We examined the hypothesis that boredom is likely to occur when opportunity costs are high; that is, when there is a high potential value of engaging in activities other than the researcher-assigne...

I argue that the state of boredom (i.e., the transitory and non-pathological experience of boredom) should be understood to be a regulatory psychological state that has the capacity to promote our well-being by contributing to personal growth and to the construction (or reconstruction) of a meaningful life.

Early in this century, most empirically oriented psychologists believed that all motivation was based in the physiology of a set of non-nervous system tissue needs. The theories of that era reflected this belief and used it in an attempt to explain an increasing number of phenomena. It was not until the 1950s that it became irrefutably clear that much of human motivation is based not in these drives, but rather in a set of innate psychological needs. Their physiological basis is (...) less understood; and as concepts, these needs lend themselves more easily to psycho logical than to physiological theorizing. The convergence of evidence from a variety of scholarly efforts suggests that there are three such needs: self-determination, competence, and interpersonal relatedness. This book is primarily about self-determination and competence (with particular emphasis on the former), and about the processes and structures that relate to these needs. The need for interpersonal relat edness, while no less important, remains to be explored, and the findings from those explorations will need to be integrated with the present theory to develop a broad, organismic theory of human motivation. Thus far, we have articulated self-determination theory, which is offered as a working theory-a theory in the making. To stimulate the research that will allow it to evolve further, we have stated self-determination theory in the form of minitheories that relate to more circumscribed domains, and we have developed paradigms for testing predictions from the various minitheories. (shrink)

Why does performing certain tasks cause the aversive experience of mental effort and concomitant deterioration in task performance? One explanation posits a physical resource that is depleted over time. We propose an alternative explanation that centers on mental representations of the costs and benefits associated with task performance. Specifically, certain computational mechanisms, especially those associated with executive function, can be deployed for only a limited number of simultaneous tasks at any given moment. Consequently, the deployment of these computational mechanisms carries (...) an opportunity cost – that is, the next-best use to which these systems might be put. We argue that the phenomenology of effort can be understood as the felt output of these cost/benefit computations. In turn, the subjective experience of effort motivates reduced deployment of these computational mechanisms in the service of the present task. These opportunity cost representations, then, together with other cost/benefit calculations, determine effort expended and, everything else equal, result in performance reductions. In making our case for this position, we review alternative explanations for both the phenomenology of effort associated with these tasks and for performance reductions over time. Likewise, we review the broad range of relevant empirical results from across sub-disciplines, especially psychology and neuroscience. We hope that our proposal will help to build links among the diverse fields that have been addressing similar questions from different perspectives, and we emphasize ways in which alternative models might be empirically distinguished. (shrink)

Boredom proneness has been linked to various forms of cognitive and affective dysregulation including poor self-control and mind-wandering, as well as depression and aggression. As such, understanding boredom and the associated cognitive and affective components of the experience, represents an important first step in combatting the consequences of boredom for psychological well-being. We surveyed 1928 undergraduate students on measures of boredom proneness, self-control, MW, depression and aggression to investigate how these constructs were related. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that self-control operated (...) as a strong negative predictor of boredom proneness. Finally, when controlling for age and self-control, we observed large decreases in the magnitudes of the relationships between boredom proneness and our other measures of interest. Together, these results imply a strong relationship between boredom proneness and cognitive and affective dysregulation, and show that individual levels of self-control can account for the lion’s share of variance in the relationships between boredom, cognition, and affect. (shrink)

The mathematical theory of communication.

The essay argues that boredom is an affective state that monitors and regulates our behavior. Boredom informs us when we are out of tune with our interests and motivates us to engage in situations that are perceived by us as fulfilling or meaningful. Boredom is thus important. It promotes our interests by trying to keep us in touch with what we care about. And it safeguards us from emotional traps and long-term dullness. -/- .