Exploring the relationship between boredom proneness and self-control in traumatic brain injury (TBI)

Trait Boredom as a Lack of Agency: A Theoretical Model and a New Assessment Tool

Trait boredom plays a significant role in well-being. However, this construct suffers from conceptual ambiguity and measurement problems. The aim of this study was to propose a comprehensive theory and a strong assessment tool to address these limitations. We defined trait boredom as the frequent experience of state boredom resulting from a chronic lack of agency. We developed a six-item self-report scale of the tendency to often experience boredom. Results confirmed a uni-dimensional scale with strong psychometric properties, including adequate internal consistency (ω = .84-.93), interindividual stability (69.04% of variance accounted by a trait factor), and acceptable model fit (CFI = .977-.998, TLI = .962-.997, RMSEA = .025-.090, SRMR = .014-.029). Results confirmed the validity of the scale by showing its associations with related measures. Our findings provide clarity on trait boredom and a strong, new measure to be used in future work.

Modeling fashion as an emergent collective behavior of bored individuals

Boredom is an aversive mental state that is typically evoked by monotony and drives individuals to seek novel information. Despite this effect on individual behavior, the consequences of boredom for collective behavior remain elusive. Here, we introduce an agent-based model of collective fashion behavior in which simplified agents interact randomly and repeatedly choose alternatives from a circular space of color variants. Agents are endowed with a memory of past experiences and a boredom parameter, promoting avoidance of monotony. Simulating collective color trends with this model captures aspects of real trends observed in fashion magazines. We manipulate the two parameters and observe that the boredom parameter is essential for perpetuating fashion dynamics in our model. Furthermore, highly bored agents lead future population trends, when acting coherently or being highly popular. Taken together, our study illustrates that highly bored individuals can guide collective dynamics of a population to continuously explore different variants of behavior.

Examining the Association Between Boredom Proneness and Bedtime Procrastination Among Chinese College Students: A Sequential Mediation Model with Mobile Phone Addiction and Negative Emotions

Purpose

The phenomenon of bedtime procrastination has become very common in China in recent years, especially among college students, and it can have numerous negative implications for both physical and mental health. However, the impacting factors and possible underlying mechanisms of bedtime procrastination have not yet been fully clarified. The present study aims to explore the relationship between boredom proneness and bedtime procrastination in Chinese college students, and propose a multiple mediation model to further explore the mediating effects of mobile phone addiction and negative emotions in this link.

Participants and Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted involving 668 Chinese college students aged 18 to 32 years old (M=20.36 years [SD=1.69]; 35.03% male). A series of self-rating questionnaires measuring degrees of boredom proneness, mobile phone addiction, bedtime procrastination, as well as negative emotions (depression, anxiety and stress) were administered.

Results

The results showed that boredom proneness, mobile phone addiction, negative emotions and bedtime procrastination were significantly and positively correlated with each other in college students. Mobile phone addiction and negative emotions separately played partial mediating roles in the relationship between boredom proneness and bedtime procrastination. Furthermore, a sequential mediation pathway was significant whereby boredom proneness predicted mobile phone addiction, which was associated with higher levels of negative emotions, which were then associated with more bedtime procrastination behaviors.

Conclusion

The present findings indicate that both mobile phone addiction and negative emotions are important risk-enhancing mediators in the association between boredom proneness and bedtime procrastination in Chinese college students. Therefore, intervention management that concentrating on reducing mobile phone addiction as well as improving negative emotions may be useful for decreasing bedtime procrastination among college students.

In search of boredom: beyond a functional account

Boredom has been characterized as a crisis of meaning, a failure of attention, and a call to action. Yet as a self-regulatory signal writ-large, we are still left with the question of what makes any given boredom episode meaningless, disengaging, or a prompt to act. We propose that boredom is an affective signal that we have deviated from an optimal ('Goldilocks') zone of cognitive engagement. Such deviations may be due to a perceived lack of meaning, arise as a consequence of struggles we are experiencing in attending to a task, or be interpreted as a blunt call to find something different to engage with. Thus, the key to understanding boredom lies in its role in keeping us cognitively engaged.

The hot and the cold in destructive leadership: Modeling the role of arousal in explaining leader antecedents and follower consequences of abusive supervision versus exploitative leadership

Due to its devastating consequences, research needs to theoretically and empirically disentangle different sub-types of destructive leadership. Based on concepts derived from aggression research distinguishing re- and proactive aggression, we provide a process model differentiating abusive supervision and exploitative leadership. High versus low arousal negative affect is installed as the central mediating factor determining (1) whether perceived goal-blockage (leadership antecedents) leads to abusive supervision versus exploitative leadership and (2) whether a specific leadership behavior leads to active versus passive follower behavior (leadership consequence). Further, theoretical anchoring of individual and contextual moderators onto the model's process paths is provided and exemplary hypotheses for concrete moderation effects are deduced. Based on the provided process model, we highlight four recommendations to facilitate process-based construct differentiation in future research on destructive leadership. To precisely understand the differences and commonalities in different forms of destructive leadership will ultimately enable custom-tailored inter- and prevention.

Plain Language Summary

Negative leadership—also named “destructive” leadership—has very bad effects on followers and organizations. There are not just one, but many forms of destructive leadership and it is important to understand where different sub-types come from (i.e., to understand their antecedents) and which specific effect they have (i.e., to understand their consequences). In this paper, we focus on better understanding two forms of destructive leadership, namely abusive supervision and exploitative leadership. These two forms are similar to the two main forms of aggression. Abusive supervision is similar to reactive aggression, an impulsive “hot blooded” form of aggression. Exploitative leadership is similar to proactive aggression, a premeditated “cold blooded” form of aggression. We explain the parallels between the two forms of aggression and the two forms of leadership and provide a model which allows to predict when one versus the other form of leadership occurs and to which follower behavior they lead. An important factor in this model is the physiological characteristic of the emotional reaction to an event (i.e., arousal). An emotional reaction can be high in arousal; for instance, anger is a high arousal negative emotional reaction. On the contrary, boredom, for instance, is a low arousal negative emotional reaction. Dependent on whether both a leader and a follower react to a negative event (e.g., not getting what they want, being treated badly by others) with high or low arousal, their behavior will be different. We explain how this mechanism works and how it can help us to better predict leaders' and followers' behavior. We also outline how individual characteristics of the leader and follower and characteristics of their environment and context interact with arousal and their behavior.

The effect of mind wandering on cognitive flexibility is mediated by boredom

Cognitive theory of boredom presumes that boredom, an important potential indicator for self-dysregulation, represents to be the result of attention failure. And lapses of attention have been shown to act as a key signal in mind wandering (especially spontaneous mind wandering), which has been found to be positively associated with boredom. If both mind wandering and boredom concurrently occupy individuals' on-task processing resources, it would definitely influence their cognitive flexibility, which is an essential component for self-regulation. Until now, however, there has been little discussion about mind wandering, boredom, and cognitive flexibility at the same time. The present study investigated the hypothesis that boredom can mediate the effect of mind wandering on cognitive flexibility at trait-level by adopting a cross-sectional exploratory study design and anonymous structured questionnaires in three studies (N = 449,182 and 190 for Studies 1, 2 and 3, respectively). Correlation analysis demonstrated that mind wandering (especially spontaneous mind wandering) was positively related to boredom, and that cognitive flexibility was negatively related to mind wandering and boredom, respectively. Mediation analysis revealed an indirect effect of mind wandering (especially spontaneous mind wandering) on cognitive flexibility through boredom. In conclusion, these findings are useful to build a theoretical framework for future clinical practice. An implication of these findings is the possibility that efficacious strategies targeting at reducing boredom are needed to decrease the detriment effect of spontaneous mind wandering on cognitive flexibility.

Boredom Proneness and Rule-Breaking: A Persistent Relation One Year into the COVID-19 Pandemic

Research conducted within the first year of the pandemic demonstrated that boredom prone individuals were more likely to break rules (e.g., social distancing) aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19. It is of interest whether this relation persisted deeper into the pandemic, given that initial results may have reflected the extraordinary nature of the early stages of the pandemic on one hand, or more stable dispositions on the other. Therefore, in the Summer of 2021, we administered an online survey to investigate whether boredom proneness predicted COVID-19 rule-breaking over one year into the pandemic (and approximately one year after the earlier studies). We found that boredom prone individuals remained more likely to engage in COVID-19 rule-breaking. Our results suggest that a trait disposition towards boredom exerts a persistent, long-term influence on behaviour, one that is detrimental to personal well-being during the pandemic. Adherence to public health measures might be improved by encouraging individuals to find adaptive ways of coping with boredom.

Role of Alexithymia in Predicting Internet Novel Addiction through Boredom Proneness

With the development of the internet, people’s pursuit of reading entertainment has enriched internet novels, but the relevant influencing factors are still unclear. Therefore, we recruited 344 Chinese college students and employed a questionnaire survey to explore the relationship between alexithymia, boredom proneness, and internet novel addiction. The results showed that (1) there was no significant difference between female and male college students in terms of alexithymia and boredom proneness, whereas male college students had a higher total score of internet novel addiction than females. (2) There were significant positive correlations between alexithymia, boredom proneness, and internet novel addiction. (3) Boredom proneness played a partial mediating role in the impact of alexithymia on the internet novel addiction. Taken together, alexithymia may directly and indirectly predict internet novel addiction through boredom proneness.

A Trait-Based Network Perspective on the Validation of the French Short Boredom Proneness Scale

Abstract. The Short Boredom Proneness Scale (SBPS) has recently been developed. Using a standard confirmatory factor analysis, we report on the structural validation of the French SBPS, which provided support for the original construct. A network analysis ( n = 490) revealed the structure of the relationships between the SBPS and the two facets of Curiosity and Exploration Inventory-II (CEI-II). The analysis revealed positive connections between the boredom and curiosity items, whereas the connections between the boredom and exploration items were negative. To evaluate measurement invariance, we compared the French-speaking sample ( n = 490) with an English-speaking sample ( n = 364). Full configural, metric, and scalar invariance was established; thus, we provide a valid French translation of a widely used measure of boredom that may advantage future research.

A single item measure of self-control – validation and location in a nomological network of self-control, boredom, and if-then planning