one’s cognitive and behavioral repertoires (Fredrickson, 2001; Tugade et al., 2004), thus serving as a resource for resilience, personal growth, and character strength (Snyder, 2016; Tugade et al., 2004). Building on the notion that particular positive experiences serve as a resource for dealing with negative experiences and threats to the self and meaning, recent research examined more how sources of meaning suppress or buffer against boredom and the meaning threat it entails. Consistently, Van Tilburg et al. (2019b) showed in a series of studies that people who identified as religious experienced boredom to a lesser extent than those who did not identify as religious. This relationship was fully explained by perceived meaning in life (see also Steger & Frazier, 2005 on religiosity and meaning). Consistent with this pattern of results, Coughlan 95

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et  al. (2019) found that positive evaluations of specific cultural heroes (‘hero affirmations’) predicted lower levels of boredom through higher levels of perceived meaning in life. Similarly, it has been shown that displays of nature, often perceived as meaningful (e.g., Beckmann et al., 2019), reduce boredom (see Igou & Van Tilburg, 2019). Examining the impact of positive psychological experiences on boredom, O’Dea et al. (2022) found that both trait and state self-compassion predicted lower levels of boredom through higher levels of meaning in life. Further, O’Dea et al. (2023) found that gratitude predicted lower levels of boredom and that these effects were again explained by perceptions of meaning in life. These relationships were found for trait gratitude, individual differences in perceptions of meaning in life, and boredom proneness, but they were also found for experimentally induced gratitude, state perceptions of meaning in life, and state boredom. This boredom suppression paradigm is new and promising. It further demonstrates the close link between perceptions of meaning and boredom. In addition, this research highlights the value of factors enhancing meaning for the containment of boredom, thus providing solid grounds for intervention procedures designed to contain boredom experiences in real life. Another way to reduce the adversity of boredom via meaning is by directly highlighting the meaningfulness of one’s activity (Yucel & Westgate, 2021). This can happen, for example, by making personal goals of a relatively boring task salient (Hulleman et al., 2010; see Yucel & Westgate, 2021) or by highlighting the long-term benefits of the boring activity (Tam et al., 2021). Essentially, not only must the perceived long-term benefits outweigh the short-term affective costs (e.g., Mischel, 2014), the long-term benefits—and thus perceived meaningfulness of one’s behavior—would reduce the affective costs associated with the activity. This type of boredom suppression via evaluation of current activity is different but functionally equivalent to the suppression via meaningful experiences that precede a potentially boring experience. Whether people enhance, escape, or have the opportunity to engage in buffering experiences likely depends on many variables. For example, meaning sources might be provided within the context, or they might be lacking, facilitating versus hindering enhancement or buffering. People’s experiences with self-regulatory processes and coping strategies likely matter, too, especially for routinized behavior. Similarly, people’s momentary resources and interests likely influence whether they escape or approach a meaningful goal. Future research will have to flesh out the boundary conditions and types of mediating processes for all types of boredombased meaning-regulation. Such a comprehensive framework of boredom and meaning must not exclude but include fundamental notions about people’s levels and directions of attention.

On meaning and attention The most fundamental features of boredom that set the experience apart from other emotions are a lack of attention and perceptions of meaninglessness (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2017a). Perceptions of meaning are assessments, and, as outlined, these assessments play a role in selfregulatory processes when people are confronted with boredom. The question is whether attention—a basic cognitive process crucial for the emergence of boredom—explains the emergence and experience of boredom better than existential assessments, and whether attention and these assessments are either separate or linked. Westgate and Wilson (2018) introduced a model that conceptualizes attention and meaning as separate determinants of boredom. This Meaning and Attentional Components (MAC) model was tested by using experimental and correlational designs. The results of these studies supported the core assumption that attention and meaning are independent contributors to boredom. That is, deficits in attention explained the extent to which people were bored. Still, 96

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also deficits in meaning explained higher levels of boredom, confirming the notions of attention-focused accounts of boredom (e.g., Eastwood et  al., 2012) and meaning-focused accounts of boredom (e.g., Van Tilburg & Igou, 2013). In a nutshell, the MAC model proposes independent effects (i.e., statistical main effects) of both lack of attention for and lack of meaning of activity as causes of boredom. At the same time, it explicitly states that both factors do not interact. The MAC model has been a significant step forward in further validating the importance of attention allocation and perceptions of meaning, yet alternative models have been proposed with slightly different ideas about the roles of attention and meaning, including their relationship. That is, it might be plausible that the assessments of meaning and the allocation of attentional resources are intertwined and not strictly independent. As outlined by the Integrated Attentional Investment Theory (IAIT; Todman, 2021), attentional processes are fundamental for the experience of boredom (e.g., Eastwood et al., 2012) and serve the boredom management strategy that people use. For example, engagement in meaning-making, a sophisticated management strategy, is steered by attention allocation. Further, this strategy requires beliefs about its usefulness and the necessary skills. This calls into question the notion of strict independence. The Boredom-Feedback-Model (BFM; Tam et al., 2021) also considers attention and meaning as crucial determinants of boredom experiences; however, its propositions on the relationships between these processes build on the notion that both processes are signals within a dynamic self-regulatory process and that their relationship is quite complex. Boredom is characterized by attention shifts. Meaninglessness leads to inadequate attentional engagement and, thus, boredom emerges (Tam et al., 2021). This suggests that: (a) meaningful engagement suppresses or disarms boredom (i.e., buffering); and that (b) one would not devote attention to a meaningless activity endlessly. For example, in educational settings, students search for meaningful aspects of a class-related situation to stay engaged to alleviate boredom or prevent the occurrence of boredom (Finkielsztein, 2020); in work settings, studies have consistently demonstrated a positive association between perceived meaningfulness of work and work engagement (e.g., Kaur & Mittal, 2020; Lee et al., 2017; Soane et al., 2013). An experience-sampling study found that, at the within-person level, daily supplies of meaningfulness at work positively predicted engagement through increased attentiveness (Vogel et  al., 2020). Boredom itself increases people’s desire to engage in meaningful behavior (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2017b); then, shifts in attention are associated with the degree to which people search for meaning, a process that potentially enhances and restores a sense of meaningfulness (i.e., enhancement). When bored, people are motivated to direct their attention to things that help re-establish a sense of meaning (e.g., social identification with an ingroup, Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011); or, when bored and sources of meaning are absent or incomprehensible, people shift their attention away from the self and toward affectively pleasant and mind-consuming activities (i.e., escape; Moynihan et al., 2021a). In this sense, attention towards the self and the source of boredom is low, while attention to finding and engaging in mind-consuming alternatives is sufficient. While boredom is associated with both low attention to the task at hand and low perceptions of meaning (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2017a), people do not feel bored if they are engaged in their activity, whether it is per se meaningful or meaningless (Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Tam et al., 2021). This provides people with room and time for meaning-making without the interference of the unpleasant experience of boredom. Even if a stimulus or activity is perceived as lacking meaning for the moment, people who are engaged in it could direct their attention to it to appraise its meaning (e.g., Hulleman et al., 2010). For instance, the meaningfulness of a story may not be apparent when people begin reading it; meaning may come later when the plots come together. In short, the BFM (Tam et al., 2021) considers both attentional and existential processes as determinants of 97

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boredom; however, it also proposes specific interlocking relationships of attention and meaning to capture the dynamics of self-regulation under boredom.

On boredom’s functionality and the big picture Is boredom functional? The meaning-regulation perspective on boredom is a particular selfregulatory model with an emphasis on existential processes. Thus, similar to other self-regulatory models (e.g., Elpidorou, 2014), boredom can be portrayed as a functional experience. Specifically, as boredom signals a discrepancy between the status quo and one’s values and needs, it invites adaptations of one’s thoughts and actions to resolve the discrepancy (e.g., Danckert, 2019; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011), which is consistent with more general assumptions about the functionality of emotions in goal pursuits (e.g., Bench et al., 2021; Carver, 2004; Frijda, 1987; Lench et al., 2015). As people are frequently bored (e.g., Chin et al., 2017; Larson & Richards, 1991) but much more often not bored, it is fair to conclude that assessments of meaningful engagements and the experience of boredom are functional tools for the adjustment of one’s goal pursuits (Bench & Lench, 2013; Elpidorou, 2014) and perhaps success in life. Put differently, some degree of boredom, especially state boredom (e.g., Chan et  al., 2018; Danckert, 2018), might be beneficial in pursuing goals successfully. The limitations of boredom’s functionality are, in part, rooted in the inability to regulate the perceived meaninglessness or the inability to engage in activities that are less boring. Trait boredom is strongly associated with low levels of self-control (e.g., Isacescu et al., 2017) and maladaptive behavior (e.g., Rupp & Vodanovich, 1997; see also Chapter 13). As Bench et al. (2021) outline, “the results of long-term or frequent boredom from the disconnect between the value and the desires of the individual and their environment resemble an existential crisis” (p. 85), a “lost self” (p. 86). These people struggle to pursue meaningful alternatives in the long term, perhaps because of frequent and profound attention deficits that hinder successful goal pursuits or because of inadequate existential assessments (e.g., misjudgments of what is a satisfying long-term goal). This perspective on traits as one chronic factor for unsuccessful selfregulation is essential in analysis and potential interventions that address boredom. A perspective on chronic self-regulatory failures relating to boredom that has been gravely neglected in psychology considers societal factors: social-economic and educational environments that limit agency in pursuing a meaningful life (e.g., Chin et al., 2017; Ohlmeier et al., 2020; for a review, see Eastwood & Gorelik, 2021). That is, the causes of ‘chronic’ boredom might be sought in the person or even a group, but it might also be located in the social environment that limits the development of self-regulatory capacities and engagement in meaningful activities (e.g., Elpidorou, 2021; Todman, 2021). Research on boredom needs a broader perspective and integration of theories and data at the levels of individuals, groups, and societal structures. The quality of theories of boredom and the quality of interventions depend on process assumptions about personal and (shortand long-term) situational factors that contribute to boredom. Particularly important for the success of interventions are long-term solutions to reducing boredom and strategies to cope with boredom. Above all, research must not shy away from critical analyses of social-economic structures within which human beings experience life and operate (e.g., Fromm, 1955, 1973, 1976). From an existential perspective, the question is then not only about the capacity of people to glean meaning and regulate meaning successfully; it is also about whether or not the social world we create offers sufficient opportunities for meaningful engagement.

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Eric R. Igou et al. Steger, M. F., Oishi, S., & Kashdan, T. B. (2009). Meaning in life across the life span: Levels and correlates of meaning in life from emerging adulthood to older adulthood. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(1), 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760802303127 Struk, A. A., Carriere, J. S. A., Cheyne, J. A., & Danckert, J. (2017). A short boredom proneness scale: Development and psychometric properties. Assessment, 24, 346–359. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1073191115609996 Svendsen, L. (2005). A philosophy of boredom. Reaktion Books. Tam, K. Y. Y., Van Tilburg, W. A. P., Chan, C. S., Igou, E. R., & Lau, H. (2021). Attention drifting in and out: The boredom feedback model. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 25, 251–272. https:// doi.org/10.1177/10888683211010297 Thiele, L. P. (1997). Postmodernity and the routinization of novelty: Heidegger on boredom and technology. Polity, 29, 489–517. https://doi.org/10.2307/3235265 Todman, M. (2021). Boredom mismanagement and attributions of social and moral goals. In A. Elpidorou (Ed.), The moral psychology of boredom (pp. 133–169). Rowman & Littlefield. Tugade M. M., Fredrickson B. L., & Barrett, L. F. (2004). Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: Examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1161–1190. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00294.x Vaillant, G. E. (1977). Adaptation to life. Little, Brown. Van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Igou, E. R. (2011). On boredom and social identity: A pragmatic meaningregulation approach. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 1679–1691. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0146167211418530 Van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Igou, E. R. (2012). On boredom: Lack of challenge and meaning as distinct boredom experiences. Motivation and Emotion, 36, 181–194. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11031-011-9234-9 Van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Igou, E. R. (2013). On the meaningfulness of behavior: An expectancy x value approach. Motivation and Emotion, 37, 373–388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031 012–9316–3 Van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Igou, E. R. (2016). Going to political extremes in response to boredom. European Journal of Social Psychology, 46, 687–699. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2205 Van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Igou, E. R. (2017a). Boredom begs to differ: Differentiation from other negative emotions. Emotion, 17, 309–322. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000233 Van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Igou, E. R. (2017b). Can boredom help? Increased pro-social intentions in response to boredom. Self and Identity, 16, 82–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2016.121 8925 Van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Igou, E. R. (2019). The unbearable lightness of boredom: A pragmatic meaningregulation hypothesis. In J. Ros Velasco (Ed.), Boredom is in your mind: A shared psychological-philosophical approach (pp. 11–35). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26395-9 Van Tilburg, W. A. P., Igou, E. R., Maher, P. J., & Lennon, J. (2019a). Various forms of existential distress are associated with aggressive tendencies. Personality and Individual Differences, 144, 111–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.02.032 Van Tilburg, W. A. P., Igou, E. R., Maher, P. J., Moynihan, A. B., & Martin, A. (2019b). Bored like hell: Religiosity reduces boredom and tempers the quest for meaning. Emotion, 19, 255–269. https://doi. org/10.1037/emo0000439 Van Tilburg, W. A. P., Igou, E. R., & Sedikides, C. (2013). In search of meaningfulness: Using nostalgia as an antidote to boredom. Emotion, 13, 450–461. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030442 Vodanovich, S. J., & Kass, S. J. (1990). A factor analytic study of the boredom proneness scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 55, 115–123. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.1990.9674051 Vogel, R. M., Rodell, J. B., & Sabey, T. B. (2020). Meaningfulness misfit: Consequences of daily meaningful work needs—Supplies incongruence for daily engagement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(7), 760–770. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000464 Watt, J. D., & Vodanovich, S. J. (1992). Relationship between boredom proneness and impulsivity. Psychological Reports, 70, 688–690. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1992.70.3.688 Westgate, E. C., & Wilson, T. D. (2018). Boring thoughts and bored minds: The MAC model of boredom and cognitive engagement. Psychological Review, 125(5), 689–713. https://doi.org/10.1037/ rev0000097 Wilson, T. D., Reinhard, D. A., Westgate, E. C., Gilbert, D. T., Ellerbeck, N., Hahn C., Brown, C. L., & Shaked, A. (2014. Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind. Science, 345(6192), 75–7. www. science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1250830

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 8  A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BOREDOM Josefa Ros Velasco

A study of boredom from the perspective of mental health sciences Boredom is a phenomenon that has aroused the curiosity of thinkers from a great number of disciplines throughout Western history. From philosophers to theologians, and including anthropologists and sociologists, writers and artists, they have filled hundreds of pages of metaphysical, spiritual, moral, ethnographic, and sociological treatises. However, the pathological and painful nature of boredom has also meant that numerous thinkers interested in mental health have also looked to this state. In fact, psychology is currently the discipline chiefly responsible for boredom studies. In the studies from the branch of psychology, we often come across complaints about the lack of interest in boredom. It has been repeatedly stated that there is also a lack of literature on this matter (Ros Velasco, 2017). Since Bertrand Russell concluded, at the beginning of the last century, that “boredom as a factor in human behavior ha[d] received . . . far less attention than it deserves” (1930, p.  57), this complaint has continued to be repeated. Damrad-Frye and Laird made it especially popular in the 1980s, when they claimed that O’Hanlon (1981) had said that “the existing research on boredom is limited” (1989, p. 315). In fact, O’Hanlon never complained about this in his work, though he did so about the lack of consensus on the definition of boredom. Nevertheless, since then this statement has been copied from one paper to another. In the 1990s, Pediaditakis exclaimed that boredom was an unknown (1991). Even Cynthia Fisher, the expert in industrial psychology, dared to say that the concept of boredom in the workplace had been forgotten (1993). At the end of this decade, the researchers into boredom Vodanovich and Watt also complained that “limited research has been focused on this construct” (1999, p. 144). Currently, there are still many researchers who—from the paradigm of mental health— constantly complain about the lack of literature on boredom. Experts point to this as the reason why it is still not possible to understand clearly what boredom is, and in this way justify the need for their own studies. In 2006, Martin et al. said that “studies of boredom are relatively few” and that “research literature relating to boredom appears to be . . . limited” (2006, p. 196). Similarly, Pekrun et  al. claimed that “boredom has received far less attention by researchers than emotions such as anxiety, anger, joy, or interest” and that “there is a clear lack of research on . . . boredom” (2010, p. 531). These claims are sometimes even backed up by figures (Ros Velasco, 2017). 106

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It is not true that there is a problem of lack of literature on boredom in the mental health sciences, nor that until the last decade of the last century, only a few studies had been published on boredom. In fact, neither is it true that little attention has been paid to boredom nor that it is being neglected now. The truth is that more than 200 articles published since 2000 by psychoanalysts, psychologists, and psychiatrists (Ros Velasco, 2017) demonstrate that these disciplines have picked up the mantle from the philosophers, theologians, sociologists, and literary theorists of the past centuries, although the latter still have an important role to play in the study of boredom (Elpidorou, 2014, 2017; Ros Velasco, 2022). It was in the early 20th century when medicine took over from the humanities regarding the study of boredom, almost completely erasing what had come before. From the psychoanalytical wave to educational psychology, and including employment psychology and neuropsychology, the understanding of boredom has definitively become part of the discipline of health studies. However, we know that psychologists and physiologists, in general, have been interested in boredom for at least two centuries, and that some of them very seriously defended the possibility that boredom was the result of some type of perturbation of psyche or other physical disorder. Moreover, from antiquity to the beginning of the last century, there have been many thinkers who have addressed the question of boredom, placing the focus on individuals, their personality, their cognitive particularities, and their mental health as keys for understanding this complex state. This chapter presents a brief history of the study of boredom from the perspective of mental health. It demonstrates that the concern shown by psychology and even psychiatry for this phenomenon is much older than contemporary researchers dare admit. I will show how boredom has attracted a great variety of thinkers interested in its relationship with numerous mental disorders, behavioral pathologies, personality traits, and even physical disorders over the whole history of the West. Moreover, I will present a non-exhaustive review of the path taken by contemporary psychology regarding the study of boredom. The ultimate aim of this chapter is not only to demonstrate that the history of boredom as a psychopathology is constructed on centuries of research about the pain that this state causes us at the individual level, but also to compile—for the first time and in a single place—the main psychological currents that revolve around the study of boredom in the contemporary era.

Background of the contemporary psychology of boredom The history of the West is testimony to the fact that boredom has been considered an illness since its origins. It has always been the cause of our misfortunes, humanity’s punishment, and the pain to be eradicated. The ancients saw it as a shameful state, resulting from the lack of dedication to the community and to the cultivation of virtue, and a result of ostentatious lifestyles. In the Middle Ages, it was included on the list of deadly sins. In the modern age, it has represented the negation of the capitalist work ethic, and at the end of the 19th century, it became the mal du siècle. Now, in the modern world, some experiences of boredom are even seen as real pathologies. Over all this time, thinkers of all periods have shown an interest in the psychological approach to boredom, either from the point of view of the way it is experienced or its relationship with some mental pathologies or deviant behaviors. It is difficult to address the presence of boredom in the oldest texts, particularly because there was not in the initial stages of antiquity even a specific word to refer to this phenomenon, at least until the Latin term taedium began to be used. However, experts such as Toohey (1988) note that it is not realistic to think that the Ancient Greeks, for example, were never bored: they simply could not dignify this state by writing about it because it would have been 107

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considered unworthy. Having time to be bored was a violation of the maxim by which all citizens had to sacrifice themselves to achieve the most honorable and elevated form of life (Leslie, 2009). This changed in the Roman Empire, when having time for leisure was no longer a problem, giving rise to the abundance of moments in which boredom could be experienced (Ros Velasco, 2022). In this context, Lucretius was one of the first to refer to boredom as a clinical entity when he described it as an experience from which it was not possible to escape because the ill person who suffered it was not able to find the cause of their disorder (III, 1067–1073 [1903]). Horace wrote along the same lines, when he talked of boredom as a trouble of the mind (Kuhn, 2017), and as a type of disease which both friends and doctors tried to alleviate without success, and which caused irritation, annoyance, and apathy (I, 8.8–12 [2002]). It was Seneca who pathologized boredom definitively when he converted it into one of the causes which drove rich Romans to suicide, clarifying that it was an ailment which did not make them completely ill, but not healthy either (1.2–3 [1900]). During the Middle Ages, there was much talk of boredom, known as acedia, in terms of a disease of the soul, a spiritual disease, or a disease of the convent. However, it was not until the 13th century when the first definitions were developed to help clarify the psychological roots of boredom, as well as its relations with other similar experiences such as apathy, dullness, laziness, indolence, affliction, negligence, indifference, disgust, and even depression and nausea (Piovano, 2016). This was the time when boredom began to be studied from a clinical perspective, being identified with sadness and melancholy. It was transferred from theology and spirituality to medicine and the organism. The associations of boredom with the incipient forms of what today are considered mental disorders are already found in a Desert Father like Evagrius Ponticus. He may have been “the first to systematize a concept that today constitutes an essential reference in the history of psychopathology” (Hernán Vázquez, 2015, p. 680). Evagrius referred to acedia as a state close to what is now understood as modern melancholy or contemporary depression: a mental condition characterized by lack of character in the soul, capable of destabilizing the monk and making him mad. Others such as Rovaletti and Pallares (2014) disagree, and state that in no case can acedia be understood as a simple depression, precisely because it is linked to the search for an elevated model of spiritual life which represents a step beyond merely biological and psychological pressures. Acedia, they say, should be linked more to paradepression. After Evagrius, Saint Augustine talked about boredom as a psychological condition related to agitation and unease. Father Meconi (2011) considers that for Augustine, the experience of acedia comes from a soul incapable of focusing, of engaging to a specific activity. John Cassian treated boredom as an anxiety or weariness of heart (X, 5.1 [2000]) and as mental anxiety (Meconi, 2011). For him, boredom and sadness or dysthymia were linked “in a reciprocal mental dynamic . . .: sadness may give rise to . . . confusion of the mind, the effect of acedia, may be one of the causes of sadness” (Del Castello, 2010, p. 50). For Cassian, and Saint Augustine, acedia was a disease that corrupted the interior of people, and whose cause could reside in the individual’s predisposition to boredom (V, 3, 9 [2015]). But it was Saint John Climacus who really described the symptoms of acedia as a phenomenon belonging to the sphere of perturbations of vitality in a purely clinical sense (XIII [1982]). Among these symptoms were shivers, headaches, fevers, stomach aches, and anxiety. Many of these are also found in Saint John Chrysostom, when he talked about the destructive spiritual condition which ravaged the subject, making them suffer terrifying nightmares, strange physical disorders (twisted hands, rolling eyes, distorted voice), tremors, senselessness, and a despair

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that borders on suicide (Toohey, 1990). Saint Jerome likewise proposed the remedies of Hippocrates against the symptoms of acedia. He described acedia as melancholy and appealed for early medical treatment (CXXV, 16 [PL 22.1081–82]): There are those who, due to the humidity of their cells, their excessively altered state, the tedium caused by solitude, due to excessive reading, pass day and night talking to themselves, and become melancholic. They need Hippocratic treatments more than our advice. Hugh of Saint Victor characterized this state as a perturbation of the mind which led to anxiety, like John Cassian and Saint John Climacus (PL 176.1000). But if anyone made acedia and sadness synonyms, it was Thomas Aquinas. He presented acedia again as tristitia de bono interno (XI, 1, 2 [1995]), a sadness which made people dull for spiritual acts. For Aquinas, acedia was more a morbid process than a moral fault, and its nature was the object of nosological study (Peretó Rivas, 2010). It was a form of unpleasant sadness which implied pain and depression of the spirit. When Aquinas talked of acedia, he referred to “sadness, the lack of motivation for doing things, and tedium . . . bodily weakness” (Peretó Rivas, 2011, p. 38). Some of his contemporaries, such as Caesarius of Heisterbach (1929), were of a similar opinion. He established that acedia was a sadness or depression which resulted from a confusion of the mind, leading first to tiredness, then sleepiness and despair, and possibly ending in suicide. For his part, David of Augsburg (1576) said that one aspect of acedia was related to an illness which inclined people toward despair and led them to suicide. Theologians, philosophers, and experts on mental health now consider that boredom at the end of the Middle Ages was already a psychopathological state. Psychiatrist Téllez Carrasco said that it was “a disorder of vitality, an alteration of vital sentiments” in which tedium and anxiety coexisted (1957, p. 188), as John Cassian had already noted. According to Téllez Carrasco, it could be said that the monks were sick (without quotation marks) with acedia. Its main symptoms were unease, lack of concentration, and delirious ideas triggered, above all, at mid-day. Psychiatrist López Ibor noted (1964) that acedia was a paralysis of the impulse, capable of immobilizing the external limbs and even taking the voice away. Peretó Rivas (2017) considers, from the perspective of philosophy, that acedia was a pathology and a disorder in affectivity in which the subject felt a mental imbalance, whose common symptoms (depressive attitude, lack of energy, lack of communication, altered biorhythms, ideas of indignity and reproach, anxiety) were similar to depressive disorders and anxiety, and were manifested through distress. Theologian Larchet (1992) argued that medieval acedia was characterized by asthenia, a depressive symptom related to sadness which is present in many neuroses and psychoses. Piovano (2016) agreed, explaining that the person who suffers from continuous boredom ends up succumbing to a profound depression that could lead to suicide. Boredom’s shift from the spiritual to the corporeal culminated in the Renaissance. The spiritual disease of acedia became a biological ailment like melancholy. Being bored no longer depended on the soul, but on the organism. Melancholy (melaina chole) was considered a purely organic problem, caused by a corruption of the yellow bile, present in the blood, which gave rise to an excess of black bile (atra biles). The disorder was the result of an imbalanced interaction of a magma of liquids (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) located in the body and which were associated with the elements, seasons, stages of life, and the different physical and intellectual properties of the person, all under the influence of Saturn. Its effects could range from fear to misanthropy, and include depression and a tendency to suicide. Saint

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Ignatius of Loyola described the latter in his autobiography (III, 24 [1992]), and Saint John of the Cross said that melancholic boredom was an organic and temperamental predisposition, . . . more stable than a simple state of temporary exhaustion or tiredness, and which has to do with the emotional and melancholic temperament, and with depressions of the endogenic type, or more broadly, with the so-called depressive personality. (Fuentes, 2012, p. 23) Psychiatrist Álvarez Rodríguez dedicated a whole book to explaining that Saint John of the Cross was describing “the clinical entity which in psychiatry is known as endogenic depression or melancholy” (1997, pp. 8–9). The consideration of boredom from the psychological point of view is again found in France of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At that time, the word ennui was used to refer to a boredom that was persistent over time, profound, and a symptom of a specific way of life: that of the leisured aristocracy. Its main physical and mental manifestation was known as spleen, when boredom became entrenched over time, and sickened—in the literal sense—those who suffered from it. So many people were then victims of this illness that was considered the mal du siècle. The literati of the period left a record of their mental ailment through a large number of fictional characters. Among the most notable are Lamiel, in Stendhal’s eponymous novel (1978), a girl who was sick with boredom and to whom doctor Sansfin diagnoses and prescribes a treatment, and the character of Madame Bovary (Flaubert, 2002), a young woman sick with bovarism, the incapacity to find satisfaction, whose tendency to chronic boredom (Bonilla, 2017) ended up driving her to suicide. These are fictional cases, but authors like George Sand claimed to be victims of a psychosomatic illness called tedium (Barry, 1976). She explained that her malaise was genetic (Sand, 1991). Her mother had suffered from it, and it ended up killing her, as it would kill Sand herself. Sometime later, the symbolist Verlaine would agree, accusing boredom of being a congenital problem that had to do with the melancholic character of the individual, which was born from the body, from the flesh, blood, and nerves (2011); a problem suffered by his lover Rimbaud, someone of whom it was said that was prone to boredom (Thomas, 2015). Other contemporaries such as Mallarmé did not describe it as a bodily sickness, but directly as “a mental sickness” (1959, pp. 172, 175). Boredom as a clinical condition not only appeared in the artistic French literature of the time, but also in medicine. Before the 19th century, medical discourse about ennui was limited to melancholia, which was given a nosographic state constituting a sickness. The following is how Doctor de Sauvages (1771, p. 436) described its symptoms: I am seeing a patient who is discomforted by a sharp headache and whose heartbeats are increasing aggressively. This woman has a very abundant blood loss every month; she has become chlorotic, she is pale and has a ferocious appetite. Her blood is hot and dark, which drives her to hysteria in the times between her periods. There is an illness in which this symptom is constant: English melancholy or boredom with life. However, at the beginning of the 19th century, the cause of boredom—from the point of view of health—began to be found in a combination of elements of a social, environmental, and individual nature. Doctor Vitet (1803) announced that boredom—whose symptoms were a pale skin, said air, weak pulse, thinness, insomnia, madness, or desire for death—was something incurable. Not long after this, Doctors Hallé and Thillaye defined it as the “most painful 110

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torment to support, which brings with it a considerable disorder” (1819, p. 255). Its nature, they explained, may reside in our incapacity to be interested by the reality and in the life of cities, characterized by luxury, tumult, and agitation. Psychiatrist Esquirol included boredom in the etiology of suicide (1821), something that Doctors Tours and Jousset fully agreed with (Andral, 1836). This was confirmed not long after also by Jousset (1858). Often there has been a transfer from literature to medicine—and vice versa—with respect to boredom as a mental pathology, disorder, or illness (Rigoli, 2018). Doctor Roubaud-Luce (1817) quoted Chateaubriand and took the character of René, tormented by boredom, as a case study. Psychiatrist Falret (1822) alluded to René when diagnosing the disorder of melancholy, making clear that the description of this character had helped establish in medicine a precise knowledge of a similar mental state and to diagnose it as a hereditary predisposition, a wave of passions, a state of intelligence in a variety of melancholy leading to the suicide described with great seriousness, a remission of the illness following the arrival of his beloved sister, a complete cure when a real illness follows the imaginary one. (p. 54) Writers such as Bourget (1885) tried later to facilitate the work of doctors by dissecting the personality and boredom of other writers such as Baudelaire, Renan, Flaubert, Taine, and Stendhal. Toward the middle of the 19th century, there was a reactivation of the classic psychophysiology of boredom. Starting with the 1835 edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française (Académie Française, 1835), ennui appears defined as lassitude, languor, mental fatigue, caused by something without interest, monotonous, disagreeable or too prolonged over time. . . . It is also used, in particular, for a discouragement of the spirit in which everything tires us and where we don’t find pleasure in anything. . . . ENNUI also means anxiety, sadness, displeasure, concern, and in this sense it is often used in the plural. In the Dictionnaire de la langue Français, lexicographer Dr. Littré (1863) took a further step toward psychology, talking of boredom as “a torment of the soul caused by the death of people we love, their absence, by the loss of hope or by any disgrace” and as the “emptiness of the soul with no action or interest in things” (p. 1406). Other physiologists such as Bricheteau and Boismont—the latter wrote what is considered the first serious treatise on boredom from the point of view of medicine (Boismont, 1850)—then paid attention to boredom, although they did not conceive it as the result of an individual problem, but returned to the social causes of its experience (Bricheteau, 1822). In the final decades of the 19th century, the medical tendency to understand boredom as a pathology or illness faded away. Boredom lost its visibility in medicine. It returned, however, as a subject of interest for mental health at the turn of the century, with Tardieu’s book L'ennui. Étude psychologique (1904). Tardieu published the first treatise on the psychology of boredom in history. In it, he explained that boredom . . . is alternatively agitation and neglect, nostalgia for what can’t be achieved and the skepticism of one who has lived too much; it is at the starting point of the life which is intoxicated and aspires feverishly to full development and enjoyment, and is found again in despair, the end of hope, which leads to suicide . . . it is a suffering that 111

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ranges from unconscious unease to reasoned despair; conditioned by the most varied causes, its main reason is an appreciable relaxation of our vital movement. It is above all entirely subjective and results in states of the soul called disgust, discouragement, impotence, bad-tempered moods, rushes to anger. (pp. 2–3) Tardieu’s analyses were also guided by literary representations, taking as case studies the characters of well-known works of the previous century. For example, of Obermann, he said that his boredom has its origin in a radical vice of his physiology, in a malformation of his being. It is a state of permanent irremediable organic weakness which condemns him to an imperfect, mutilated existence . . . Obermann would be classified today as among the neurasthenic. (1904, pp. 364–365) The pathology of chronic boredom, anchored in the body, finally became in Tardieu “a real illness” (1904, p. 156): Tedium by exhaustion tends to be established and chronic; it is felt among us by overwhelming laxity, mental disorder, strange impulses; it is the collapse of our life, which is reduced into hypochondria and impotence, into ruin and sickness. We touch ourselves and feel cold marble on our fingers: our thought asks for help and the lethargy which takes over us overcomes spasmodic impulses. (1904, pp. 23–24) Tardieu was followed in the same period by psychiatrist le Savoureux, with his work on the spleen (1913). In his inventory of fin-de siècle sicknesses, he considered melancholy—also called asthenia, psychasthenia, depersonalization or anhedonia—as simply one among others. At this point, the study of boredom became a health concern, particularly rooted around mental health.

The contemporary history of boredom from the perspective of mental health The 20th century is the time when the study of boredom begins to form part of the common interests of the health sciences, to the point of taking away the leading role from the humanities. From the latter, boredom was understood as an illness, but only in metaphorical terms. In reality, it was no more than the consequence of the decadence of the West. However, psychologists and psychiatrists—who initially blamed society for the epidemic of boredom—soon placed the focus on the subject who is bored, forgetting the social context, in the face of the apparent incapacity to find in this culpable society an effective and immediate solution to the problem of boredom. To this is combined the boom in studies on consciousness, personality disorders, the physiological substrata of mental processes, and human behavior. The first psychological schools in this period understood boredom through its relationship to mental disorders, without leaving aside the social component. For example, Freudian psychoanalysis dealt with consciousness and the moral problem of society at the same time, describing boredom as one of the impulses which disturbed and perturbed the individual because of the unease of culture, which the I tended to reject, inclining to the liberation of pleasure. This taedium vitae, as he called it, was a symptom, not an illness. The illness was the hysteria provoked 112

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by the repression of mental contents, above all of a sexual nature, for social reasons (Freud, 1962). His disciple Fenichel agreed and defined boredom as a state of tension characterized by “the coexistence of a need for activity and activity-inhibition, as well as by stimulus-hunger and dissatisfaction with the available stimuli” (1951, p. 350), which became pathological when what was expected did not occur due to a repression of instinctive action. However, toward the mid-20th century, another disciple of Freud changed the discourse completely. Bergler (1945) insisted that boredom was the result of three disorders: weakness of sublimations, inhibition of voyeurism, and a defense against masochistic pleasure. He distinguished, like Fenichel, between agitated and apathetic boredom. But he also talked about a boredom that was no more than a temporary symptom, rather than another which could appear as a disease entity on a level with erythrophobia and depersonalization, even leading to suicide. Bergler, unlike Fenichel and Freud, also said that “in certain neurotic cases boredom is a pathologic entity”, which made it “necessary to find a genetic place for that old but neglected disease” (Bergler, 1945, pp. 39–40). Long before this drift took place in the heirs of Freudian psychoanalysis, philosopher and psychologist Lipps had already described the psychodynamic theory according to which boredom was a pain provoked by “the conflict between the internal need for an intense mental activity and the lack of stimulation or the incapacity of the subject to stimulate it” (1909, pp. 337–338). From his point of view, the lack of stimulation did not have to correspond to the lack of stimuli from an external soI: the subject could be incapable of feeling them due to some pathological feature related to their personality. He talked about individuals with a “weak will” (Willensschwachen), of “despondent” (Mutlosen) individuals who were unable to be interested in a goal, in pointing to it and in using the necessary energy to achieve the desired mental effect. They lacked the power of self-persuasion to be attracted by things, perhaps due to a problem of “lack of concentration” (Lipps, 1909, p. 338). Shortly after Lipps, the branch of psychology which converted boredom into a subject of scientific research, the psychology of labor, also focused completely on the bored person. Münsterberg (1913) carried out the first psychological studies on boredom in factories. He said that the monotony which gave rise to boredom depended not so much on repetitive work as on the individual’s disposition. What really concerned Münsterberg was how the workers’ propensity to boredom interfered in the loss of concentration or the lack of attention during the performance of certain tasks, leading to a decline in productivity. Psychiatrist Barmack tried to find a form of mitigating boredom in the workplace by intervening directly on the psychological state of the bored person. In his studies at the end of the 1930s, Barmack began to analyze how environmental and individual factors affected the experience of boredom during the performance of repetitive tasks, concluding that boredom was “a state of conflict between the tendency to continue and the tendency to get away from a situation which has become unpleasant principally because of inadequate motivation resulting in inadequate physiological adjustments to it” (1938, p. 125). For Barmack, in contrast to Lipps and Münsterberg, the problem did not lie with the subject but rather with the environment. Barmack’s interest was not therefore the analysis of the physiological causes of boredom, but the consequences of suffering it and the way of lessening it. He did not try so much to determine whether, as McDowall and Wells (1927) postulated, boredom was due to complications in the circulation of blood while work was performed as to remedy boredom itself. Barmack realized in his studies in 1939 (1939a, 1939b), however, that some antihypnotics such as benzedrine sulfate (known commonly as amphetamine), ephedrine hydrochloride (a somewhat milder stimulant), and the alkaline form of caffeine could minimize the occurrence of boredom. From this point on, his attention was also focused on the conditions of the person who was 113

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bored: their consumption of oxygen, blood pressure, and heart rate. In the end, although it was not his intention, Barmack ended up immersing himself in the analysis of the characteristics which make a person more prone to be bored than others. In the same period in which boredom became the subject of study in the labor environment, Illge (1929) began to examine it in another place of work: school. She carried out an empirical investigation to determine the causes of boredom in children, concluding that they get bored above all in history, religion, and singing for reasons that obeyed both the context and the students themselves. The environmental causes were due to the fact that the content of the lessons was not sufficiently adapted to the skills and interests of the students and the methodology was based on repetition. The individual causes observed by Illge were related to the lack of calm of some students and their excess or lack of imagination. Two decades later, Lewinsky (1943) surprisingly took the study of boredom in the teaching environment another way to suggest the idea that allowing children to become bored fostered self-knowledge. Around the mid-20th century, Revers (1949) introduced the need to distinguish between boredom caused by a certain object and boredom caused by the individual. While the first type of boredom disappeared when the object which produced boredom was eliminated or changed, the second needed a fundamental modification of the subject to disappear. In the 1950s, many specialists focused on limiting the nature and causes of this second type of boredom, which came to be called pathological, as endogenous, since it depended on the person who became bored. Psychoanalyst Bieber (1951) attributed this pathological boredom to a manifestation of the inhibition which led the subject to be incapable of acting in some important areas of their life for fear of action itself. In his article, he explained how pathological boredom appeared with greater intensity in depressed patients. Stuart (1951) published one of the first works that explored the relationship between boredom and acute cases of depression. Greenson (1951) also published a work on boredom in which he followed Fenichel (1951) in distinguishing two types of pathological boredom: motor calmness, or apathetic boredom; and motor restlessness, or agitated boredom. Agitated boredom was the kind which made individuals experience an unsatisfactory state in an aggressive way. Apathetic boredom simply made the subject experience the environment as boring and monotonous, without provoking any reaction. Greenson (1953) drew up a definition of pathological boredom which included both forms: boredom was a state of dissatisfaction and a lack of inclination to action, a yearning and incapacity to discover what it is that one yearns for, a feeling of emptiness, and a passive and expectant attitude that is maintained with the hope that the outside world will give us satisfaction and a distorted feeling of time. In this decade, many texts were devoted to the study of boredom in the labor environment, such as those of Smith (1953), Heron (1957), and Jones et al. (1959). Others like Levinger (1951) focused on discovering the psycho-biological substratum of boredom. The thematic diversity of the studies of boredom from the psychological and psychiatric perspective continued into the 1970s, the predominant trend being the analysis of the pathological reactions to chronic boredom. The specialists began to explain the reasons for boredom appealing to the arousal decline in situations with limited stimuli, followed by an autonomous activation released by the Reticular Activating System (RAS) to replace the arousal levels prior to the experience of boredom. Some works along these lines include those of Berlyne (1960, 1967) and Cooper (1968). They did not blame the RAS for the permanence of boredom in cases of chronicity, but the context. Four years later, a study by London et al. (1972) would stress the possibility that, in cases of pathological boredom, a faulty operation of the autonomous activation system may be occurring when reactivating the levels of arousal. London et al. did not mention a fault at a physiological 114

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level, but of the personality of the bored person as a determining factor in the operation of arousal systems. In the following years, Schubert (1977, 1978) noted the benefits of therapy to increase individual creativity as a strategy for confronting boredom in these cases. The whole approach, known as the arousal hypothesis, was included sublimely by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (1975, 1998, 2000) in his flow theory, developed from 1975–1998. As he explained, people flow when there is a balance between our need for arousal and the perceived stimulation of the environment. This is called the optimal experience. The conditions for the flow to dissipate depend both on the subject and the environment. If the environment is too demanding for the individual capacities, the resulting hyper-stimulation breaks the flow. In contrast, if it is an environment poor in stimuli with respect to the needs for mental stimulation, the hypo-stimulation experienced also breaks the flow. Boredom was, for Csíkszentmihályi, a psychological state of dissatisfaction, frustration, or negativity produced at the same time as the neurological arousal fell during the experience of situations without interest, or which were monotonous or repetitive, that broke the flow. In the end, he concluded that some people could be incapable of overcoming boredom due to certain characteristics of their personality. Beyond this point, it is impossible to provide a breakdown of the whole bibliography on boredom since the 1970s within the framework of mental health sciences. Psychiatric studies continued to play an important role in this decade, as shown by Sirois (1974) and Gimbel (1975). The core position was taken by psychoanalysts and psychologists specialized in a variety of deviant behaviors regarding aggressivity, attention, depression, or food consumption. To my view, the most notable publications are the work of Altshul (1977) on the boredom induced by patients on their therapists, and that of Suedfeld (1975) about how tedium developed the senses and intelligence. In the decade of the 1980s, the arousal hypotheses continued to have proponents, such as De Chenne (1988) and De Chenne and Moody (1987). However, it was the cognitive theories focused on the individual perception of the stimulation of the environment which had a leading presence. Hill and Perkins (1985) were among the pioneers in noting that boredom could be considered according to its cognitive and affective components. They proposed an integrated model in which they described the personality, the situation, and the characteristics of different tasks as key factors in the experience of boredom, concluding that it was not at that time possible to detect a psychophysiological component of boredom. Hamilton’s work (1981) was outstanding, as it emphasized the lack of concentration in the bored person and their difficulties in focusing their attention. Along different lines was the study by O’Hanlon (1981), in which it was noted that boredom came from a certain disorder/alteration of the normal functions of the brain, taking place in the temporal and spatial confines of a monotonous task, leading—in the case of chronic boredom—to serious social and medical problems. In that decade, it was also defended one of the first doctoral theses on boredom (Petersen, 1986). For the first time, boredom studied from the perspective of its cognitive components began to be analyzed according to a demographic factor as relevant as age. A study carried out by Sundberg and Bisno (1983) was the starting point for this trend, which would be bolstered in the following years by the works on boredom among children and adolescents. Boredom was also observed in relation to stress, fear, impulsivity, and violence, among other psychotic factors (Sommer et al., 2021). In addition, the first studies appeared which blamed boredom for excessive consumption of alcohol and other drugs (Ros Velasco, 2017, 2022). From a psychoanalytical approach, what began to take precedence during the 1980s was the demand to find methods of diagnosing the disorders related to boredom. Outstanding in this respect are Savitz and Friedman (1981) with the development of an interview to determine when boredom was a maladaptive state of mind. This phenomenon fostered the emergence 115

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of many articles on therapeutic treatments to ease boredom, such as those by Revers (1983) or Hozier (1988), which postulated a type of therapy to reconnect with one’s own emotions which had been lost over life. Others, like Patrick (1982), moved to recreational therapy, which would take on an essential value in treatments against boredom in the following decade. What is most curious, however, is the number of publications which prescribed therapies for the boredom, not of the patients, but of the therapists themselves, following the trend in the previous decade (Ros Velasco, 2017, 2022). If there was a milestone in the studies on boredom, it was the publication of the first scales of measurement. Before the 1980s, there was already a subscale for measuring boredom, the Boredom Susceptibility Scale (BSS) of 1964, as part of the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS) of Marvin Zuckerman et al. (1964). However, Farmer and Sundberg (1986) marked a turning point in this field by designing and publishing a new scale to assess the proneness to boredom, not only concerning external stimuli but also the capacity for internal self-stimulation. This was the Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS) of 1986. The aim was to assess the relationship between boredom and other affective states such as depression, despair, perceived effort, solitude, and demotivation. Only three years later, Tolor (1989) and Tolor and Siegel (1989) were already putting this tool to the test in two studies in which they also tried to clarify the association between boredom and alienation, assertiveness, expectations, and sleep patterns. With the great acceptance of the concept of boredom proneness—which implied, within the framework of the cognitive theories, an individual proneness to boredom, taking into account the features of personality and the psyche of the bored person—a group of researchers from the University West Florida constructed in the 1990s the biggest corpus so far of the analysis of boredom from a psychological perspective. They wanted to explore, using BPS, why what one person enjoyed bored another, depending on the psychological traits of the bored person. Vodanovich and Kass (1990) published the work with which they would inaugurate a long list of papers on boredom. In it, they addressed boredom proneness regarding age and gender, concluding that men and young people were more prone to boredom than women and older adults. Sundberg et al. (1991) agreed. Kass and Vodanovich (1990) published another similar study in which they used these scales, as well as the Jenkins Activity Scale (JAS) of 1969 (Jenkins et al., 1969). They demonstrated that in situations which lacked external stimulation and in restricted contexts, subjects prone to boredom saw their perception of time and their capacity to generate self-stimulation altered. Joining the team of Vodanovich in 1991 were Verner and Gilbride, applying the BPS and the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL) of Zuckerman and Lubin (1965) to show that there was no correlation between the boredom proneness and positive affect (Vodanovich et al., 1991). After this, Watt and Vodanovich noted that boredom proneness was the cause of increased aggression (1992a) and that people of color, particularly women, were more prone to boredom than white women (1992b). Mikulas and Vodanovich (1993) gifted the world the definition of boredom, so for many years it was understood as “a state of relatively low arousal and dissatisfaction, which is attributed to an inadequately stimulating situation” (p. 3). In this definition, they left behind the cognitive components that were present in the rest of the group’s studies. In another paper written with Polly and Blanchard (Polly et  al., 1993) the same year, using the Attributional Complexity Scale (ACM) of Fletcher et al. (1986) and the Causal Dimension Scale (CDM) of Russell (1982), they examined how those with a high boredom proneness preferred simpler explanations of human behavior. Watt and Blanchard (1994) wrote a supplementary article in which they pointed out, using the Need for Cognition Scale (NCS) of Cacioppo and Petty (1982), that individuals with a low need for cognition were more prone to boredom. This work stressed again that men were more prone to boredom than women. 116

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In 1996, this group of researchers explored sexual boredom, and with Watt and Ewing (1996) created the Sexual Boredom Scale (SBS). The following year, Rupp and Vodanovich (1997) were back with a study in which proneness to boredom was related positively to irascibility and aggressivity, measured by the Hostility Subscale of the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (1992). In 1998, Vodanovich published a paper with Seib, for which they used the Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS) of Fenigstein et al. (1975), the Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS) of Tellegen and Atkinson (1974), and the NCS, as well as the BPS, to show that individuals with the greatest capacity for self-awareness and absorption reported lower levels of boredom and difficulty in remaining interested and entertained (Seib & Vodanovich, 1998). Almost at the end of the decade, Vodanovich and Watt (1999) used the Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Assessment (SDTLA) of Winston (1990) to certify that the proneness to boredom led to difficulties for students when planning their future career, lifestyle, relations with others, and participation in their education. They also concluded that the students who were bored most had less healthy lifestyles. Together with Rupp, Vodanovich also applied that year the Tuckman’s Procrastination Scale (1991) to demonstrate that procrastinators tended to get more bored (Vodanovich & Rupp, 1999). The productive torrent of the West Florida team did not end there. The new millennium came with new researchers. Sommers and Vodanovich (2000) used the Parloff et al.’s (1954) Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL) to indicate that persons who tend to get bored most also tend to report more symptoms when they were asked about their health. With Callender (Kass et al., 2001a) and Stanny and Taylor (Kass et al., 2001b), Kass and Vodanovich initiated two studies on the effect of the propensity to boredom at work, using the Lee’s Job Boredom Scale (JBS) (1996). With Wallace (Kass et al., 2003), the two researchers once more explored sleep disorders and attention deficit in relation to boredom proneness, using the Adult Behavior Checklist (ABCL) of Achenbach and Rescorla (2003), the Epworth Daytime Sleepiness Scale (ESS) of Johns (1991), and the Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS) of Soldatos et al. (2000). Notably, that same year Vodanovich published two more articles alone. One of them condensed all the bibliography of the last twenty-five years on measuring boredom (2003a). The other (2003b) dealt with the constructive nature of boredom and admitted the existence of a conceptual bias by which the positive aspects of this state had been underestimated. Vodanovich was not the first psychologist who tried to stress the benefits of boredom. Rule (1998) called for more attention to be paid to the power of boredom in self-awareness and introspection. In the following years, and up to the present, Vodanovich, Wallace, and Kass created a shortened version of BPS (Vodanovich et  al., 2005), Watt and Hargis (2010) revised the relationship between boredom and labor performance, others alleged that male U.S. university students got more easily bored than German ones (Vodanovich et al., 2011), and Vodanovich and Watt (2016) carried out another review of literature on the scales for measuring boredom. The West Florida group occupied and continue to occupy a core place in the studies of boredom and represent a reference point, but many others across the world paid attention to boredom from mental health disciplines in the 1990s, and since the beginning of the new millennium, with contributions on the relationship between boredom and mood, behavior and personality disorders, problems in the workplace, demographic traits such as age, and, finally, mental illnesses (Ros Velasco, 2017, 2022). At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, a total confusion and lack of agreement was reported with respect to a common state that had become a chimera. The competition between the different approaches to clarify what boredom was made it impossible to compare and harmonize the evaluation methods, thus reducing the possibilities of agreement between the parties and preventing a real comprehension of its nature (Vogel-Walcutt et al., 117

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2012). Despite the abundance of definitions of boredom since the beginning of the century by mental health experts, boredom continued to be “an ill-defined scientific concept” (O’Hanlon, 1981, p. 53). One of the first definitions goes back to 1934, when Warren described boredom as “a condition of diffused attention, unpleasant in quality, resulting from the automatization of the activity in which the subject is engaged and the concurrent presence of obstacles to changing that activity” (1934, p. 34) in his Dictionary of Psychology. Another later definition was that of the Dictionary of Psychiatry by Thakurdas and Thakurdas (1979), in which boredom was defined as a state of “lethargy produced by monotony or disinterest” (p. 9). O’Hanlon (1981) improvised another definition according to which boredom was “a psychophysiologic state resulting from prolonged periods of monotonous stimulation” (p. 54). Sundberg (1994) wrote for The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology that state boredom referred to a temporary state or condition, whereas boredom proneness was more closely associated with a condition similar to a feature or recurring experience. In 1996, the term boredom appeared in the seventh edition of Campbell’s Psychiatric Dictionary, defined as a feeling of unpleasantness due to a need for more activity, or a lack of meaningful stimuli, or an inability to become stimulated. The last form is generally considered pathological . . . usually represents a defense against libidinal or aggressive strivings. (Campbell, 1996, p. 102) Since then, the cases are, again, too many to deal with. In 1999, Corsini defined the word “boredom” in his The Dictionary of Psychology (1999) as “a general loss of interest in activities accompanied by wandering attention and lack of motivation” and as “inability to respond to any activity, no matter how meaningful or stimulating it is to others . . . considered pathological” (p. 123). Basavanna’s Dictionary of Psychology (2000) presented it as a synonym of alyosis. The Lexikon der Psychologie (Schmitz, 2000) included the term Langeweile, inspired by the definition of Hauke and Schmitz (1991) as a mental state of dissatisfaction and a refusal to act, often combined with internal anxiety. Schmitz differentiated among intrinsic, chronic or existential, and reactive boredom, which Neu (1998) would later research in more depth. In the same year, Csíkszentmihályi (2000) wrote a long and complex definition of boredom for the Encyclopedia of Psychology that summed up what has been said so far: [Boredom] refers to a general state of listlessness or apathy that pervades consciousness when a person feels that there is nothing interesting or meaningful to do . . . is often associated with psychopathology  .  .  . is one of the three most often mentioned causes [of depression]  .  .  . the result of redundant stimulation.  .  .  . More recent conceptualizations . . . focus on the meaning that the stimuli have in relation to the goals of the individual. (pp. 442–443) There also appeared entries for boredom, boring, and boredom proneness in the Diccionario de Psicología y Psiquiatría Bilingüe Español de Routledge (Kaplan, 2011). Finally, the American Psychological Association included boredom in its APA Dictionary of Psychology, defining it as “a state of weariness or ennui resulting from a lack of engagement with stimuli in the environment” (VandenBos, 2007, p. 130). The most cutting-edge researchers today continue to work on the definition of boredom. One of the most powerful fronts is that of the Canadian experts on boredom. Eastwood and 118

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his collaborators at the Boredom Lab have been perfecting their definition over the years. In 2007, with Cavaliere, Fahlman, and Eastwood, they demonstrated that bored individuals were not aware of their emotions, and depended entirely on the guidance they received from the environment, suggesting the existence of an underlying problem in their inability to access their emotions consciously and denying that boredom is simply the result of an unstimulating environment (Eastwood et al., 2007). Later, together with Fahlman, Mercer, and Gaskovski, they explored how the lack of meaning and purpose in life also caused boredom, as well as other types of negative affects such as depression and anxiety (Fahlman et  al., 2009). Mercer and Eastwood (2010) wrote about the relationship between gambling and boredom. The following year, Eastwood returned to the research on boredom and the negative effects of apathy and anhedonia, as well as depression, collaborating with Goldberg, LaGuardia, and Danckert. They admitted that boredom was “a universal human experience that we dedicate very little time or attention to . . . yet limited by the absence of a consistent definition . . . vital . . . in understanding and treating psychopathological and neuropathological disorders” (Goldberg et al., 2011, p. 648). By 2012, the definition of boredom had already taken form based on the synthesis of the main approaches by psychodynamic theory, existentialism, arousal hypothesis, and cognitive theory. In a magnificent summary, Eastwood and his collaborators gathered them all together to announce the following definition of boredom (Eastwood et al., 2012, p. 484): We propose to define boredom as the aversive state that occurs when we (a) are not able to successfully engage attention with internal (e.g., thoughts or feelings) or external (e.g., environmental stimuli) information required for participating in satisfying activity; (b) are aware of the fact that we are not able to engage attention and participate in satisfying activity, which can take the form of either awareness of a high degree of mental effort expended in an attempt to engage with the task at hand or awareness of engagement with task-unrelated concerns (e.g., mind wandering); and (c) attribute the cause of our aversive state to the environment (e.g., “this task is boring”, “there is nothing to do”). In 2013, the definition of the Canadians was applied in at least four articles: one on boredom proneness (Mercer-Lynn et al., 2013); another in which a new measurement scale was created, called the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale (MSBS) (Fahlman et al., 2013); a third consisting of a Chinese version of this scale (Liu et al., 2013); and, finally, another on boredom and depression in cases of traumatic cerebral injury (Goldberg & Danckert, 2013). However, a crucial question remained: was the cause of boredom the environment, the person, or both? Goldbert et  al. had begun to explore this issue in 2011. Three years later, Mercer-Lynn et al. (2014) tried to provide an answer by saying that boredom was the result of personality traits, such as boredom proneness and the systems of activation and inhibition of behavior (person-based state boredom), the environment (situation-based state boredom), and even other causes which had not yet been considered. The difference between boredom depending on the situation and boredom depending on the individual was up for discussion, although it had already come to the fore with others like O’Conner (1967), who discussed the difference between temporary boredom, caused by the environment, and chronic boredom, originating inside the subject, and Greenson (1953), who said that, depending on its duration and causes, boredom could be temporary or chronic. In the case of endogenous boredom, the cognitive causes could be derived from lack of attention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and executive dysfunction. After these findings, Eastwood published the book Out of My Skull, together with Danckert, of The Danckert Lab, explaining that boredom is functional (Danckert & Eastwood, 2020; on 119

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the functionality of boredom, see also Elpidorou, 2014, 2017; Ros Velasco, 2022). Regardless of whether it was endogenous or exogenous, boredom was an unpleasant state which drove its victim to a productive action to remedy the malaise produced by inaction. In a prior collaboration with Danckert’s group in 2018 (Danckert et al., 2018b), Eastwood’s team already established that boredom functioned as a self-regulating signal which indicated that our cognitive resources were not being used fully and that a change was required (Ros Velasco, 2022). Although the collaborations between the Eastwood and Danckert groups now number around a dozen, Danckert has its own way to address boredom. His methodologies go beyond measurement scales. His first study on boredom, published together with Allman, dates to 2005 (Danckert & Allman, 2005), but his most prolific period did not come until recently. What has always interested Danckert and his colleagues is to know more about the cognitive or neural bases of the subjective experience of boredom. In 2014, together with Merrifield, he began to explore the physiological correlate of boredom using measurements of heart rate, electrodermal activity, and cortisol levels, concluding that boredom could be associated with the increase in arousal and difficulty in maintaining attention (Merrifield & Danckert, 2014). Two years later, he published another article with Struk and Scholer (Struk et al., 2016) in which they investigated the relationship between self-regulation and the two main types of boredom (lack of internal stimulation versus lack of external stimulation), repeating that the effective search for goals was associated with a lower probability of experiencing boredom. In the matter of boredom proneness, the group focused on two works the following year (Isacescu et al., 2017; Struk et al., 2017), stressing the nature of self-regulation and trying to improve the BPS and its shortened version—the BPS-SR—based on their outcomes. Danckert and Isacescu (2017) carried out one of the first attempts to locate boredom in the brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques. This had only been attempted before by Weissman et al. (2006), who used MRI techniques to conclude that the part of the brain which housed the processes related to boredom could be the insula. With this study, Danckert and Isacescu demonstrated that the subsequent components of the default mode network (DMN) were active at the time in which people were bored. Moreover, they indicated that the anterior insular cortex was not related to the DMN during the induction of the state of boredom, which suggested a problem in the activation of the regions of the executive network needed for the effective commitment to the available information. In an article by Danckert and Merrifield (2018) which complemented this research, they proposed that boredom represented a failure to involve the executive control networks when the individual was dealing with a monotonous task, and provided a definition of boredom as “a ubiquitous human experience that can best be described as an inability to engage with one’s environment despite the motivation to do so” (p. 2507). In 2018, they published four more articles, exploring—based on fMRI techniques—the relationship between boredom and states of low arousal (Danckert et al., 2018a), self-control in cases of traumatic cerebral damage (Isacescu & Danckert, 2018), modes of regulation (Mugon et al., 2018), and attention processes (Danckert, 2018). Danckert wrote a text for my book Boredom Is in Your Mind in which he explained, in line with the new tendency adopted in his latest collaborations with Eastwood, that boredom could be a sign indicating the need to explore the environment to exploit it, minimizing the opportunity costs (Danckert, 2019). In 2020, together with Struk, Scholer, and Seli, he suggested that, at times, environments with many alternatives could even be more boring than those that lack stimuli (Struk et al., 2020). In Europe, two other researchers are establishing their own line of research on the psychological keys to boredom and testing an also widely accepted definition of this phenomenon. They are Van Tilburg (University of Essex, UK) and Igou (University of Limerick, Ireland). 120

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Together with their collaborators, they associate boredom with the search for significant commitments. They argue that when these are not achieved, the resulting boredom may give rise to impulsive behavior, unhealthy consumption, and mental problems (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2017). Although they came to the scene a little later than the Canadians, their production exclusively focused on boredom already numbers some 20 works since they published their first paper (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011). In that article, Van Tilburg and Igou reinforced the cognitive theory approach. In the following years, they compared boredom with other negative affective experiences such as sadness, anger, frustration, fear, disgust, depression, blame, shame, repentance, and deception (Ros Velasco, 2022). They focused above all on the analysis of the extreme responses to boredom in the attempt to re-establish lost meaning in unimportant situations (Chan et al., 2018): impulsive consumption of food; adherence to extreme left-wing political beliefs or religious fanaticism; admiration for heroism, or the assumption of financial, ethical or health risks. However, these experts also recognize that boredom may trigger positive reactions which range from creativity to reconnection with our loved ones, the desire to help the needy, pro-social interactions, and a healthy engagement in sports. Van Tilburg, Igou, and their collaborators agreed that boredom may have good and bad, functional and dysfunctional consequences, affecting personal and social life (Van Tilburg et al., 2019). In one of their latest works, Van Tilburg et  al. (2022) also determined the profile of the most bored person in the world. There are many researchers who are closely involved in the study of boredom from a mental health perspective at the present time, including myself (Ros Velasco, 2022). The latest effort to reach an agreement on the nature of boredom is that of Westgate and Wilson and their Meaning and Attentional Components (MAC) model (2018), based on the explanation of boredom using a combination of environmental, attentional, and functional conditioning factors. In recent years, another group of researchers has emerged from central Europe, among whom are Bieleke, Wolff, and Martarelli, the editors of this volume. These are some of the examples of colleagues who are included in the references of any academic work which aims to determine whether boredom has something to do with mental illnesses, personality disorders or pathological behavior. An exhaustive review would multiply the length of this presentation by at least three times (Ros Velasco, 2022). However, what I have presented serves as a demonstration that there is an extensive and consistent tradition with respect to the psychology of boredom which may even come to be systematized.

The future of studies on boredom from a mental health perspective This chapter aimed to demonstrate that there is a relationship between the proposals made in the past on boredom as psychopathology and those established today by the mental health sciences. Although they were not always established by specialists in psychology or psychiatry, but rather by philosophers, theologians, and even literati, they show that there is a continuity between their approaches to how boredom affects individuals, their mental health, and their behavior, and the work that is being carried out at the present time by psychologists and psychiatrists. Without doubt, the disciplines of mental health have driven forward the studies on boredom in a very short time, from a perspective complementing that offered by the humanities and sociology. Examining in detail the concept of endogenic and individual chronic boredom, whose precedents are dispersed across the history of Western thought, has constructed a new basis for this branch of knowledge. However, we cannot neglect the evidence that there has been a clear transfer between disciplines over the centuries, which indicates that multidisciplinary work 121

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may be key for an understanding of a phenomenon that is as many-sided as that of boredom, particularly with a view to avoiding the negative consequences that may result from suffering from chronic boredom. Boredom is a painful state which is produced in our relations with the environment, whether it is caused by the environment or ourselves. It may be considered pathological when it becomes chronic and does not allow a functional response to its suffering, whether its root is individual or environmental, giving rise to reactions that are not adaptive. This means that exogenous boredom can also be chronic and pathological, when it is the context itself which—as it is too constrictive or limiting—prevents an immediate reaction translated into adaptive and functional responses. There is a chronic situational boredom when we are incapable of practicing a strategy of escaping boredom in a functional sense due to the context itself. In these cases, we are trapped in a state of situational boredom which becomes chronic, one that we often escape through extreme—not adaptative—responses (Ros Velasco, 2022). What interests all of us who dedicate ourselves to the study of boredom, whatever our discipline, is to prevent its pathological and dysfunctional instances. To make progress along these lines, it is essential to have contributions from philosophy and sociology on the different variables which condition the experience of boredom, such as its durability or its depth. From now on, we will all have to contribute our bit by combining our respective visions to decipher when boredom is pathological or dysfunctional because of the individual, the context, or a mixture of both elements. The approach to the cases of pathological boredom must take into account its physiological, personal, and biographical aspects, but also environmental, social, and even historical ones. This reality has permeated with great impact into the studies of boredom in recent years. Specialists belonging to a variety of different disciplines have opened a space for dialogue to work together on deciphering the mysteries of boredom. The first steps along these new paths were taken by sociologist Finkielsztein, of the Collegium Civitas in Poland, who in 2015 organized the International Interdisciplinary Boredom Conference, which now continues as a biannual event. A great milestone was also reached with my creation of the International Society of Boredom Studies, which now hosts this conference and—among other activities—has launched the Journal of Boredom Studies. Through these initiatives, those of us studying boredom have at last begun to read and listen to each other, and to collaborate on multidisciplinary projects that, without doubt, will allow us to achieve the goal of gaining a real understanding of what the experience of boredom represents. This milestone will close the chapter of the long history of the psychology of boredom working isolated from other disciplines. Could we imagine a better destiny?

Acknowledgments This work is an outcome of the project PRE-BORED which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 847635.

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A brief history of the psychology of boredom Vogel-Walcutt, J., Fiorella, L., Carper, T., & Schatz, S. (2012). The definition, assessment, and mitigation of state boredom within educational settings: A comprehensive review. Educational Psychology Review, 24(1), 89–111. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-011-9182-7 Warren, H. C. (1934). The dictionary of psychology. Houghton Mifflin Company. Watt, J. D., & Blanchard, M. J. (1994). Boredom proneness and the need for cognition. Journal of Research in Personality, 28(1), 44–51. https://doi.org/10.1006/jrpe.1994.1005 Watt, J. D., & Ewing, J. E. (1996). Toward the development and validation of a measure of sexual boredom. Journal of Sex Research, 33(1), 57–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499609551815 Watt, J. D., & Hargis, M. B. (2010). Boredom proneness: Its relationship with subjective underemployment, perceived organizational support, and job performance.  Journal of Business and Psychology, 25(1), 163–174. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-009-9138-9 Watt, J. D., & Vodanovich, S. J. (1992a). Relationship between boredom proneness and impulsivity. Psychological Reports, 70, 688–690. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1992.70.3.688 Watt, J. D., & Vodanovich, S. J. (1992b). An examination of race and gender differences in boredom proneness. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 7(1), 169–175. Weissman, D. H., Roberts, K. C., Visscher, K. M., & Woldorff, M. G. (2006). The neural bases of momentary lapses in attention. Nature Neuroscience, 9(7), 971–978. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1727 Westgate, E. C., & Wilson, T. D. (2018). Boring thoughts and bored minds: The MAC model of boredom and cognitive engagement. Psychological Review, 125(5), 689–713. https://doi.org/10.1037/ rev0000097 Winston, R. B. (1990). The student developmental task and lifestyle inventory: An approach to measuring students’ psychosocial development. Journal of College Student Development, 31(2), 108–120. Zuckerman, M., Kolin, E. A., Price, L., & Zoob, I. (1964). Development of a sensation-seeking scale. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 28(6), 477–482. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040995 Zuckerman, M., & Lubin, B. (1965). Normative data for the multiple affect adjective check list. Psychological Reports, 16(2), 438. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1965.16.2.438

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PART II

Correlates

 9 ON THE VIRTUES OF FRAGILE SELF-CONTROL Boredom as a catalyst for adaptive behavior regulation M   aik Bieleke, Wanja Wolff, and Alex Bertrams Self-control is an essential mechanism that is fragile by design Most people are familiar with situations in which they struggle to achieve the goals they have set for themselves. Goal attainment can be compromised, for instance, because it requires someone to engage in a desired behavior (e.g., exercising to stay fit) or to refrain from engaging in an undesired behavior (e.g., denying oneself fast food to stay healthy) rather than indulging in a behavior that is preferred but not goal-oriented (e.g., lying on the couch and having snacks). Working towards one’s superordinate goals despite such challenges and conflicts often requires self-control, which has accordingly been defined as the “efforts people exert to stimulate desirable responses and inhibit undesirable responses” (de Ridder et al., 2012, p. 77). On the one hand, self-control is conceived as a relatively stable and enduring trait, with individuals high in trait self-control assumed to be generally more effective in managing desirable and undesirable responses than individuals low in self-control (Tangney et al., 2004). In line with this notion, self-control has been shown to be essential for many aspects of human functioning (Bieleke & Wolff, 2021b), and robust links between trait self-control and various positive outcomes have been established (e.g., better health, higher income, greater happiness; Baumeister et al., 1994; Hofmann et al., 2014; Moffitt et al., 2011). On the other hand, self-control is conceived as a transient state that is subject to fluctuations within the individual, and there has been considerable interest in studying situations in which self-control does not seem to work (e.g., de Ridder et al., 2018). Indeed, personal experience and research consistently suggest that self-control is an inherently fragile mechanism (e.g., Ainslie, 2021). This has been famously illustrated by research on the (lack of) delay of gratification in intertemporal choice settings like the marshmallow test (Ainslie, 1975; Mischel et al., 1989). Here, people essentially sacrifice their initial preferences for large but delayed rewards (e.g., staying healthy into old age, waiting to earn two marshmallows) in favor of immediately available but smaller rewards (e.g., skipping a training session to watch TV, eating one marshmallow without waiting). Self-control is additionally affected by contextual factors like the prior exertion of mental effort in unrelated tasks (Giboin & Wolff, 2019; Hagger et al., 2010). For instance, people might find it more challenging to summon the self-control required for exercising in bad weather after an exhausting work day compared to a restful day of leisure (e.g., Schöndube et al., 2017). This malleability of self-control is commonly interpreted as a self-regulatory failure DOI: 10.4324/9781003271536-11

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in effective goal striving, and its high prevalence in everyday life (e.g., Hofmann et al., 2012) has sparked considerable interest in understanding the fragility of self-control. In this chapter, we highlight why this fragility is not a bug, but the very feature that allows self-control to be a functional mechanism in the adaptive orientation of goal-directed behavior.

Explaining the fragility of self-control The question of why self-control is a fragile mechanism is subject to an ongoing debate in the literature, and different perspectives have emerged (for an overview, see Inzlicht et al., 2021). Resource-based models like the strength model of self-control (Baumeister et al., 1998) have long provided the prevailing perspective. They explain the fragility of self-control by proposing that self-control relies on a limited resource. According to this view, performing self-control– demanding behaviors consumes a portion of this resource that is not immediately replenished. This temporary state of “ego depletion” ostensibly impairs the performance of subsequent selfcontrol–demanding behaviors by reducing an individual’s ability to draw from the underlying resource. However, the empirical evidence for the assumptions of the strength model of selfcontrol is inconsistent (e.g., Hagger et al., 2010, 2016), the supporting literature is affected by publication bias (Wolff et al., 2018), and its mechanistic underpinnings have been questioned (Inzlicht et al., 2014). This encouraged the development of models that are more precise with respect to the mechanistic underpinnings of self-control. These models revolve around the premise that self-control represents the force through which mental effort is exerted (Shenhav et al., 2017). In turn, mental effort and self-control are intrinsically related. Importantly, mental effort is commonly experienced as aversive (Kool & Botvinick, 2018) and linked to negative sensations like fatigue and frustration (Wolff et al., 2021b). Therefore, people tend to mobilize effort sparingly and only to the maximum necessary extent (Richter et al., 2016). The experience of effort can thus be understood as the signal for the costs of applying self-control, and these perceived costs of control are thought to directly bias control allocation. The important role of effort as a cost signal is a basic tenet of reward-based models of self-control, which assume that its fragility reflects changes in individuals’ willingness to apply self-control. For instance, the schema model of self-control (Bertrams, 2020) assumes that the experienced effort during self-control allocation activates a cognitive fatigue/decreased vitality schema, which is associated with the motivation to reduce the expenditure of further effort to save energy. This cognitive approach may explain why imagining the exertion of selfcontrol without actually performing the initial self-control behavior leads to decrements in subsequent self-control–demanding tasks (Englert & Bertrams, 2014; Graham et al., 2014): Possibly, the mere imagination of self-control effort primes the assumed fatigue/decreased vitality schema which then had motivational effects on further behaviors. The process model of self-control (Inzlicht & Schmeichel, 2012), on the other hand, assumes that performing selfcontrol–demanding behaviors initiates temporary shifts in motivational and attentional processes toward more rewarding alternative behaviors. These processes eventually undermine an individual’s motivation to invest further effort into subsequent self-control–demanding behaviors. This perspective can also account for empirical findings that are difficult to reconcile with the assumption of a limited resource, such as the observation that the emergence of ego depletion is contingent on whether individuals believe that self-control is limited (Job et al., 2010). From the perspective of reward-based models, what appears to be a self-control failure from the outside might thus be indicative of a behavior that is subjectively optimal under the given conditions: Individuals should align their application of self-control with changes in the associated costs and values. 134

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Although differing in their specifics, reward-based models thus converge to the conclusion that the fragility of self-control reflects a shift in motivation. They explicate the role of effort in the decision to apply self-control, allowing them to account for a wide range of empirical findings that are difficult to reconcile with resource-based models of self-control. For example, the finding that monetary rewards can offset “ego depletion” (Muraven & Slessareva, 2003) is inconsistent with a resource-based based account but fully consistent with reward-based choice models of self-control. Importantly, some reward-based models even explicate the computational properties and the mechanistic properties that govern self-control processes (Shenhav et al., 2017) and offer a plausible explanation for the apparent fragility of self-control. A prime example is the expected value of control theory (EVC theory; Shenhav et al., 2013, 2016), a neurocomputational framework that conceptualizes the application of self-control as a rewardbased choice, when humans choose the control signal that optimizes the EVC (i.e., the type and intensity of self-control allocation whereby EVC is maximized). It offers nuanced perspectives on the dynamics of motivational shifts according to the underlying cost-benefit analysis. Effort is assumed to serve as a dynamic signal that quantifies the costs of self-control, in accordance with the definition of self-control as effortful (Ainslie, 2021; de Ridder et al., 2012). The benefits refer to positive outcomes that are expected to result from the application of self-control, such as attaining a valued goal or avoiding negative consequences. There is a plethora of afferent signals that are integrated by subcortical structures to compute the EVC of available control signal configurations. Simply put, to compute the EVC for a specific controlled action, such as going for a run, the available information regarding the value (e.g., high value: getting fitter; low value: being bored while training) and the costs (e.g., more or less required effort) of this action need to be taken into account. In this chapter, we focus on the role of core sensations that signal the potential value of various activities. One fundamental signal that informs people about the value of various activities is boredom (e.g., Agrawal et al., 2022; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020), which has consequently been suggested to play a crucial part in the optimization process underlying self-control (Bieleke & Wolff, 2021a).

Boredom makes self-control less worthwhile and more costly Boredom has two crucial characteristics that influence the outcome of the cost-benefit analysis for self-control according to the EVC theory (see Figure 9.1). First and foremost, it signals that the current activity has little personal value, emphasizing that there might be alternative activities that are more rewarding (e.g., higher levels of value) and/or make better use of the individual’s mental resources (e.g., providing an optimal fit to one’s abilities; Pekrun et al., 2010; van Tilburg & Igou, 2012; Westgate & Wilson, 2018). On a neural level, for instance, boredom has been found to increase an individual’s sensitivity to rewards (Milyavskaya et al., 2019), which renders alternative activities more attractive than the current activity and prompts people to engage in these activities—even if they are aversive themselves (Bench & Lench, 2013, 2019). Consequently, boredom reduces the value of the current activity relative to alternative goals. From the perspective of EVC theory, this translates into a decrease in the benefits derived from self-control. To illustrate with the example of revising an academic paper: The value ascribed to revising the paper might be high because the aspiring author really wants to publish the paper, so the EVC is high and the author invests substantial effort into the revision. Over time, the author might become bored, however, and the value of revising the paper and the reward the publication would yield starts to fade. Now, the control signal where EVC is maximized is much lower and the author starts to invest less effort into the revision. In Figure 9.1, this is illustrated by a decrease in the value for high versus low levels of boredom at each level of control signal intensity. 135

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Figure 9.1 According to the EVC theory, the intensity of the control signal is selected such that the expected value of control (EVC) is maximized, thereby optimally solving the tradeoff between the value and the costs associated with a given signal strength. Boredom enters this costbenefit analysis via two routes: First, boredom decreases the expected value associated with a given control signal intensity by devaluing the current activity relative to alternative activities. Second, boredom increases the costs associated with a given control signal intensity by increasing the effort required to continue. The continuous transition from low levels of boredom (dashed lines) to high levels of boredom (solid lines) is represented by the semi-transparent areas in the figure, taking into account that boredom is a highly dynamic and continuous signal (Mills & Christoff, 2018). All other things being equal, increasing levels of boredom are thus associated with a decrease in the optimal control signal intensity.

The second route for boredom to enter the cost-benefit analysis of self-control pertains to the cost side. Boredom is assumed to become an aversive experience when it must be endured for a prolonged time, for instance, when people are stuck in unsatisfying activities (Eastwood et al., 2012). This aversiveness reflects the mental effort required to maintain engaged in boring activities, which raises self-control costs. This is supported, for example, by studies showing that boring tasks induce higher levels of fatigue than cognitively straining tasks (Milyavskaya et al., 2019) and that boredom crowds out the effort devoted to task performance (Bieleke et  al., 2021a). Moreover, people display an urge to avoid and escape boredom that parallels the urge to evade pain and psychological distress (Bieleke et al., 2022a), up to the point that people willingly trade boredom against physical pain (e.g., self-administering electric shocks; Nederkoorn et al., 2016; T. D. Wilson et al., 2014b). In terms of the EVC theory, these findings suggest

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that the effort required to endure boredom adds to the costs of self-control. Coming back to the author struggling with revising a paper: Maintaining focus on the revision and resisting the urge to do something else requires extra effort due to the boredom that sets in. In Figure 9.1, this is illustrated by an increase in the costs of high versus low levels of boredom at each level of control signal intensity. Both effects of boredom combined—the decrease in value and the increase in costs—instigate a pronounced shift in the optimal EVC associated with the current activity. This is shown in Figure 9.1, whereby the optimal control signal is considerably reduced for high compared to low levels of boredom. This implies that boredom is a powerful catalyst for disengagement from unrewarding goal pursuits. Indeed, empirical research has demonstrated that boredom arises in situations with little useful information (i.e., minimized prediction errors) and motivates people to engage in exploration of the environment (Geana et al., 2016). Computational modeling suggests that this feature makes boredom essential for achieving an optimal balance between exploration and exploitation (Gomez-Ramirez & Costa, 2017), which is in line with conceptual considerations about the relevance of boredom as a guiding signal for human behavior (Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). Importantly, it is conceivable that boredom encourages explorative behaviors that are undirected and unsystematic (undirected exploration) rather than goal-directed and systematic (directed exploration: R. C. Wilson et al., 2014a; see also Chapter 5). For instance, it has been shown that individuals with a tendency to experience boredom display noisy decisionmaking, alternating aimlessly between behaviors that they may later regret (Wolff et al., 2022b; Yakobi & Danckert, 2021). These considerations have important implications for framing self-control as a fragile mechanism. The fragility of self-control, far from being a bug or failure, is an essential and highly adaptive feature that allows people to adjust their behavior dynamically. Simply put, self-control must be fragile to be valuable. It needs to be flexibly adjusted to promote behaviors whose direction and vigor make optimal use of one’s resources in light of ever-changing internal and external states that maximize one’s EVC. For example, self-control needs to be adjusted when boredom prompts a decrease in the value and an increase in the costs of performing a particular activity. If humans had “perfect” self-control, the control signal intensity in Figure 9.1 would remain at a non-optimally high level and one would be strictly better off by applying less selfcontrol. This probably explains why evolution has favored dynamically adjusting rather than “perfect” self-control (Hayden, 2019), which also plays a role for exploitation and exploration. Self-control is arguably involved in initiating, maintaining, and balancing goal-directed behaviors that aim at either exploiting well-known options or intentionally exploring alternative options (Cogliati Dezza et al., 2019; Daw et al., 2006; Mansouri et al., 2017). For instance, someone might need self-control to consistently perform the same well-known exercises to reap its predictable benefits (exploitation; e.g., going for the weekly run in a nearby park) as well as to systematically search for new exercises that provide unknown but potentially higher benefits (directed exploration; e.g., starting to cycle in the vicinity of the city). The sensitivity of self-control to changes in value and costs, however, allows fundamental afferent signals like boredom to bias behavior away from such goal-directed forms of behavior and towards less directed forms of exploration (Bieleke & Wolff, 2021a; Danckert, 2019). For instance, one might become bored of the regular run in the park and spontaneously decide to take a new and unknown route. This undirected exploration should depend crucially on the distribution of EVCs in an individual’s action space, such that the activity with the next highest EVC compared to the current activity is enacted. These EVC distributions might be shaped by inter- and intraindividual factors, as discussed in the following section.

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Advancing boredom research: an EVC perspective on trait boredom In our chapter, we have so far focused on boredom as a dynamic and transient experience (Mills & Christoff, 2018). However, some individuals might be more prone than others to experience boredom across time and in different situations—an assertion that lies at the heart of the concept of boredom proneness (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986). The associated boredom proneness scale constitutes the prevailing approach to assessing trait boredom (Vodanovich & Watt, 2016; see also Chapter  3). It has been shown to capture not only whether individuals experience boredom frequently and intensively but more generally whether they perceive their entire life as boring (Tam et al., 2021). From an EVC perspective, experiencing boredom frequently and intensively should increase the costs of self-control and reduce its value, leading to chronically low self-control signals (see Figure 9.1). This should result in a negative association between measures of trait self-control and boredom proneness. In line with this hypothesis, research has consistently demonstrated substantial negative correlations between these two traits (Bieleke et al., 2021b; Wolff et al., 2020). Moreover, boredom proneness and trait self-control overlap considerably in psychometric networks with negative associations (Wolff et al., 2022a) and contribute inversely to personality profiles underlying behavior (Wolff et al., 2021a). Importantly, self-control signal intensity should be reduced not only for one but for all available activities, as boredom proneness has been shown to reflect a “holistic perception of life being boring” (Tam et al., 2021, p. 832). When everything in life seems boring, the EVC should be generally low (see Figure 9.2). This has intriguing implications for characterizing boredom proneness: First, it implies that people high in boredom proneness should be inclined to engage primarily in activities with rather low self-control demands. In line with this idea, boredomprone individuals have consistently been shown to engage in fewer behaviors indicative of good self-control (for an overview, see Bieleke et al., 2022a), such as physical activity (Wolff et al., 2021a), and in more behaviors indicative of poor self-control, such as emotional eating (Crockett et al., 2015). Second, perceiving every available action as boring should compromise behavior aiming at exploitation and exploration alike (Danckert, 2019), a prediction that is probably captured best by the characterization of boredom proneness as a “failure to launch” (Mugon et al., 2018). Indeed, people high in boredom proneness find it difficult to engage in new goals when their current goals become futile (Bieleke et al., 2022b), and they demonstrate weaker preferences for exploration even though they can be more curious than others (Martarelli et al., 2022). Importantly, both of these characteristics of boredom proneness—the inclination to engage in behaviors indicative of poor self-control and the failure to engage in both exploration and exploitation—are not characteristic of transient boredom discussed so far, which decreases the EVC selectively and not holistically. Boredom proneness thus deviates markedly from contemporary definitions of boredom (Eastwood et al., 2012; see Chapter 2), which emphasize its function as a signal to instigate behavior change and its impartiality concerning the adaptiveness of the behavior (Bench & Lench, 2013, 2019; see Chapter  5). To address this issue, trait boredom has recently been conceptualized as the urge to avoid and escape boredom (Bieleke et al., 2022a). In terms of the EVC theory, individuals with a strong urge to avoid and escape boredom should experience rapid increases in costs and/or decreases in value when an activity becomes boring (or is anticipated to become boring; see Tam et al., 2023). In line with definitions of boredom but in contrast to research on boredom proneness, this should in turn instigate swift changes in behavior that keep the intensity of experienced boredom at low levels. Although research on the urge to avoid and escape boredom is limited to date, the available evidence lends preliminary support to these assumptions (Bieleke et al., 2022a, 2022b). Measures of the urge to avoid 138

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Figure 9.2 While the distribution of EVCs across all potential activities likely fluctuates considerably within and across individuals, there might be systematic differences. For instance, people high in boredom proneness might generally face activities with predominantly low EVCs (solid curve), rather than a more balanced continuum of low–high EVC activities (dashed curve). Even though many activities might be available to them, none is worth investing a lot of effort, nurturing their impression that life as a whole is boring. Temporarily, such a distribution with primarily low EVC might arise in situations with strong contextual constraints as well, such as academic or vocational settings that limit the set of available activities. From this perspective, it is interesting that boredom in these situations seems to be similarly associated with a plethora of undesired outcomes as trait boredom (e.g., low effort, little self-control, poor performance; see Chapters 15–16).

and escape boredom display only weak correlations with measures of boredom proneness as well as little latent overlap, suggesting the presence of two distinct concepts. Unlike boredom proneness, the urge to avoid and escape boredom is not linked to self-control but is associated with both more adaptive and more maladaptive behaviors alike, attesting to its impartiality in terms of adaptiveness.

Advancing self-control research: boredom as a potential confound The tight link between boredom and self-control has important implications for designing experiments that investigate situational fluctuations in self-control. These experiments commonly rely on a sequential two-task paradigm (e.g., Hagger et al., 2010), in which the initial 139

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task is designed to require either little self-control (e.g., transcribing a text without special rules; low-demand condition) or much self-control (e.g., transcribing a text while omitting certain letters; high-demand condition). The question then is whether these differences in self-control demands affect the performance in a subsequent self-control–demanding task. According to the strength model of self-control, for instance, self-control resources should be depleted more strongly in the high-demand condition than in the low-demand condition, which is expected to impair performance in the second task (Baumeister et al., 1998). The adequateness of the sequential two-task paradigm for investigating fluctuations in selfcontrol critically depends on the assumption that the low- and high-demand conditions actually differ in terms of their self-control demands. However, this assumption has been contested by arguing that the lack of challenge in the low-demand condition might induce boredom (Milyavskaya et  al., 2019; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). Indeed, it has been shown that commonly used self-control tasks can induce boredom (Hunte et al., 2022; Mangin et al., 2021), unless these tasks are sufficiently challenging (Bieleke et al., 2021a), with downstream effects on performance in subsequent tasks (Bieleke et al., 2021a; Lott, 2023). In line with our previous arguments, the experience of boredom constitutes a self-control demand because it renders the current activity less worthwhile and more costly. This should attenuate the intended differences between low- and high-demand conditions in terms of self-control, which could explain the inconsistencies in the literature on ego depletion effects (Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). In line with this reasoning, an ego depletion effect has been found in experiments only after boredom had been eliminated successfully in the low-demand condition (Mangin et al., 2021). To complicate matters even further, boredom might also arise in self-control–demanding tasks (Bieleke et al., 2021a). This might reflect overchallenge when the task demands exceed an individual’s abilities, or a decrease in difficulty due to learning (Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). Taken together, this suggests that boredom might be an important confounding factor in self-control research. This conclusion is in line with predictions derived from existing models of self-control. For example, the schema model of self-control (Bertrams, 2020) introduced at the outset of the chapter assumes that self-control depends on the automatic activation of the cognitive concept of fatigue and its motivational consequences. From this perspective, boredom may contribute to the fragility of self-control from the points in the model at which various variables moderate the process from initial effortful self-control exertion to subsequent reductions in self-control performance (i.e., ego depletion), which is mediated via the activation of the fatigue/decreased vitality schema. For instance, as studies have found, boring tasks cause significant fatigue (Milyavskaya et al., 2019), and consequently, the subjective state experiences of boredom and fatigue are substantially associated (Dora et al., 2021). Thus, boredom may be considered to instigate or amplify the activation of the fatigue/decreased vitality schema. In this way, boredom may lead to or intensify the reduction of effort investment for self-control, which is in line with the findings of Bieleke et al. (2021a). Whether such causal relationships to explain the ego depletion phenomenon actually exist is still an open question. However, these considerations illustrate that self-control research must take boredom as a potential confound into account.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have highlighted why the apparent fragility of self-control is a required feature that makes self-control an effective mechanism for behavior regulation. For such a mechanism to be truly adaptive, it needs to flexibly integrate information about ever changing internal (e.g., “I am bored”) and external (e.g., “The task I plan to do seems quite monotonous”) states, 140

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and use this information to allocate control optimally towards certain goals. One fundamental source of information that aids the flexible adjustment of the currently optimal control signal is boredom. Boredom signals that one is not putting one’s resources to optimal use and should rather do something else (see Chapter 2). By providing information about diminishing value, incurring additional costs, and instigating undirected exploration, boredom directly alters the control signal that is currently deemed optimal. Indeed, an emerging body of research confirms the intricate relationship between boredom and self-control as momentary state and generalizable traits. By integrating the functionality of boredom into an established theory of self-control, we provide a parsimonious framework for understanding and investigating how boredom—as a state and a trait—can alter self-controlled behavior. Importantly, a better understanding of how boredom affects behavior is dearly needed, and not only in the field of self-control research: Recent work outside the self-control context shows that participants get bored during tasks that are frequently used in behavioral science research (Jangraw et al., 2023), and they even report that boredom alters their behavior in such tasks (Meier et al., 2023).

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10 MIND-WANDERING AS AN EXPLORATORY RESPONSE TO BOREDOM Corinna S. Martarelli and Ambroise Baillifard

Introduction Imagine feeling bored when reading a book on a long-distance train ride. The landscape outside the window might catch your eyes. Your mind might begin to wander spontaneously, such as by moving freely from one unrelated topic to another. Suddenly, you become aware of your mind wandering and want to get back to the book. However, you feel bored and can no longer manage to involve yourself with the book. In search for something more rewarding, you look outside the window, and you might deliberately engage in a parallel train of thought, such as planning your weekend. In this case, your boredom might disappear for a while. Most of us are familiar with this link between boredom and mind-wandering, which has been the subject of debate and empirical investigation in psychological research and related fields. Is mind-wandering triggered by the experience of boredom, or vice versa? What are the antecedents of boredom? One’s own thoughts? The situation (i.e., the book or the train ride)? How does boredom relate to personal intentions? What are the consequences of boredom? Despite our familiarity with these concepts, there is only scarce empirical research that directly tests and theorizes the link between boredom and mind-wandering. In the first part of this chapter, we will introduce these constructs and review the literature that investigates them. In the second part, based on the reviewed literature, we propose a working model of mindwandering as a possible response to boredom. Boredom triggers exploratory behavior, and we propose that mind-wandering is an exploratory response to boredom when a change in activity is not possible or not desirable. Our proposed model calls for future research on this overlooked link between boredom and mind-wandering.

Boredom and mind-wandering share some (but not all) features Although in the beginning phases of research on mind-wandering, the role of boredom was taken into account (see Singer & Antrobus, 1963, 1966), there has been a surprisingly low number of studies jointly investigating both constructs. In their seminal work on mind-wandering, Singer and Antrobus (1966) developed the Imaginal Processing Inventory (IPI), an exhaustive questionnaire of 344 items that comprises 28 subscales measuring the various aspects of the phenomenon, such as absorption in daydreaming or the acceptance of daydreaming, but also DOI: 10.4324/9781003271536-12

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boredom susceptibility or the need for external stimulation. Based on the results of factor analyses in several studies, the authors reduced the questionnaire to its short form (Short Imaginal Processing Inventory, or SIPI; Huba et al., 1982). This 45-item questionnaire comprises three subscales: positive-constructive daydreaming, guilty-dysphoric daydreaming, and poor attentional control. Whereas the first subscale reflects vivid daydreams oriented toward the future and problem solving (as well as a general acceptance of daydreaming), the second and third factors have a more negative valence. Interestingly, the poor attentional control factor is characterized by a general tendency to boredom and distraction associated with spontaneous thought. This seminal work suggests different routes between boredom and mind-wandering (especially between boredom and deliberate mind-wandering and boredom and spontaneous mind-wandering, respectively). Despite this early evidence—and the intuitive evidence of a link between boredom and mindwandering—research investigating these constructs concurrently is still in its beginning stages. A search in the Scopus database (restricted to the title, abstract, and keywords) performed in March 2022 with the terms “boredom” and “mind-wandering” found 27 entries when compared to the around 6,000 entries when searching for the term “boredom” alone, and around 1,500 entries returned when searching for the term “mind-wandering” alone. Before reviewing the literature that investigates both constructs concurrently, we provide a short description of theories of boredom and mind-wandering, as well as the phenomenology of these constructs, with the aim of highlighting the similarities and differences between the two constructs.

Boredom Boredom has been described as the desire to want to engage in an activity, but being unable to engage in any activity (Eastwood et al., 2012). Boredom occurs when the task at hand does not match one’s individual abilities (Danckert & Merrifield, 2018; Eastwood et al., 2012) and/or is meaningless (Moynihan et al., 2020; van Tilburg et al., 2013; van Tilburg & Igou, 2012). Boredom is a disengagement-related process, and its function is to signal that attentional resources should be invested elsewhere (Bench & Lench, 2013; Elpidorou, 2018). Whereas in the past, little function had been ascribed to boredom, current models highlight and build upon the role of boredom in goal-directed behavior. We refer the interested reader to Chapter 2 and Chapters 4–7 in this book devoted to theoretical approaches to boredom. Goal-directed behavior has been investigated in the explore–exploit dilemma (Cohen et al., 2007; Gittins, 1979), in which individuals have to decide whether to exploit a situation (e.g., pursue a research project) or explore other situations (e.g., initiate new collaborations) that might be more rewarding. Currently, there has been increased interest in the explore–exploit dilemma linking boredom with exploration (Agrawal et  al., 2021; Bench & Lench, 2013; Bieleke & Wolff, 2021; Gomez-Ramirez & Costa, 2017; Kurzban et al., 2013; Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). In functional theories of boredom, the function of boredom is to disengage individuals from the task at hand to explore alternative options; in other words, the experience of boredom calls for exploration. Thus, boredom has been conceptualized as a self-regulatory mechanism that helps one to find a balance between exploitation and exploration (Danckert, 2019). However, if the signal of boredom is not taken into account by changing the activity or re-engaging attention in the ongoing task, one might get trapped in the experience of boredom, which is an aversive emotional state (Martarelli et al., 2021b) that is distinctive from other emotional states, such as apathy, frustration, anhedonia, or depression (Goldberg et al., 2011; van Tilburg & Igou, 2017).

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The experience of boredom is further characterized by a lack of control (Mugon et  al., 2018), which is reflected in the strong negative relationship between boredom proneness and trait self-control (Wolff et  al., 2020). Mirroring the negative relationship between the two constructs, self-control is associated with a plethora of positive outcomes—it is essential in goal achievement (Inzlicht et al., 2021)—whereas boredom has a negative connotation (e.g., Spaeth et al., 2015). This dark side of boredom partially shadows its adaptive function, which leads us to seek new opportunities for more rewarding activities, ideas, and knowledge. Despite the value of exploitation and engagement, people do not always apply self-control to remain engaged with the task at hand (Wiesner et al., 2021), and current models based on the costs and benefits of goal-directed behavior (Kurzban et al., 2013) have highlighted the functional role of boredom, which is to trigger exploration behavior (Wolff & Martarelli, 2020). For further theorizing on the link between boredom and self-control we refer the interested reader to Chapter 9. Notable recent exceptions notwithstanding (Tam et al., 2021; see also Elpidorou, 2021), theoretical accounts of boredom focus on boredom as a signal to redirect attention in the external world. However, boredom not only triggers attention to shift outward towards alternative activities but also inwards towards alternative thoughts. In their boredom feedback model, Tam et al. (2021) highlighted three routes the effect of boredom can take: attention shifts out, attention shifts in, or attention shifts back to the task at hand to re-establish task engagement. In this model, internal shifts of attention, such as mind-wandering, are also accounted for. The conceptualization of this internal route is a theoretical example of how mind-wandering can be identified as a strategy for coping with boredom (Harris, 2000; Kane et al., 2007). Another innovative dimension of Tam et al.’s (2021) model is the distinction between cognitive resources and the intention to deploy them. The authors suggest that rather than pure attention, it is the intention (desire) to attend that has to be taken into account. The attentional component refers to the congruence between the demands of the task and the individual’s attentional resources (Eastwood et al., 2012; Westgate & Wilson, 2018), whereas the intention to attend refers to the willingness to engage in an internal or external activity (Crane, 1998). For example, if a student’s mind wanders spontaneously during a lecture and they have no intention to attend to the class (i.e., congruence between the level of attention and the intended attention), then no boredom will occur. However, if the student would like to attend to the class, boredom might occur (along other sensations, such as frustration, for example). To summarize, in Tam et al.’s (2021) model, boredom is conceived as a result of the discrepancy between actual and desired levels of engagement.

Mind-wandering The study of mind-wandering corresponds to the emergence of cognitive psychology in the 1960s (see, e.g., Singer & Antrobus, 1966, mentioned previously). In this respect, Singer and Antrobus’s (1966) seminal work focused on the phenomenological properties of mind-wandering; however, it was only later, beginning in the 2000s, that research about mind-wandering increased rapidly. During this second wave of mind-wandering study, researchers started to triangulate methods, concurrently using self-report, behavioral, and neurological measures (Hawkins et  al., 2019) and thus promoting a rapid advancement of the field. During this period, researchers focused on investigating the neural underpinnings of mind-wandering (e.g., Mason et al., 2007; Smith et al., 2009). It is also during this period that the default mode network (a network comprising the prefrontal regions, cingulate cortex, and hippocampal areas,

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among others) was revealed (Raichle et al., 2001), which is active when individuals are at rest and engaging in mind-wandering. Various definitions of mind-wandering have been proposed, with the terms of taskunrelated thought (Giambra, 1995), stimulus-unrelated thought (Antrobus, 1968; Teasdale et al., 1995), and spontaneous thought (Christoff et al., 2016) being used most frequently. Indeed, during mind-wandering episodes, attention is directed to self-generated thoughts and drifts away from the external environment (for a review, see Smallwood & Schooler, 2015). Other terms that have been used apart from mind-wandering (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006) are daydreaming (Klinger & Cox, 1987) and self-generated thought (Smallwood & Andrews-Hanna, 2013), to name just a few. While several definitions have been discussed within the field of mind-wandering research, the authors do not always agree (for recent debates, see Christoff et al., 2018; Seli et al., 2018). Classical definitions of mind-wandering draw upon an uncontrolled shift of attention away from an ongoing task. However, individuals can let their minds wander deliberately during an ongoing task. To understand this distinction, Christoff et  al. (2016) have thus proposed that there are two constraints on thought: automatic constraints and deliberate constraints. Whereas automatic constraints operate outside of cognitive control (e.g., sensory or affective salience), cognitive control implements deliberate constraints. The authors define mind-wandering as a form of thought with a range from low to medium automatic and deliberate constraints, thus accounting for several nuances in the intentionality of mind-wandering. Findings of various studies have revealed that mind-wandering is pervasive (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010), essentially future-oriented (Smallwood et al., 2009; Stawarczyk et al., 2011), problem-solving–oriented (Leszczynski et  al., 2017), and influenced by personal goals (Stawarczyk et al., 2013). Another important phenomenological dimension that has attracted much attention in recent years is the intentionality of mind-wandering, with researchers taking account of whether individuals spontaneously shift attention to task-unrelated thought or whether they engage purposefully in other thoughts (Golchert et  al., 2017; Seli et  al., 2015a; Seli et  al., 2016). The distinction between deliberate and spontaneous mind-wandering was introduced in the seminal work of Giambra (1995). In several low-control tasks, he observed that deliberate mind-wandering occurred more frequently than spontaneous mind-wandering. However, the higher frequency of deliberate mind-wandering might be explained by the ease of the tasks. Current work suggests instead that mind-wandering occurrences vary during a primary task as a function of individual cognitive resources, the demands of the task, and the intention to attend to the task (McVay & Kane, 2009; Rummel & Boywitt, 2014). Finally, mind-wandering appears to be a mixture of spontaneous and deliberate thoughts (Kane et al., 2007). In light of these observations, several theories of mind-wandering have been proposed (for a review, see Smallwood & Schooler, 2015). For example, the attentional decoupling hypothesis distinguishes between disengaged processes, when attention is decoupled from perception and directed toward inner worlds (i.e., mind-wandering), and engaged processes, when attention is directed toward the external world (Schooler et al., 2011). If this perceptual decoupling of attention occurs during an activity, it generally leads to a worsened performance on the task at hand (Smallwood et  al., 2008). There is a large body of evidence indicating that mind-wandering impairs current activities, such as those performed in academic contexts (Wammes et al., 2016) or while reading (Schad et al., 2012). Next to attentional theories, models that also take into account motivational aspects have been developed. The executive Control Failure X Concerns model of McVay and Kane (2010) integrates the restless mind of Smallwood and Schooler (2006) with the idea of current concerns,

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thus taking into account that the mind frequently wanders to personal concerns (see also Engert et al., 2014). Interestingly, Mooneyham and Schooler (2013) mention relief from boredom as a possible function of mind-wandering. They suggest that, when bored with the task at hand, an option is to explore inner worlds. The function of mind-wandering would thus include self-regulation (relief from boredom when executing a necessary task, e.g., hanging laundry, waiting), and making subjective time pass faster; what this means is that mind-wandering might accelerate the perception of time during boring tasks. While time seems to pass slowly when one is bored (Witowska et al., 2020), time seems to speed up during episodes of mind-wandering (Mooneyham & Schooler, 2013). Finally, researchers have highlighted the benefits of mind-wandering not only in terms of mood regulation, but also because it facilitates creativity (Agnoli et al., 2018; Baird et al., 2012; Zedelius & Schooler, 2016) and mental exploration (Irving, 2016; Sripada, 2018). In this vein, Sripada (2018) proposed a model of mind-wandering in terms of exploration, as opposed to goal-directed thinking (exploitation). In Sripada’s view, the explore–exploit dilemma also occurs at a mental level, with individuals mind-wandering to learn and discover new paths, and then thinking intentionally about what they have discovered in order to maximize reward. In this approach, mind-wandering is considered to occur spontaneously, and with ease; in other words, thoughts come to mind with low effort and low control, and they are free to flow (Fox & Christoff, 2018).

Boredom and mind-wandering In the previous subsections, we briefly summarized the various features of boredom and mindwandering, as well as theories of both constructs. Based on this literature, the overlap between the constructs is striking; however, it has become clear that the constructs do not share all properties and correlates. Table 10.1 highlights the similarities and differences between boredom and mind-wandering in terms of attention, meaning, control, arousal, valence, effort, perception of time, correlates, costs, benefits, and neural underpinnings. In considering the intuitive link between boredom and mind-wandering, it is not surprising that the similarities outnumber the differences; however, differences do still exist (see italicized text in Table 10.1). While there is agreement that boredom is a rather negative experience (van Tilburg & Igou, 2017), the experience of mind-wandering can be a positive one (Smallwood & AndrewsHanna, 2013). However, there is a bulk of empirical evidence showing a negative impact of both boredom and mind-wandering in different domains—when individuals are not engaged in a primary task (Pekrun et al., 2010; Wammes et al., 2016). Activation of the default mode network has been revealed across many studies, particularly in mind-wandering research (e.g., Mason et  al., 2007) but also in the literature on boredom (Danckert & Merrifield, 2018). There is also evidence of the benefits of boredom and mind-wandering, especially when it comes to creativity (Baird et al., 2012; Harris, 2000). However, these results are by far less numerous when compared to the research highlighting the negative consequences of boredom and mind-wandering. Furthermore, there has not been much unanimity among researchers in whether there is a link between creativity and boredom or mind-wandering (see replication failures and inconsistent results, especially as concerns the mind-wandering–creativity relationship, e.g., Murray et al., 2021).1 Some of the differences between the constructs seem to suggest that mind-wandering is a possible response to boredom (e.g., time passes slowly during the experience of boredom, and time flies during mind-wandering episodes; there is a lack of meaning during the experience of

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Corinna S. Martarelli and Ambroise Baillifard Table 10.1  Aspects of boredom and mind-wandering Boredom

Mind-wandering

Attention

Difficult to engage with the outer and Difficult to engage with the outer world inner world (Eastwood et al., 2012) (Smallwood et al., 2008) Meaning Lack of meaning (van Tilburg et al., Lack of meaning (Seli et al., 2015b; but, 2013) see finding meaning in Smallwood & Schooler, 2015) Control Lack of control (Mugon et al., 2018; Lack of control (McVay & Kane, 2009; Pekrun, 2006) but see deliberate mind-wandering in Seli et al., 2016) Arousal Low, high, and mixed arousal Low arousal (Unsworth & Robison, (Danckert et al., 2018) 2018) Valence Aversive state (van Tilburg & Igou, Aversive (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2017) 2010), mixed, or positive state (Stawarczyk et al., 2013) Effort High effort (Bieleke et al., 2021) Low effort (Christoff et al., 2016) Perception of time Time passes slowly (Witowska et al., Time passes quicky (Mooneyham & 2020) Schooler, 2013) Correlates For example, procrastination, For example, procrastination, rumination, and depression (e.g., Li rumination, and depression et al., 2021; Todman, 2003) (Smallwood et al., 2007b) Costs Worse performance in cognition (e.g., Worse performance in perception (Kam et al., 2011), cognition (e.g., memory; Blondé et al., 2021), daily memory; Garlitch & Wahlheim, 2020; life (e.g., education; Pekrun et al., Martarelli & Ovalle-Fresa, 2024), daily 2010), substance abuse (Weybright life (e.g., education; Smallwood et al., et al., 2015), problematic Facebook use (Donati et al., 2022), and 2007a; Wammes et al., 2016), and driving (Steinberger et al., 2017) medicine (Smallwood et al., 2011) Creativity (Baird et al., 2012; Gable Benefits Creativity (Harris, 2000), prosocial et al., 2019), autobiographical behavior (van Tilburg & Igou, planning (Baird et al., 2011), 2017), curiosity (Martarelli et al., prospective memory (Mason & 2022a), and exploration (Geana Reinholtz, 2015), and regulation of et al., 2016) emotions (Ruby et al., 2013) Neural underpinnings Default mode network (Danckert & Default mode network (Mason et al., Merrifield, 2018) 2007) Notes: References are not meant to be exhaustive, but illustrative. Italics highlight the differences between boredom and mind-wandering.

boredom, while meaning can be found during mind-wandering and mind-wandering can be used to regulate mood; boredom is linked to the sensation of effort, while the mind wanders with ease). When it comes to similarities, attention failures2 characterize both boredom (Danckert & Merrifield, 2018; Hunter & Eastwood, 2018; Merrifield & Danckert, 2014) and mindwandering (Cheyne et al., 2009; Christoff, 2012; Mrazek et al., 2012). However, it remains unclear whether failure in attention gives rise to boredom, or vice versa. Whether it is boredom that triggers mind-wandering, or the other way around, is an open issue. In the next few paragraphs, we review the literature that investigates both constructs concurrently. Previous research investigating whether a lack of attention is a cause or a consequence of mind-wandering has come to mixed conclusions. For example, Hunter and Eastwood (2018) 150

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used a classical sustained attention to response task (SART; Robertson et al., 1997), in which participants are presented with single digits ranging from 1–9 and are asked to press the space bar each time they see a digit, but to withhold the press when seeing a specific digit (e.g., the digit 9). The authors found that attentional errors were associated with levels of boredom reported before and after completing the different blocks of the task. Despite being unable to satisfactorily manipulate boredom, they carried out an explorative analysis, suggesting that attention failures may cause boredom rather than the other way around. This is an interesting finding because it suggests that not only does boredom trigger mind-wandering, but also that mind-wandering itself can be boring. This finding is consistent with other studies that found a positive association between boredom and mind-wandering, assessed with self-reported thought probes during ongoing tasks (e.g., Blondé et al., 2021; Danckert et al., 2018). In one study, Vannucci et al. (2017) investigated the impact of verbal cues on the frequency and temporal focus of mind-wandering episodes. Participants also had to rate how concentrated they were, as well as their levels of boredom, after executing a vigilance task. The researchers found higher levels of boredom reported in the condition without cues when compared to the condition with cues; however, the levels of concentration were not affected. These findings suggest that the relationship between boredom and mind-wandering might not always be linear, but rather more complex and dependent on the situation. To our knowledge, research investigating state boredom and mind-wandering has not assessed both spontaneous and deliberate mind-wandering but has been limited to classical definitions of mind-wandering. However, studies investigating the link between boredom and mind-wandering on a trait level have relied on the spontaneous/deliberate distinction. For example, Isacescu et al. (2017) found that boredom-prone individuals also scored higher on the spontaneous and deliberate mind-wandering scales (Carriere et  al., 2013). Importantly, they found a significant difference between the correlations: The association between boredom and spontaneous mind-wandering was stronger than the association between boredom and deliberate mind-wandering. This differential association was replicated in a recent study by our group (Martarelli et al., 2021a). Using a network analysis approach, we showed that the three constructs reflect distinct dimensions, with stronger positive associations between boredom and spontaneous mind-wandering than between boredom and deliberate mind-wandering. These results make sense, given that both boredom and mind-wandering (especially spontaneous mind-wandering) are characterized by reduced agency in one’s behavior (Raffaelli et al., 2018) and low cognitive control in one’s thought (Christoff et al., 2016). Furthermore, these results seem to suggest that deliberate mind-wandering, reflecting engagement with one’s own thoughts, might be a good candidate for counteracting the experience of boredom. To the extent that this research considers trait variables, it remains open whether, on a state level, mind-wandering might work as a route out of the experience of boredom.

Mind-wandering as a possible response to boredom Based on the distinction between spontaneous and deliberate mind-wandering (Carriere et al., 2013; Seli et al., 2016), it seems that not all types of mind-wandering are equally associated with boredom. A plausible explanation is that spontaneous mind-wandering happens with ease (demanding relatively low cognitive control). The experience of boredom can arise in situations when an individual has low control because of internal or external constraints. Indeed, lack of control has been proposed as a key factor in the experience of boredom (e.g., Pekrun et al., 2010). Continuing to be engaged with a boring task, is self-control–demanding by itself; thus, it makes sense that there may be stronger associations between boredom and spontaneous 151

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rather than deliberate mind-wandering, given that spontaneous mind-wandering is less control demanding than its deliberate counterpart. In line with Tam et  al. (2021), we propose that beyond control, the key component of the experience of boredom is personal acceptance, or the congruence between an individual’s current cognitive control and their intended control. The experience of mind-wandering is qualitatively different if one is in a situation with plenty of time (e.g., while riding a train) and enjoys the spontaneous moving of the mind or even gives direction to the wandering mind compared to a situation where one has to finish a monotonous task, and the thoughts drift away spontaneously, thus hindering the correct execution of the task. In the first scenario, exploring inner worlds will reduce/eliminate the experience of boredom, whereas in the second scenario, the person will struggle with the experience of boredom and the related effort to maintain and return attention to the task at hand. In this latter situation, boredom might cause a lack of attention, and the lack of attention might increase the experience of boredom in its turn.

Boredom and different types of thought The mixed findings reviewed in the previous subsections suggest that the relationship between boredom and mind-wandering is complex and bi-directional. In Figure 10.1, we illustrate the proposed link between boredom and mind-wandering. On the x-axis, we depict the current levels of cognitive control of the thoughts, ranging from low to high (see Christoff et al., 2016). For example, rumination is uncontrolled, whereas reflection is controlled thought. The different types of thought reported here are not meant to be exhaustive, but illustrative. Other types of thought that vary in the level of control, such as hallucinations, visual memories, fantasies, diffuse thinking, goal-directed thinking, or selfreflection, are not depicted in the graph. On the y-axis, we depict the intended level of cognitive control of thoughts. In line with the boredom feedback model of Tam et al. (2021), we propose that the experience of boredom

High

Experience of boredom Frustration, apathy, fatigue

Reflection

Intended control

Creative thought

Deliberate mind-wandering

Low

Spontaneous mind-wandering

Frustration, apathy, fatigue

Rumination Low

Experience of boredom

Control

Figure 10.1  Boredom and different types of thought.

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results from a discrepancy between the actual level of control and the desired one. The diagonal line represents a correspondence between actual and intended levels of control—thus, no boredom is experienced. We represent this line with mountains, to highlight the fact that it is not a place where we rest endlessly. Sooner or later, we can make the experience of boredom (in the areas outside of the mountains line). Indeed, as soon as there is a discrepancy between actual and intended levels of control, boredom can occur and the experienced type of thought is no longer perceived as satisfactory. If the mind wanders spontaneously when faced with a given primary task, and this actual level of control corresponds to the intended level of control, then no boredom is experienced (i.e., the diagonal of the figure). However, if the intended level of control becomes higher, then the experience of boredom may arise. We suggest that depending on the intended level of control, spontaneous mind-wandering can be a relief from boredom (when there is no wish to be more in control) or a reinforcer of boredom (when there is a wish to be more in control). Discrepancies give rise to boredom, and the experience of boredom can reinforce this discrepancy. In the case of rumination—a dysfunctional form of spontaneous thought (Christoff et al., 2016)—desiring to control the thoughts but not being able to do so might elicit several negative states, including e.g., boredom and feelings of depression, thus leading to a negative cycle that might be difficult to interrupt (see upper left part of the figure). Another example for the upper left part of the figure is wanting, for example, to reflect on a complicated matter when faced with a given primary task but being unable to invest the intended level of control. This situation might elicit boredom accompanied by the sensation of fatigue. On the other side of the spectrum (see lower right part of the figure), we have underchallenging situations that might lead to the experience of boredom. Boredom might be accompanied by other sensations and emotions, depending on the individual and the situation (which are mutually dependent upon each other, i.e., person-situation interaction, Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Mind-wandering (especially spontaneous mind-wandering) happens with ease; thus, a possible (and we argue the most probable) response to boredom during a primary task when no satisfactory behavioral alternatives are available is mind-wandering. Indeed, mind-wandering can be understood as an explorative response to the signal of boredom. Thoughts change in their levels of control (balance between uncontrolled and controlled thoughts) and mix (there are no distinct boundaries), in line with current theorizing which suggests that controlled and uncontrolled thoughts can co-occur; goal-directed thinking on a meta-analytic stance has, for example, been shown to guide spontaneous mind-wandering (Fox & Christoff, 2014). Engaging with spontaneous mind-wandering is effortless (Christoff et al., 2016), and being engaged with something reduces boredom by definition. Boredom might work as an exploratory mechanism that pushes the individual into new thoughts (and possible future activities). The arrows in the figure signal that spontaneous and deliberate mind-wandering wax, wane, and combine in order to respond to the trigger of boredom. Further, depending on the congruence between the actual and intended levels of control, the experience of mind-wandering can be satisfactory. Variables not represented in the figure but worth considering are those related to the primary task (e.g., individual automaticity in a primary task, characteristics of the task [e.g., in terms of value], individual experience with the task, etc.).

Mind-wandering as an exploratory response to boredom We tested this hypothesis in unpublished data of our lab (Martarelli et al., 2022b). In this virtual reality study, 66 participants visited a virtual waiting room nine times (four minutes each visit) and were asked about their waiting experience after each visit. Among other variables, we asked the participants about their experience of boredom and of spontaneous and deliberate 153

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mind-wandering. Here we report two mixed model analyses, with boredom and timepoint (nine visits), as well as the interaction boredom by timepoint as fixed effects and by-participant random intercept. The dependent variable was mind-wandering (spontaneous and deliberate mind-wandering). The results revealed a significant main effect of boredom; the more participants made the experience of boredom the higher was mind-wandering (b = 0.213, Se = 0.101, 95% CIs [0.015, 0.412], p = .036 with spontaneous mind-wandering as dependent variable, and b = 0.287, Se = 0.102, 95% CIs [0.087, 0.487], p = .005 with deliberate mind-wandering as dependent variable). The results also revealed a significant main effect of timepoint; the later the timepoint the higher was mind-wandering (b = 0.239, Se = 0.045, 95% CIs [0.152, 0.327], p