I can’t get no satisfaction: Potential causes of boredom

A variety of causes of boredom have been proposed including environmental, motivational, emotional, and cognitive factors. Here, we explore four potential cognitive causes of boredom: inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and executive dysfunction. Specifically, we examine the unique and common associations between these factors and boredom propensity. Recent research has established that the two most commonly used measures of boredom propensity (BPS and BSS) are not measuring the same underlying construct. Thus, a second goal of the present project is to determine the unique and common roles of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity and poor executive system functioning in predicting the BPS and BSS specifically. The findings reveal that inattention, hyperactivity and executive dysfunction predict boredom propensity, with shared variance accounting for the greater part of this effect. Further, executive dysfunction and hyperactivity uniquely predict boredom propensity as measured by the BPS and BSS, respectively.