A desire for desires: Boredom and its relation to alexithymia

Participants completed self-report scales of boredom, emotional awareness and external orientation. Structural equation modeling indicated that boredom, emotional awareness and external orientation are distinctly measurable but correlated – the bored individual is unaware of emotions and externally-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality and individual differences 2007-04, Vol.42 (6), p.1035-1045
Main Authors: Eastwood, John D., Cavaliere, Carolina, Fahlman, Shelley A., Eastwood, Adrienne E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Alexithymia
Biological and medical sciences
Boredom
Medical sciences
Miscellaneous
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
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Summary:Participants completed self-report scales of boredom, emotional awareness and external orientation. Structural equation modeling indicated that boredom, emotional awareness and external orientation are distinctly measurable but correlated – the bored individual is unaware of emotions and externally-oriented. Furthermore, although the bored person typically complains that the external world fails to engage them, the present findings suggest the underlying problem may be in the person’s inability to consciously access and understand their emotions. The present findings and accompanying literature review challenge the simplistic notion that boredom is never more than a trivial annoyance resulting from an under-stimulating environment.
ISSN:0191-8869
1873-3549
DOI:10.1016/j.paid.2006.08.027