On the relation of boredom and sadistic aggression.

Pfattheicher, Stefan; Lazarević, Ljiljana B.; Westgate, Erin C.; Schindler, Simon

doi:10.1037/pspi0000335

Cited by 84 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 136 publications

(248 reference statements)

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“…Individuals who do not respond adaptively to this signal (e.g., individuals low in self-control; Isacescu Danckert 2018 ), also tend to be high in boredom proneness (Danckert et al 2018 ; Isacescu et al 2017 ). Previous studies show that individuals try to avoid the aversive experience of boredom, even by seeking negative experiences (Bench Lench 2019 ) or sadistic behaviors (e.g., killing worms; Pfattheicher et al 2020 ). In support for this notion, the analysis in Study 2a (replicated in Study 2b), shows that people high in boredom proneness may regulate in-the-moment feelings of boredom by alternating between choices.…”

Section: Study 3—decision Making and Feedback Sensitivity In The Iowamentioning

confidence: 99%

Boredom proneness is associated with noisy decision-making, not risk-taking

Yakobi

Danckert

2021

Exp Brain Res

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Previous research shows that individuals who tend to get bored frequently and intensely—the highly boredom prone—are more likely to engage in risky behaviors. However, these studies are based largely on self-reports. Here we address this gap and suggest that noisy decision-making (DM) is a potential driver for this relationship between boredom proneness and risk-taking. In Study 1, eighty-six participants completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) while EEG was recorded. We found blunted feedback processing with higher boredom proneness, as indexed by reduced feedback-P3 amplitudes. Risk taking, as indexed by the BART, was not higher in the highly boredom prone. In Study 2a ( N = 404) we directly tested the noisy DM hypothesis in an online sample using a binary choice task, and found that with higher boredom proneness, participants were more likely to alternate between choices on a trial-to-trial basis, but were not more likely to choose the risky alternative. These findings were replicated in a new sample (Study 2b), and extended to the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Study 3). In the IGT we found increased choice switching and reduced feedback sensitivity with higher boredom proneness. Once again, higher risk taking as indexed by the IGT was not evident in the highly boredom prone. Overall, our findings suggest that boredom proneness is associated with noisy decision-making (i.e., a tendency to alternate more between choice options regardless of risk level), and not risk-seeking per se. That is, the highly boredom prone are not necessarily attracted to risks, but rather, may be insensitive to risks due to reduced feedback sensitivity.

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Section: Study 3—decision Making and Feedback Sensitivity In The Iowamentioning

confidence: 99%

Boredom proneness is associated with noisy decision-making, not risk-taking

Yakobi

Danckert

2021

Exp Brain Res

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“…When asked later in court, he explained simply: he was "bored" (Ferguson and McLean 2019). Although boredom has been associated with prosocial behavior (e.g., van Tilburg and Igou 2017), it has also been associated with a wide array of morally questionable and disturbing outcomes, including self-harm (Nederkoorn et al 2016), reckless driving (Steinberger et al 2017), and sadism (Pfattheicher et al 2020).…”

Section: From Electric Shocks To the Electoral College: How Boredom Smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We examined actual prosocial behavior while simultaneously inducing boredom (Pfattheicher et al 2020) by randomly assigning 634 participants to watch either a 5-minute video of magic tricks (control) or a 5-minute video of a rock (boredom condition). During the video participants could press up to ten available buttons: five buttons boosted the pay of another yoked participant in 10-cent increments and the other five buttons docked their pay in 10-cent increments.…”

Section: Boredom Motivates (Im)moral Behavior Much Research Has Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perhaps the clearest evidence for the moral implications of boredom stems from work on interpersonal cruelty, aggression, and sadism. Alarmingly, boredom in life is correlated with higher sadistic tendencies (r = .37; Pfattheicher et al 2020). Internet trolls report higher boredom proneness, soldiers who experience more boredom during military service report behaving more sadistically towards their colleagues, and parents who experience more boredom during childcare report behaving more sadistically towards their own children.…”

Section: Boredom Motivates (Im)moral Behavior Much Research Has Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We predict boredom will only increase antisocial behavior when prosocial options are unavailable. For instance, Pfattheicher et al (2020) find that boredom increases antisocial behavior. However, when given a choice between pressing a button to dock other participants' pay or pressing a button to boost their pay by the same amount, people are overwhelmingly prosocial (Pfattheicher et al 2020).…”

Section: Good Choices Require Good Optionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

From electric shocks to the electoral college: How boredom steers moral behavior

Yucel¹,

Ec²

2021

Preprint

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We all experience boredom, from being stuck in airport security lines to reading poorly written book chapters. But what is boredom, why do we experience it, and what happens when we do? We suggest a new take on this everyday emotional experience, as an important and potentially useful cue that we’re not cognitively engaged in meaningful experiences. According to the Meaning and Attentional Components (MAC) model of boredom, people feel bored when they can’t successfully engage their attention in meaningful activities. Boredom can be painful, but it gives us important feedback about our lives, by signaling a lack of meaningful attentional engagement. In short, boredom tells us whether we want to and are able to focus on what we are doing or thinking, and steers us towards behaviors that ensure that we do. Across a broad range of situations, attention and meaning independently predict boredom, are not highly correlated, and do not interact. But more importantly, attention and meaning deficits result in different types of boredom with different downstream consequences for how people behave. For instance, being bored because what you’re doing lacks meaning feels different and has different consequences than being bored because you can’t pay attention, in part because they signal different problems. Likewise, boredom can result when something is too easy or too hard, because both make it hard to pay attention. All of these different causes of boredom matter, we argue, because they result in different types of boredom with different downstream consequences. Why we are bored shapes what we want to do next, and helps explain why bored people make often puzzling decisions, such as choosing to self-administer painful electric shocks or turning to political extremism. In short, like pain, boredom may be unpleasant but it plays an important role in alerting us when we either don’t want to (or are unable to) pay attention to what we’re doing, and motivating us to change our behavior to restore attention and meaning to our lives, for good or for ill.

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Evolutionarily relevant aggressive functions: Differentiating competitive, impression management, sadistic and reactive motives

Dane

Lapierre

Andrews

et al. 2022

Aggressive Behavior

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This study investigated early adolescents' (ages 9–14; M = 11.91) self‐reported, evolutionarily relevant motives for using aggression, including competitive, impression management, sadistic, and reactive functions, and examined differential relations with a range of psychosocial characteristics. As expected, competitive functions were associated with aggression and victimization in which the perpetrator had equal or less power than the victim, in line with the view that these are aversive and appetitive motives related to competition with rivals. Impression management and sadistic functions were associated with bullying and coercive resource control strategies (the latter for boys only), consistent with expectations that these are appetitive motives, with the former being more goal‐directed and the latter somewhat more impulsive. Finally, as hypothesized, reactive functions were associated with emotional symptoms, hostility, victimization by bullying, and aggression by perpetrators with equal or less power than the victim, consistent with theory and research conceptualizing reactive aggression as an impulsive, emotion‐driven response to provocation. The benefits of studying a wide range of evolutionarily relevant aggressive functions are discussed.

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On the relation of boredom and sadistic aggression.

Cited by 84 publications

References 136 publications

Boredom proneness is associated with noisy decision-making, not risk-taking

Boredom proneness is associated with noisy decision-making, not risk-taking

From electric shocks to the electoral college: How boredom steers moral behavior

Evolutionarily relevant aggressive functions: Differentiating competitive, impression management, sadistic and reactive motives

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