State boredom results in optimistic perception of risk and increased risk-taking

Bored with boredom? Trait boredom predicts internet addiction through the mediating role of attentional bias toward social networks

Internet addiction is an emerging issue, impacting people's psychosocial functioning and well-being. However, the prevalence and the mechanisms underlying internet misuse are largely unknown. As with other behavioral addiction disorders, the increase and persistence of internet addiction may be favored by negative affect such as boredom. In this study, we examined the role of boredom susceptibility, as a personality trait, in predicting the risk of internet addiction. Furthermore, we analyzed the attentional mechanisms that may exacerbate dysfunctional internet behaviors. Specifically, we assessed the mediating role of attentional bias toward social media cues on the relation between boredom susceptibility and internet addiction. Sixty-nine young adults were administered a dot-probe task assessing internet-related attentional bias (AB) and questionnaires measuring internet addiction (IAT) and boredom susceptibility (BS-BSSS). Correlation and t-test analyses confirmed that the tendency to experience boredom and selective attention toward social network information was related to internet addiction. Furthermore, the mediation model indicated that AB fully explains the link between BS-BSSS and IAT. The study highlighted the crucial role of selective attentional processing behind internet addiction. The current results are useful for both researchers and clinicians as they suggest that intervention programs for internet addiction should include strategies to cope with dysfunctional cognitive processes.

Does boredom affect economic risk preferences?

Previous literature and conventional wisdom have led researchers to believe that boredom increases economic risk taking, but the evidence in support of this conclusion is limited and has important shortcomings. In four experiments (including more than 1,300 subjects), we systematically studied the effects of boredom on economic risk preferences. Across different risk elicitation tasks, boredom inductions, incentive schemes, subject pools, and using both reduced form and structural analyses, we consistently failed to find an effect of boredom on risky decisions. Our results disprove that boredom leads to even small increments in risk taking in one-shot elicitation tasks, and small to medium increases in multiple-choice elicitations. These findings question an important established belief, contribute to better understand the consequences of boredom, and have substantive implications for experiments on economic decision making.

Boredom in a Time of Uncertainty: State and Trait Boredom's Associations with Psychological Health during COVID-19

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, studies have demonstrated increases in boredom and its negative impact on mental health. This cross-sectional study examines state and trait boredom at four different points of the pandemic using an online sample of participants from the United States (n = 783). The results showed significant increases in boredom proneness, state boredom, substance use, loneliness, and distress. Boredom was associated with increases in each of these variables and a greater likelihood of testing positive for COVID-19. Moreover, the increases in distress, loneliness, and substance use became non-significant when controlling for boredom. Boredom proneness remained associated with all adverse outcomes when accounting for state boredom. In contrast, the relationships between state boredom and most adverse outcomes lost significance when controlling for boredom proneness, and state boredom was positively associated with increased hope for the future. Overall, the results suggest that high boredom proneness is an important vulnerability factor for poor psychological health and risky behaviors during the pandemic. However, high levels of recent state boredom, independent of boredom proneness, do not predict similarly negative outcomes. State boredom may indicate the extent to which one remains hopeful that circumstances will improve without resorting to risky, potentially maladaptive coping strategies.

Boredom Proneness Predicts Self-Assessed Decision Errors in Sports but Is Unrelated to Risk Taking in General

Introduction: Boredom proneness is linked to poor self-regulation, leading to poor decision making and/or increased risk taking. These links have not yet been investigated in the domain of sports and exercise. However, poor decisions or excessive risk behavior would be highly detrimental to sporting performance and, in some cases, even cause physical harm. Here, we address this gap by assessing if boredom proneness is linked to general risk taking, sport-specific risk taking, and to regrets about sports-specific decision errors with respect to acting too risky or too passively. Methods: N = 936 athletes (27.6 ± 9.0 years, 89.6% men): n = 330 Climbers (31.8 ± 10.7 years, 82.4% men), n = 83 Snowboarders (29.9 ± 8.3 years, 79.5% men), and n = 523 Esports athletes (24.6 ± 6.3 years, 95.8% men) completed the Short Boredom Proneness Scale (SBPS), along with measures for objective risk taking (Balloon Analogue Risk Task; BART), subjective risk taking (general willingness to take risks), as well as assessments for sport-specific risk taking and regrets for sports-specific decision errors (taking too many risks, failing to act at all). In the two extreme sports samples (i.e., climbers and snowboarders), we additionally assessed self-selected outcome certainty in a hypothetical sports-specific scenario where an error would result in physical harm. Results: A series of multiple regression analyses revealed that boredom proneness was unrelated to objective and subjective general risk taking, but a significant predictor of sport-specific risk taking and higher risk taking in the sports scenario (climbers and snowboarders only). Most importantly, boredom proneness predicted regrets for taking too many risks and being too passive. Exploratory post-hoc analyses further indicated that boredom proneness in extreme sports athletes was lower than in esports athletes. Higher boredom proneness was significantly related to lower skill levels across all kinds of sport. Discussion: Across three athlete samples, boredom proneness was unrelated to general risk taking but significantly related to poorer decision making, as indicated by regrets about acting too risky and too passively, as well as demanding a significantly lower safety threshold to make a risky sports-specific choice. While at odds with the often-reported link between boredom proneness and risk taking, these results are consistent with the conceptualization of boredom proneness as a maladaptive self-regulatory disposition that leads to noisy decision making in sports. In addition, we provide preliminary evidence that boredom proneness covaries with self-selection into specific types of sports and might also stand in the way of skill acquisition in sports.

The Effect of Subjective Loss in Financial Risk Taking and Negative Emotion

The current research examined the influence of subjective loss on financial risk-taking tendency and negative emotional experience through inducing the experience of subjective loss in auction scenarios. In Study 1, we found that the subjective loss experience (compared to no-loss experience) in an auction scenario induced greater financial risk propensity, especially in gambling, greater negative emotion, and greater decision regret. In addition, we found that the subjective loss experience induced stronger negative emotion but less risk propensity in investment than the actual loss experience did, but these two types of loss did not yield a difference in risk propensity in gambling in Study 2. These results implicate that subjective loss is a distinct experience from no-loss and actual loss experiences, which is reflected by the degree of associated emotional experience and subsequent risk-taking propensity. The current research highlights the complex psychological processes of the experience of loss in decision-making contexts.