ArticleFrontiers in psychology2021
Perceptions of Control Influence Feelings of Boredom.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Spiritual boredom is associated with over- and underchallenge, lack of value, and reduced motivation.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Boredom signals deviation from a cognitive homeostatic set point.Communications psychology · 2025Review
- Anticipatory emotions and academic performance: The role of boredom in a preservice teachers' lab experience.Heliyon · 2025Article
- Preexposure to one social threat alters responses to another social threat: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2024Article
- Boredom and curiosity: the hunger and the appetite for information.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- From Loss of Control to Social Exclusion: ERP Effects of Preexposure to a Social Threat in the Cyberball Paradigm.Brain sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Conditions of low and high perceived control often lead to boredom, albeit for different reasons. Whereas, high perceived control may be experienced as boring because the situation lacks challenge, low perceived control may be experienced as boring because the situation precludes effective engagement. In two experiments we test this proposed quadratic relationship. In the first experiment we had participants play different versions of the children's game "rock-paper-scissors" in which they arbitrarily won (intended to maximize feelings of control) or lost (to induce feelings of low control). Despite having only dichotomous conditions, participants reported experiencing a broad range of levels of perceived control. Consistent with our predictions, boredom was highest at low and high levels of perceived control (i.e., a quadratic relation between perceived control and felt boredom). Experiment 2 tested the notion that the mere prospect of gaining control may mitigate boredom. Participants given to believe (erroneously) that they could gain control over the game of rock, paper, scissors were less bored than those who believed there was no possibility of winning at greater than chance levels. This suggests that beliefs concerning prospective control, rather than a given level of perceived control
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