Boredom Proneness Is Predicted by Difficulties in Emotion Regulation that Are Mediated by Corresponding Problems with Attention and Cognitive Flexibility

The association between boredom proneness and elevated rates of problematic substance abuse, gambling, and smartphone use has been taken as evidence that difficulties with emotion regulation can lead to maladaptive attempts to cope with negative affect. There is minimal research on how individual differences in emotion regulation may be linked to boredom proneness. We therefore sought to identify specific aspects of emotion regulation that may be helpful for predicting boredom proneness. We hypothesized that boredom proneness may be associated with aspects of emotion regulation that are often unproductive (e.g., suppression and rumination) or that rely on effective executive functions (e.g., attention, working memory, cognitive flexibility). Undergraduate students (N = 219) completed a battery of self-report scales regarding their boredom proneness, emotion-regulation abilities, and cognitive abilities, including attention, memory and cognitive flexibility. Results indicated that difficulties in emotion regulation predicted boredom proneness and was mediated by attentional difficulties and lower levels of cognitive flexibility, but not memory failures. Individual differences in emotion-suppression and rumination were predictive of boredom proneness, but the use of distraction was not. Our results underscore the importance of specific cognitive-affective mechanisms of emotion regulation to better understand boredom proneness and its long-term consequences.