Why boredom is interesting |
We may not enjoy it, but boredom gives us important feedback about our lives. It tells us whether we want to and are able to focus on what we're doing. According to the Meaning and Attentional Components (MAC) model of boredom, we feel bored when we can't successfully engage our attention in meaningful activities. Boredom is thus the result of (a) an attentional component, or mismatches between cognitive demands and available mental resources and (b) a meaning component, or mismatches between activities and valued goals (or the absence of valued goals altogether).
Read the original theory paper reporting the MAC model of boredom & cognitive engagement in Psychological Review. Or read musings on boredom across the lifespan in this newsletter piece for the International Max Planck Research School on the Life Course, and check out an art show inspired (in part) by our work. |
"Just thinking" isn't fun |
When we ask people to entertain themselves with their thoughts in an empty room, with no distractions, many people don’t enjoy it very much. Most people report enjoying external activities much more, and 67% of men - and 25% of women - will even choose to give themselves an electric shock rather than just think. To enjoy intentionally thinking for pleasure, people may need both the ability to think and the desire to to do it.
Read the original article in Science with Timothy D. Wilson, or coverage in The Atlantic or the New York Times. Or listen in at Science Friday. Or read our new paper in Advances explaining why people don't always enjoy their own thoughts - and what they need to succeed at it. |
Thinking for pleasure is hard |
Why don't people enjoy thinking? One reason may be that it's cognitively demanding. In an experience sampling study, we found that unintended reverie was less frequent but more positive and enjoyable than intentional reverie. Could this be because generating thoughts is hard? To find out, we conducted a series of lab studies, where we asked people to think for pleasure and reminded them of the thought topics they had chosen earlier. These reminders made it less difficult to concentrate and reduced mind-wandering. As a result, people enjoyed thinking more.
Read the original article about how to make thinking easier and more enjoyable, or coverage in UC Berkeley's Greater Good Magazine. |
Procrastination can be productive |
When people are bored, they often choose to do something else. Voila - procrastination! But is procrastinating always bad? Many students report productive procrastination, such as doing trivial homework instead of studying for an urgent upcoming test. We've found that their grades are just as good as non-procrastinators', and they have fewer alcohol problems than students who procrastinate in traditional ways.
Read the original paper about how procrastination can be a plus. |
Implicit cultural attitudes change over time |
I study cultural change over the past decade in implicit attitudes using big data from Project Implicit. Implicit attitudes towards lesbian and gay people became more positive from 2006-2013. We are in the process of designing and adding a new transgender IAT to Project Implicit in hopes of tracking cultural attitude change over the next decade. Read about it here!
Read the original article on implicit sexuality attitudes with Brian Nosek or coverage in Pacific Standard or the New York Times. Or read about how the 2014 Ebola outbreak affected societal attitudes. |