Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35502306›Full record

ArticlePersonality and individual differences2021

Boredom in the COVID-19 pandemic: Trait boredom proneness, the desire to act, and rule-breaking.

James Boylan, Paul Seli, Abigail A Scholer, James Danckert

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Personality and individual differences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
48citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

48 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Review
  3. Article
  4. People are increasingly bored in our digital age.Communications psychology · 2024
    Review
  5. Article
  6. The COVID-19 Crisis and the Incidence of Alcohol-Related Deaths in Poland.Medical science monitor : international medical journal of experimental and clinical research · 2023
    Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Meaninglessness and monotony in pandemic boredom.Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences · 2023
    Article
  10. Review
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Boredom in the COVID-19 Pandemic.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022
    Article
  17. Relationship difficulties and "technoference" during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of social and personal relationships · 2022
    Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

James BoylanDepartment of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ONT N2L 3G1, Canada.
Paul SeliDepartment of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, 417 Chapel Drive, Durham, NC 27701, USA.
Abigail A ScholerDepartment of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ONT N2L 3G1, Canada.
James DanckertDepartment of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ONT N2L 3G1, Canada.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The state of boredom presents a conundrum: When bored, we want to engage with an activity, but we don't want to engage with whatever is currently available. This conflict is exacerbated when external factors impose restrictions on the range of behaviors we can engage in, which is precisely the scenario we are currently facing, at a global level, during this period of social isolation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected data from 924 North American participants (530 Male, Mean age = 37.7 years) using the internet-based Mturk platform to examine the relation between self-reports of boredom proneness (using the Short Boredom-Proneness Scale) and individual responses to questions about compliance with social-distancing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our sample replicated recent findings in boredom research, including a negative correlation between boredom proneness and self-control. We also provide novel evidence that highly boredom prone people have been more likely to break the rules of social isolation in a variety of ways (e.g., fewer hours spent in social isolation, poor adherence to social distancing as evidenced by increased likelihood of holding a social gathering and coming into proximity with more people than recommended). We further demonstrated that boredom proneness substantially mediates the association between self-control and rule-breaking. These results indicate that boredom proneness is a critical factor to consider when encouraging adherence to social isolation.

Indexed as

Boredom pronenessCOVID-19Rule-breakingSelf-control

Identifiers

PMID35502306
PMCPMC9045809

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.