Boredom, Performance & Health

Most people are bored sometimes, and the stereotype of a bored person is one of lethargy and amotivation. In stark contrast to this, world-class cyclist Mathieu van der Poel has been quoted with lining up to a bike race precisely because he was bored (Long, 2022). This begs the question of what being bored actually means, what it does, and whether it matters. In recent years, a growing body of research has addressed these questions. From this work, it has become clear that boredom plays a crucial role for performance and health. In fact, boredom can have drastic consequences in each domain. To illustrate this with a case most readers are familiar with, take the example of a long monotonous car drive: Being bored while driving not only impairs performance but also poses a threat to one's health, as it has been associated with higher rates of accidents on the road (Park, 2011). Importantly, boredom is not only relevant for performance and health as a transient state (the bored driver who gets injured in the crash), but also as a more stable trait (a person who is frequently bored and referred to as being boredom prone; Tam et al., 2021). The recent surge of interest in boredom notwithstanding, boredom research is still in its infancy, and more research is needed. With this Editorial, we want to further facilitate boredom research with respect to performance enhancement and health.