This is in line with the functional account of state boredom-that state boredom signals rising opportunity cost and the need to explore one’s environs for some activity that is more engaging or rewarding than whatever is currently in front of us. That is, we want something to engage with when bored but struggle to determine what that ought to be. The notion that boredom can be in a sense “objectless” is an interesting one, perhaps best captured in a quote from Leo Tolstoy, that boredom is “a desire for desires”.
Feldges and Pieczenko (2020) differentiate between boredom directed towards an object (what they refer to as an emotion), from boredom that is non-intentional and is not directed toward any particular object (what they refer to as boredom as a mood ). However, it is noteworthy that this is not the only conceptualization of boredom. This depiction of boredom is in line with previous research that has conceptualized state boredom as arising from a particular task. That is, one recent paper suggests that boredom proneness is best characterized by the triumvirate of increased frequency and intensity of experiencing the state of boredom, together with a perceived lack of meaning (Tam et al., under consideration). Those who are high in boredom proneness then are individuals who, as a result of being consistently exposed to one or more of these antecedents, experience an increased frequency and intensity of state boredom. Previous research has demonstrated that monotony, lapses of attention, a lack of meaning, an unwillingness to engage in the task, subjective effort and agency are among the many situational variables that can lead to boredom. In other words, the state of boredom signals that what we are doing now is failing to satisfy our needs and goals in some important way, prompting us to explore alternative options for engagement. In that sense, the current environment can be seen as problematic since it is the impediment to successful engagement in alternatives. For example, a student may not be motivated to engage in their current learning environment, while being simultaneously highly motivated to engage in some other activity that they deem to be a more satisfying alternative. Although the bored individual is motivated to engage, they are not necessarily motivated to engage with their immediate environment. We discuss potential mechanisms through which boredom proneness may influence academic performance.īoredom is a ubiquitous human experience in which individuals are motivated to engage with their environment but fail to successfully do so. Importantly, we further demonstrated, for the first time, that boredom proneness has a unique contribution to GPA over and above the contribution of self-control, such that as boredom proneness increases, GPA decreases. Our analyses replicate those previous findings showing that self-control acts as a positive predictor of GPA. In contrast, boredom proneness is associated with lower levels of self-control and self-esteem. Within educational settings, prior research has shown self-control and self-esteem to be associated with better academic performance. Here we explored the unique contributions of boredom proneness, self-control and self-esteem to undergraduate self-reported higher grade point average (GPA).
There has been some work in educational settings, but relatively little is known about the consequences of boredom proneness for learning. Boredom proneness is characterized by both frequent and intense feelings of boredom and is an enduring individual difference trait associated with a raft of negative outcomes. The state of boredom arises when we have the desire to be engaged in goal pursuit, but for whatever reason we cannot fulfil that desire.
0 kommentar(er)
