THE DIMENSIONS OF STATE BOREDOM: FREQUENCY, DURATION, UNPLEASANTNESS, CONSEQUENCES AND CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS

Boredom is a common and pervasive feeling state that is believed to be associated with a variety of suboptimal outcomes in areas such as psychological adjustment, academic performance and occupational success. However, much of the evidence for these associations is based on studies that have relied less on measures of the actual experience of boredom (and how individuals might construe their boredom), and more on measures of the susceptibility to become bored. It is proposed that many of the current approaches to boredom research could benefit from the inclusion of a state-type, self-report measure that permits the assessment of an individual’s cognitive representations of their boredom experiences (e.g, subjective frequency and duration of boredom episodes) during a circumscribed period in the individual’s recent past. It is argued that without such a measure, it is not possible to reliably distinguish between the correlates of the personality trait of boredom proneness and the correlates of the actual subjective experience of being bored. It also not possible to identify what aspects the boredom experience (e.g., the perceived frequency of boredom episodes vs. the perceived duration of boredom episodes) are associated with a particular outcome. A prototype of a state-type inventory of boredom experiences (State Boredom Measure) is described along with some preliminary information on its utility and psychometric properties.