TY - JOUR
T1 - Eaten up by boredom
T2 - Consuming food to escape awareness of the bored self
AU - Moynihan, Andrew B.
AU - van Tilburg, Wijnand A.P.
AU - Igou, Eric R.
AU - Wisman, Arnaud
AU - Donnelly, Alan E.
AU - Mulcaire, Jessie B.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Moynihan, van Tilburg, Igou, Wisman, Donnelly and Mulcaire.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Research indicates that being bored affectively marks an appraised lack of meaning in the present situation and in life. We propose that state boredom increases eating in an attempt to distract from this experience, especially among people high in objective self-awareness. Three studies were conducted to investigate boredom's effects on eating, both naturally occurring in a diary study and manipulated in two experiments. In Study 1, a week-long diary study showed that state boredom positively predicted calorie, fat, carbohydrate, and protein consumption. In Study 2, a high (vs. low) boredom task increased the desire to snack as opposed to eating something healthy, especially amongst those participants high in objective self-awareness. In addition, Study 3 demonstrated that among people high in objective self-awareness, high (vs. low) boredom increased the consumption of less healthy foods and the consumption of more exciting, healthy foods. However, this did not extend to unexciting, healthy food. Collectively, these novel findings signify the role of boredom in predicting maladaptive and adaptive eating behaviors as a function of the need to distant from the experience of boredom. Further, our results suggest that more exciting, healthy food serves as alternative to maladaptive consumption following boredom.
AB - Research indicates that being bored affectively marks an appraised lack of meaning in the present situation and in life. We propose that state boredom increases eating in an attempt to distract from this experience, especially among people high in objective self-awareness. Three studies were conducted to investigate boredom's effects on eating, both naturally occurring in a diary study and manipulated in two experiments. In Study 1, a week-long diary study showed that state boredom positively predicted calorie, fat, carbohydrate, and protein consumption. In Study 2, a high (vs. low) boredom task increased the desire to snack as opposed to eating something healthy, especially amongst those participants high in objective self-awareness. In addition, Study 3 demonstrated that among people high in objective self-awareness, high (vs. low) boredom increased the consumption of less healthy foods and the consumption of more exciting, healthy foods. However, this did not extend to unexciting, healthy food. Collectively, these novel findings signify the role of boredom in predicting maladaptive and adaptive eating behaviors as a function of the need to distant from the experience of boredom. Further, our results suggest that more exciting, healthy food serves as alternative to maladaptive consumption following boredom.
KW - Boredom
KW - Individual differences
KW - Meaning
KW - Self-awareness
KW - Sensation-seeking
KW - Unhealthy eating
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84930648137&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00369
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00369
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84930648137
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 6
SP - 369-
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
IS - APR
M1 - 369
ER -