Doing the Research seriesTracking the Feeling of Boredom

19 August 2024, by Anna Priebe

Photo: Pexels / Ivan Samkov

Boredom has a bad rap, and we try our best to avoid it. It plays a key role when it comes to motivation, decisions, and performance. The sports psychologist Prof. Dr. Wanja Wolff and his team examine the basic characteristics of boredom.

Your work is about the dynamics of human performance regulation. What does that mean?

Performance is not just an final result, such as a good grade or a 10-kilometer personal best, but a process at the end of which there is a result. We are interested in how people regulate this process. Above all, we want to understand how basic human sentiments affect this process and what function they have. For example, how does boredom or exertion influence whether we run faster or slower or even stop. Boredom does not necessarily develop in a linear fashion but is dynamic and fleeting; it comes suddenly and can disappear again. This is why we also look closely at physiological and neuroscientific signals.

Initially, we don’t tend to connect boredom with performance. Do we have an accurate understanding?

In fact, our understanding of boredom is often inadequate. This is partly because we have long ignored it in research, which is actually strange considering that philosophy identified it as an apparently major problem for humanity thousands of years ago.

A common definition of boredom sees it as a signal that we are using our physical or mental resources inadequately in some way. It suggests that we should be doing something else and is therefore a powerful motivator that prompts us to seek more rewarding behavioral alternatives. On the internet, there are—for example—a multitude of tips on how people can make jogging or going to the gym less boring. In practice, we know about the importance of the sensation; however, there are only a few reliable studies on the dynamics of boredom and performance quality.

But does that also mean that boredom cannot be equated with doing nothing?

No, not at all. Many people say they wish they could be bored, but they have too much to do. But are there really no tasks in your job that you find boring? People do not appreciate the fact that you can be completely busy and be bored out of your mind.

Of course, boredom and doing nothing can of course occur together, but boredom also arises during an activity as soon as the brain signals that the activity is no longer perceived as worthwhile. At the same time, doing nothing can be very satisfying. Boredom is defined as an aversive—that is, unpleasant—state and people go to great lengths to avoid it.

How do you construct boredom in the laboratory?

Experimental boredom is difficult to design, because you have to distinguish between the boring task and the bored person. There was once an experimental setup in which test subjects had to watch a video of 2 men doing nothing but hanging laundry. However, such experimental setups are now used less frequently, because there is no guarantee that the participants will be bored, as they can use the time, for example, to make a shopping list or think about what they are going to cook in the evening. Then they don’t feel bored.

Therefore, it makes sense to set people tasks in which they are forced to participate and do not have the opportunity, for example, to daydream. Very demanding or monotonous tasks are ideal for this.

Incidentally, this is also the reason why boredom is often overlooked as a potential confounding variable in many behavioral experiments. The conditions are designed to measure exactly what they are supposed to measure, but they can also cause the test subjects to become bored. After viewing over 400 pictures, they run out of steam. In a study we are currently conducting, experienced test subjects actually report that they often behave differently in experiments due to boredom and that they believe this influences the results.

We want to illustrate the chaotic nature of boredom.

So what do your experiments look like?

Basically, we want to understand how perceived boredom changes over time and interacts with physical reactions. We want to map the nonlinear and chaotic nature of boredom. To do this, we have to develop appropriate tasks and carry out measurements.

Basically, we use questionnaires to capture the personality of the participants in advance, as the tendency to be bored is very individual. To induce boredom during physical activity, we put test subjects on an ergometer, for example, and had them cycle for 20 minutes at very low resistance. Then, we repeatedly asked them how they felt every few minutes.

The data showed that most of the participants found it more boring from minute to minute and also increasingly strenuous even though the resistance did not change. The people who were quickly bored according to the questionnaire immediately found the task more boring and worse. However, as soon as the task was changed and the ergometer was used to simulate a continuous incline, for example, boredom was significantly reduced.

In addition to the surveys, we measure and document physical changes. We are also interested in whether and when people stop or—in cognitive experiments—how people’s reaction and decision-making behavior changes.

What can you measure?

Our laboratory is still being set up. We are currently working with eye tracking, respiratory gas analysis, lactate tests to determine exertion, systems to measure skin conductivity as an indicator of stress, and devices to measure hand force. In the future, we also want to use near-infrared spectroscopy, to allow us to see local changes in blood flow in superficial areas of the brain.

Will this knowledge be used to put an end to boredom?

No, boredom is an extremely important sensation. Like pain, it is unpleasant; however, it also has an important protective function, because it helps us to react to potentially harmful environmental conditions. And boredom does its job well, because we avoid it wherever we can: we don’t want a boring job, a boring hobby, or boring relationships.

It’s more about teaching people to deal competently with boredom when it does occur. We don’t often learn that properly. Why am I bored, and which impulses to act am I currently experiencing? By answering that, you can react positively and, for example, change your surroundings, make them more pleasant, or self-reflect on why, for example, you are jogging and what benefits that entails.