1. Introduction
The current research
follows a line of projects that began with a phenomenological investigation
(Giorgi, 2018) of people who described themselves
as being bored with their lives (Bargdill, 1999). That
research produced 33 overlapping themes, meaning that some of the factors that
influenced one themes were also partially present in the next theme. The themes
emerged from narrative accounts by the participants and then narrative
statements were used for supporting evidence of the theme. These
theme-based-narrative-statements became the first items for a scale of habitual
boredom.
The
researcher prefers the term habitual boredom as compared to trait or chronic
boredom for numerous reasons. First, people appear to gradually become
habitually bored and did not previously recognize boredom as one of their
traits. Second, the term trait can also imply a permanent condition that one
has and will always have whereas a habit is a repetitive behavior pattern that
is hard to change, but not impossible with the proper effort. Third, trait can
imply a genetic pre-disposition as in an “inborn trait” and the authors know of
no research showing that boredom is a genetic condition. Finally, chronic
boredom has a sense of hopelessness to it like a terminal diagnosis, it is our
contention that any condition can change from a habitually boredom to some
other attunement. New research on “perceived life boredom” (Tam et al., 2021) created a seven item survey that falls in line with what the authors
are calling habitual boredom. The Habitual Boredom Scale is systematic attempt
at measuring this type of boredom.
The
researcher continued to condense themes to make the findings more useful to
both clinicians and other researchers (Bargdill, 2000a, 2000b). The overlapping nature off many of the
themes were further titrated into five implicit areas that are now understood
to be implicit themes beneath the general heading of habitual boredom. The five
implicit themes at the center of this habitual boredom (ambivalence, identity
confusion, passive hope, shame, and passive avoidance) were described in detail
by Bargdill (2014). This paper has only recently
gained wider circulation due to digital document indexing (DOI). Hence, a short
recap is in order.
After previously not being bored, a person who became
habitually bored had a long-term project meet a firm obstacle. Other people
convince the person to change directions. This would lead to ambivalence which
meant the person became aware of anger toward those other people but was not as
aware of anger toward oneself. Progress on the new project did not come easily
and a habit of passive avoidance was established; here, the person does not ask
for assistance but rather acts like everything is progressing normally. As some
point, the persons became aware that they were not succeeding, and hence, an
increasing sense of shame developed that also strengthened avoidance. Identity
confusion arose as persons recognized that they no longer the active engaged
person they once were and they can no longer see a positive outcome for
themselves in the future. They are stuck in boredom. They do, however, a
maintain a passively hopeful mentality which means that they believe someone
else (external locus of control) will save them from their boredom. Habitual
boredom can become depression if this passive hope can no longer be maintained.
Habitual boredom spread from the initial project to all parts of the person’s
life. Despite the unpleasant experience, the bored individuals did not take
actions get out of their boredom. In fact, those who did escape did so because
they were forced out of complacency due to external forces (e.g. divorced by
spouse, terminated from job).
A
later work attempted to distinguish Habitual boredom from that of unipolar or
major depression (Bargdill, 2019) using comparative phenomenology.
Taking the existing five implicit themes of habitual boredom, the researcher
compared the boredom participants narrative statements with those in a
phenomenological analysis of depression (Carter, 1990)
Compared
to Habitual boredom, the depressed person’s experience differed on those five
themes. Instead of externalizing ambivalence [blames others] the depressed
person experience internalizes blame; instead of passive avoidance, the
depressed person experienced extreme willfulness, instead of shame the
depressed felt guilt, instead of identity confusion the depressed experience
negative objectification of self; instead of passive hope, the depressed
experience hopelessness. It is the author’s contention that habitual boredom is
not the same construct as unipolar depression although there may be some
similarities (Goldberg et al., 2011).
2. A comparison
between situational and habitual boredom
Much of the current
research on boredom focusses on situational or state boredom. Fahlman et al. (2013) outlined five different elements to situational boredom that have
garnered significant interests: lack of engagement, low arousal boredom, high
arousal boredom, slow passage of time, difficulty focusing attention. In this
section, situational boredom will be contrasted with habitual boredom. Habitual
Boredom is understood as a significant mental health problem because of the
behaviors that the habitually bored people engage in (Tam et al., 2021). Whereas it has been suggested that situational boredom can lead to
both negative (Kılıç et al., 2019) and positive outcomes (Mann and
Cadman, 2014).
Situational
boredom is a common experience (Chin et al., 2017),
everyone has felt at some point in their life. One factor that can lead to this
type of boredom is when the person finds the situation unfulfilling (Danckert
et al., 2018), unengaging (Eastwood et al., 2018) or not meaningful (Chan et al., 2018; Elpidorou, 2021). O’Hanlon (1981) recognizes that different people in the same situation are not always
bored so this is a subjective understanding of the event. In habitual boredom,
the person has given up a meaningful project their own, without doubling their
efforts first. They now find secondary project suggested to them by others as a
contagion of boredom. Boredom starts with this secondary project but spreads to
other areas of life (e.g., free time).
Situational
boredom can contribute to the experience of low arousal, sometimes also called
apathetic boredom (Fahlman et al., 2013; Goetz et al., 2014). Generally, these situations have low intensity activities, monotonous
stimuli, repetitive actions that are seen as unchallenging busy work. O’Hanlon
(1981) notes that most people who get out of the
boring situation experience an immediate positive change in affect. In habitual
boredom, more and more activities become seen as boring—some of those
activities the person previously found to be quite arousing. Changing
activities does not seem to alleviate habitual boredom.
Situational
boredom can also manifest itself as the experience of high arousal in the form
of restlessness, psychomotor agitation (O’Hanlon, 1981),
frustration (Fahlman et al., 2013). These experiences possibly
manifest as the boring situation becomes prolonged and the person attempts to
self-stimulate to maintain some level of arousal or alertness (Danckert et al.,
2018). Failure to get out of the boring situation
can create a sense of resignation that leads the person back to the low arousal
experiences. In habitual boredom, the person experiences lasting bouts of
apathy, futility and most importantly, passivity. Habitual boredom is a
slow-motion crisis in which one’s personal strength’s atrophy while the person
adds no new skills. In situational boredom, the person is motivated by
meaninglessness to change (Elpidorou, 2021) but the
habitually bored person shows a loss of will and motivation to get away from
the negative prevailing story line of their life.
In
situational boredom there is common experience of time moving slowly. People
often report a distorted sense of how much time has passed on a given activity
(Danckert and Allman, 2005). If time flies when you are having
fun, then time drags when you are bored. Individuals are more likely to focus
on temporal information (i.e., stare at the clock) when they are not
meaningfully engaged in an activity (Chaston and Kingstone, 2004). This practice likely adds to the experience of boredom. In habitual
boredom, the person feels their life is stuck. They are no longer actively
becoming someone. Instead, they are in between a past that no longer exists and
a future that they cannot envision. Hence, they feel stuck in neutral in a
negative present where every day is just like the previous day.
The
final feature of situational boredom is the difficulty of focusing one’s
attention when bored (Isacescu et al., 2017). This
is often experienced as having poor concentration prior to recognizing the need
to increase one’s focus on the activity (Fahlman et al., 2013). Ongoing sustained attention to environments perceived to be
unstimulating leads to individuals exerting less effort and decreased internal
control of one’s attention (Hartcher-O’Brien et al., 2017) and
that may contribute to boredom. In habitual boredom, the person experience
boredom most of the time and only feels moments of relief from boredom. In
other words, they become hyper focused on the boredom itself. The rare relief
from boredom comes typically in the form of dangerous, addictive behaviors
(Johnston and O’Malley, 1986), or clinically relevant behaviors
(Goldberg et al., 2011). Surprisingly, the habitually
bored person does not take action to change their experiences in the positive
direction as one might expect with situational boredom (Elpidorou, 2021). In fact, they avoid actions because they feel anything they would try
to do would ultimately end up be boring to them.
3. Need for a scale
that measures habitual boredom
The most prolifically
used scale for boredom that has been used for research in Farmer and Sundberg's
(1986) Boredom Proneness Scale. This scale has
admittedly advanced the study of boredom. A chief concern about the BP is that
constructors of this instrument did not begin with a specific conceptual frame
about what boredom proneness is (Mercer-Lynn et al., 2014), nor do
they make any distinctions between situational or habitual boredom. For
example, Farmer and Sundberg (1986) state, “The Boredom Proneness
scale was developed to fulfill the need for a general assessment tool to
measure the tendency toward experiencing boredom” (p. 14). It is only after the
scale is developed that the conceptual understanding is arrived at: “From the
findings of this investigation, the emerging picture of the boredom-prone
person is one who experience degrees of depression, hopelessness, loneliness
and distractibility...” tend to be amotivating and display little evidence of
autonomous orientation...” (p. 14). These conclusions may be accurate, but
reveal very little about the dynamics of the either the person's experience or
how these features may have come about.
As a
general assessment tool, the BPS measures a combination of both situational and
habitual boredom tendencies. “The Boredom Proneness Scale emphasizes one's
connectedness with environment on many situational dimensions as well as the
ability to access adaptive resources and realize competencies” (Farmer and
Sundberg, 1986, p. 10). The BPS seems to operate
under the assumption that the experience of situational boredom is the same as
the experience of habitual boredom. But by analogy, we would not want to
compare the situation of being “down in the dumps” with the experience of major
depression. Clearly some of the items on the BP are experiences of situational
(state) boredom. For example, item 6 which reads “Having to look someone's home
movies or travel slides bores me tremendously.” Item 27 says, “It seems that
the same things are on television or the movies all the time; it's getting old”
(p. 6). At the same time, there are items that are also trait related or what
the authors refer to as habitual boredom. For example, item 16 “I often find
myself with nothing to do-time on my hands. And item 21 states, “I feel like I
am working below my abilities most of the time” (p. 6). In short, home movies
or television are external stimuli, states, or situations that one finds
oneself in, while working below one’s abilities and finding myself with time
are internal experiences that speak more to habitual experiences or global
evaluations of the self (Tam et al., 2021).
The
importance of the distinction between situation and habitual boredom may lay in
the idea that someone might be bored in many situations and yet not habitually
bored. In fact, we might imagine an artist who might find almost every
situation, other than his art, as boring. The assumption is that someone who
experiences a tremendous amount of situational boredom might be boredom prone,
but not necessarily habitually bored. Framer and Sundberg acknowledge a need
for more research that distinguishes between state and trait or situational and
habitual boredom. The Habitual Boredom Scale was developed to measure
specifically trait or habitual boredom.
4. Methods
The present study is to
address an important issue of habitual boredom in conception and measurement
within the research context. It first proposes a conceptual framework of
habitual boredom by discussing the difference between situational and habitual
boredom. Second, the study presents the measurement of habitual boredom through
the development and test of a habitual boredom scale (HBS). The HBS intends to
conceptually define and empirically determine the general themes of habitual
boredom for both research and clinical purposes.
Qualitative and
quantitative studies were conducted to develop the scale items. As Bargdill (2000a, 2014)
presents, the qualitative studies identified statements from participants’
narratives to develop the scale items. For example, a participant made the
following comment:
P2: So many
times, my life was like a daydream. I would sit around and think about how nice
it would be if I could get a job where I could travel and be the singer. I
could dance. I was a real good dancer. Maybe I could get a job with Lawrence
Welk. So I fantasized that somebody might discover me someday. I’d be somebody
someday. It never happened though I’m still waiting (Bargdill, 2014,
p. 102).
This statement was
compared with other participants’ experiences and led to the formulation of the
concept called “Passive hope.” We see that the person still believes that the
future can be positive, but it is also noticeable that the participant is waiting
for someone else to discover them. That is, the participant is not actively
doing the things to help them be discovered! This statement was then formed
into a scale item, in this case item 26 (Passive hope 6): Someday, someone is
going to discover me.
Initially
50 items were created in this fashion. Sometimes there were multiple items per
theme and then those items were paired down to 28 so that the HBS would be
within a similar range of items as other scales (e.g., BPS) have. The trend has
been for scales to become more and more abbreviated.
Quantitative
studies were also conducted to test the scale items. The first study was
conducted over a three-year period at four different institutions (two
community colleges, one college, and one university). The participants in the
first study comprised of 62.6% female 37.4% male with a mean age of 27.84
years. A total of 104 college and community college undergraduates participated
voluntarily in the study as a part of an extra credit assignment for a variety
of undergraduate psychology courses. The participants were first given the
Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS) and then took the Habitual Boredom Scale (HBS).
It was hypothesized that there would not be a significant correlation between
the two scales since our position is that boredom proneness is not the same as
habitual boredom. Our analysis of the data provide support for our hypothesis.
The correlation coefficient is -.17 between the two scales that is not
statistically significant.
In
the second study, a total of 76 participants volunteered as a part of
undergraduate psychology courses to participate. The participants in the second
study comprised of 62.7% female 37.3% male with a mean age of 29.63 years. The
participants were first given the Beck's Depression Index (BDI) and then took
the Habitual Boredom Scale (HBS). It was hypothesized that habitual boredom and
depression were not the same construct even though they both are seen as a
negative effect. Therefore, the two scales were not expected to correlate to a
high degree. Our data analysis shows that the two scales are not correlated
significantly (r = 0.07).
The
next study was to assess the test-retest reliability of the Habitual Boredom
Scale (HBS). A total of 41 participants who volunteered as part of two
mid-level undergraduate psychology courses. The participants in the second
study comprised of 56.1% female 43.8% male with a mean age of 19.2 years. The
participants were given the HBS and then took the same scale once again twelve
days later. It was hypothesized that since the habitual boredom was considered
a trait like experience, there would be little change in a participant's
evaluation on the HBS over time. Therefore, the correlation between the
test-retest scores should be high. Our analysis of the data indicate that the
test and re-test results are highly correlated (r = 0.81 for Ambivalence items,
0.62 for Passive avoidance stance items, 0.63 for Passive hope items, 0.77 for
Identity confusion items, and 0.69 for Shame items).
We
analyzed the data collected from these tests and modified the items. A revised
version was developed to strengthen scale based on the evolved theoretical
model that included the current five implicit factors. This was done to avoid
some of the problems identified with the Boredom Proneness Scale, namely, that
it is neither purely evaluating state nor trait boredom. The Habitual Boredom
Scale does not measure state boredom and the items refer entirely to
personality self-evaluations. The word “boredom” does not appear in the scale
at all, although Item 4 does use word “dull.”
The
revised version has 35 items. A two-point scale was used for responses to these
items: 1 = true; 0 = false. A fourth survey was conducted to test this revised
version (see Appendix 1 for the survey instrument). Participants in the test
were recruited from several psychology and sociology classes at a university.
The recruitment yielded a total of 90 students who agreed to participant in the
test. The participants contain 52.2% females and 47.8% males. The age
distribution shows that 38.9% of them were in an age range of 18-19, 47.8% in
20-21, and 13.3% in 22 and above.
5. Results
Using data collected
from this test, the present study first conducted confirmatory factor analysis
to assess items that closely tap the themes with acceptable reliability,
respectively. As a result, a total of 35 items has been retained with 7 items
for each theme. The Cronbach alpha for each theme ranges from 0.67 to 0.80
which is relatively acceptable (see Table 1).
Table 1. Themes and measures of
habitual boredom scale (HBS)
|
Themes |
Items |
|
Ambivalence (7items) (Cronbach
alpha: 0.68) |
I know I have certain
abilities, but I’m trapped. I am frequently confused by my own emotional reactions. I often blame others when I ought to blame myself. I’ve begun to
think that maybe I’m not made of the material thought I was. I often feel disconnected from my family and
friends. I feel that I have my life on
track. I rarely feel like I have “gotten in over my head.” |
|
Passive avoidance stance (7 items) (Cronbach alpha: 0.70) |
I’m more of dreamer than a do-er. I’ve
unsuccessfully been trying hard to turn my life around. I go after something I want. It is not uncommon for me to
start a project and then quickly lose interest in it. For many of my current
projects, I find myself going through the motions. I anticipate that many
activities will be dull, so I don’t bother with them. I have ideas about life
improvements, but they don’t get out of the idea stage. |
|
Passive hope (7 items) (Cronbach alpha:
0.67) |
Right now, I’m waiting for the pendulum to swing back in my direction. I feel stuck and need someone to help free me. I feel that my will power is strong. Once I get past this one obstacle everything will
fall into place. If you work hard, you will
get the things you want. Someday, someone is going to discover me. I believe it is better to be
lucky then to be good. |
|
Identity
confusion (7 items) (Cronbach alpha:
0.80) |
Most of the time
I go to sleep with a clear conscience. I have a strong sense of who I am. My strengths no longer seem so strong.
I’m very enthusiastic about
my life right now. I find most things I do to
be interesting. I’m on my way to achieving
my potential. I’m just a shadow of my former self. |
|
Shame (7 Items) (Cronbach alpha: 0.76) |
At important
times I have been ashamed to ask for help. As I have gotten
older my confidence has continued to grow. I frequently
doubt my abilities. I’m proud of
myself. I am pleased with the way my life is progressing. I have trouble “facing myself in the mirror.” So far, my life has been time well spent. |
Second, we used the
items to create composite variables to represent the 5 themes, respectively
(see Table 2 for the descriptive statistics of these composite variables).
Using the structural equation modeling method with the composites, we fit a
measurement model that treats habitual boredom as a latent construct and the
five composites as the indicators of the five dimensions of the construct (see
Figure 1). Compared with the reliability analysis with the Cronbach alphas, the
measurement model allows assessing the overall model fit of the scale with
different themes by taking into account the measurement errors.[1]
Table 2. Descriptive statistics of the composite
variables
|
Variable |
Mean |
Standard deviation |
|
Ambivalence |
2.54 |
1.90 |
|
Passive avoidance stance |
2.01 |
1.82 |
|
Passive hope |
1.17 |
1.49 |
|
Identity
confusion |
1.59 |
1.94 |
|
Shame |
1.70 |
1.87 |
Notes: N = 90.
The results show that the model fits
the data well with X2 = 1.64, df = 5, Probability level = 0.90, NFI = 0.99, and
CFI = 0.99 (see Table 3). The factor loading of each composite on the construct
of habitual boredom is high (0.78 for the Ambivalence composite, 0.77 for the
Passive Avoidance composite, 0.76 for the Passive Hope composite, 0.91 for the
Identification Confusion composite, and 0.85 for Shame composite; see Table 3).
These results provide support to the scale with five themes that are assumed different
dimensions of habitual boredom.
Table 3. Parameter estimates of factor loadings
for habitual boredom
|
Variable |
Metric slope |
Reliability coefficient |
|
Ambivalence |
1.00* |
0.78 |
|
Passive avoidance stance |
0.95 |
0.77 |
|
Passive hope |
0.77 |
0.76 |
|
Identity
confusion |
1.19 |
0.91 |
|
Shame |
1.08 |
0.85 |
Notes: X2 = 1.64; df = 5;
Probability level = 0.90; Normed fit index (NFI) = 0.99; Comparative
fit index (CFI) = 0.99; N =
90; *Fixed coefficient.
Figure 1. Measurement model for
habitual boredom
6. Conclusions
This study presents the
theoretical and conceptual development of habitual boredom. It proposes five
themes (i.e., ambivalence, passive avoidance stance, passive hope, and shame)
of habitual boredom building upon current literature and a phenomenological
investigation conducted by the senior author. Informed by the theoretical and
conceptual development, a Habitual Boredom Scale (HBS) was designed for
research and clinical purposes. The scale was tested through several surveys to
assess its reliability. With modification and refinement of the items in the
scale, the scale has been achieved fairly acceptable reliability. The present
study presents the results of our recent test of the scale using a sample of
college students.
The
data show that a total of 35 items in the scale are fairly reliable through
confirmatory factor analysis with 7 items for each theme. Our analysis of a
measurement model also indicates that the five themes measured by the 35 items
fit in the central construct of habitual boredom reasonably well as we
hypothesize that they are five dimensions of the construct.
Our
preliminary findings suggest three important implications. First, habitual
boredom is not the same construct as boredom proneness (Farmer and Sundberg, 1986). As we mentioned earlier, boredom proneness includes mostly
situational/state items but also a few that relate to habitual/trait
experiences of boredom. Whereas, the habitual boredom scale (HBS) is attempting
to isolate the factors that the people experience when they report being bored
regardless of the situation. Because the Boredom Proneness Scale and the
Habitual Boredom Scale are not highly correlated as our data indicate, we feel
that they must not be identical phenomena.
Second,
our study offers further support that habitual boredom and depression are also
not the same constructs (Bargdill, 2019,
Goldberg et al, 2011) since our data also indicate that
the Habitual Boredom Scale and the Beck Depression Index were not highly
corelated. We believe that long term experiences of habitual boredom can, in
fact, transform into depression should the habitually bored people not be able
to maintain a passive sense of hope that protects them from the hopelessness of
depression. At some point, people stop believing that good things (e.g.,
winning the lottery) are going to happen to them and then they are faced with
the realization that a substanitalsubstantial portion of their lives has been
wasted by holding such beliefs.
Finally,
we feel the Habitual Boredom Scale (HBS) is a theoretically sound and
multidimensional scale that may in fact provide a strong measurement of
“perceived life boredom” (Tam et al., 2021). The Perceived Life Boredom scale
that the authors introduce is described by them as “unidimensional” and it contains
only “high face validity” items—three of the seven items use the word ‘boring’
(Tam et al., 2021, p. 834). These authors suggest
that perceived life boredom “seems to most closely characterize boredom
proneness” but our preliminary findings does not seem show that connection.
However, we do appreciate their conclusion that “perceiving life as boring to
some extent reflects perceiving life as meaningless, and hence, affects
well-being” (p. 841). Habitual boredom is an experience that tends to spread
from one aspect of life (e.g., work) to most, if not all, areas so that people
often end up claiming to be bored with life itself.
7. Limitations
The intent of our study
is to provide preliminary tests of the scale that is built upon theoretical
conceptualizations. Although the results are encouraging, they are not
conclusive. Samples of college students were used in our several tests. These
samples may limit the testing power for other populations. Also, some of the
reliability coefficients of the selected items are still below 0.70 which is
commonly accepted in the academic community. Finally, our sample size is small
which limits us to collect sufficient data to provide a full assessment of the
proposed scale with the structural equation modeling method. As noted, our
compromising analytical approach provides a preliminary test of the scale.
Further research is much needed.
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Appendix 1. Survey instrument of
habitual boredom
Please
read each statement carefully and evaluate whether it applies to you. If the
statement is generally true use a pencil to color in the circle marked “a” for
that question on the answer sheet. If the statement is generally not true color
in the circle marked “b” for that question on the answer sheet. Although some
questions might be difficult to fully evaluate positively or negatively, please
choose the true (a) or false (b) answer that fits more times than not. Please
do not leave any questions blank.
|
# |
y/n |
Question |
thm |
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 |
y y n y n y y y y y y n n n n y n y y n n n y y y y y n y n y n n n y |
I am frequently confused by
my own emotional reactions. I’m just a shadow of my
former self. I feel that my willpower is strong. I anticipate that many
activities will be dull, so I don’t bother with them. I’m proud of myself. I often feel disconnected
from my family and friends.
Right now, I’m waiting for
the pendulum to swing back in my direction. I believe it is better to be
lucky than to be good. I often avoid a problem
rather than confront it. I have ideas about “life
improvements” but they don’t get out of the idea stage. I’ve begun to think that
maybe I’m not made of the material I thought I was. I am pleased with the way my
life is progressing. I go after something I
want. As I have gotten older my
confidence has continued to grow. If you work hard, you will
get the things you want. My strengths no longer seem
so strong. So far, my life has been
time well spent. I have trouble “facing
myself in the mirror.” I know I have certain
abilities, but I’m trapped. I rarely feel like I have
“gotten in over my head.” I’m very enthusiastic about
my life right now. Most of the time I go to
sleep with a clear conscience.
I feel stuck and need
someone to help free me. At important times I have
been ashamed to ask for help. I’m more of a dreamer than a
do-er. Someday, someone is going to
discover me. For many of my current
projects, I find myself going through the motions. I have a strong sense of who
I am. I frequently doubt my
abilities. I find most things I do to
be interesting. I often blame others when I
ought to blame myself. Once I get past this one
obstacle everything will fall into place.
I’m on my way to achieving
my potential. I feel that I have my life
on track. It is common for me to start
a project and then quickly lose interest in it. |
AM1 IC1 PH1 PA1 SH1 AM2 PH2 PH3 PA2 PA3 AM3 SH2 PA4 SH3 PH4 IC2 SH4 SH5 AM4 AM5 IC3 IC4 PH5 SH6 PA5 PH6 PA6 IC5 SH7 IC6 AM6 PH7 IC7 AM7 PA7 |