"How to unlock myself from boredom?" The role of mindfulness and a dual awareness- and action-oriented pathway during the COVID-19 lockdown

Joachim Waterschoot; Jolene Van der Kaap-Deeder; Sofie Morbée; Bart Soenens; Maarten Vansteenkiste

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2021.110729

"How to unlock myself from boredom?" The role of mindfulness and a dual awareness- and action-oriented pathway during the COVID-19 lockdown

Pers Individ Dif. 2021 Jun:175:110729. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.110729. Epub 2021 Feb 9.

Authors

Joachim Waterschoot¹, Jolene Van der Kaap-Deeder², Sofie Morbée¹, Bart Soenens¹, Maarten Vansteenkiste¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
² Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.

Abstract

Although the COVID-19 crisis is a distressing situation entailing greater boredom and lower life satisfaction, there is considerably heterogeneity in people's reaction patterns. In a sample of 1455 participants (M _age = 50.70, 70% female), collected during the second lockdown in Belgium, we sought to examine an integrative process model, thereby distinguishing between an awareness- (i.e., decentering vs. ruminating) and an action-oriented (i.e., self-motivating strategies vs. lack of strategies) pathway to account for the association between dispositional mindfulness and participants' psychological functioning. In conjunction, both pathways were found to, respectively, partial and full account for the association between mindfulness and boredom and life satisfaction. The findings highlight, first, the importance of taking an observing stance towards negative experiences instead of being directly immersed in them. Second, congruent with the Self-Determination Theory, they suggest that not all self-motivating action strategies can be considered equal, as autonomy- and control-oriented self-motivating strategies to handle boredom episodes were differentiated related to boredom and life satisfaction.

Keywords: Boredom; COVID-19; Life satisfaction; Mindfulness; Motivational self-regulation; Self-determination theory.