Journal of Boredom Studies

No. 1 (2023)
Articles

The Habitual Boredom Scale: Preliminary Findings

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  • Richard Bargdill,
  • Lening Zhang
Richard Bargdill
Virginia Commonwealth University
Lening Zhang
Saint Francis University

Published 2023-02-06

Keywords

  • Habitual Boredom,
  • Situational Boredom,
  • Ambivalence,
  • Shame,
  • Passive hope,
  • Passive stance,
  • Identity confusion
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

Bargdill, R., & Zhang, L. (2023). The Habitual Boredom Scale: Preliminary Findings. Journal of Boredom Studies, (1). Retrieved from https://boredomsociety.com/jbs/index.php/journal/article/view/7

Copyright (c) 2023 Richard Bargdill, Lening Zhang

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This research presents the conceptualization of habitual boredom and the development of a scale for its measure. Bargdill suggests that habitually bored individuals experience five overlapping psychological themes: ambivalence, passive avoidance stance, passive hope, identity confusion and shame. The authors propose that situational boredom and habitual boredom are two different constructs. Other boredom scales have mixed the two constructs together during their development. This scale of habitual boredom has been developed in terms of the five themes and has been tested through several prior administrations. This paper reports the results of the latest test that reflects modification and refinement of the scale through previous tests. The data indicate that the scale with 35 items is fairly reliable. Each of the five themes measured by the scale is configured by seven items. The current iteration has included two face validity questions. Persons experiencing habitual boredom are at risk of serious psychological impacts since the changing situations does not seem to curb the effects of boredom.

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