ABSTRACT

Self-control does not always work effectively. Whether this reflects the depletion of a global self-control resource is subject to an ongoing debate. We turned to boredom as a potential confounding variable to advance this debate. In a high-powered experiment (N = 719), participants worked on a primary (transcription) task of varying self-control demands (low, high) and length (2, 4, 8 min), followed by a secondary (Stroop) task with low and high self-control demanding trials. In addition to trait boredom, we measured effort, difficulty, tiredness, frustration, and boredom after the primary task and repeatedly during the secondary task. Effort, difficulty, tiredness, and frustration increased with the demand and duration of the primary task; however, without affecting performance in the secondary task. Importantly, participants rated both the primary and the secondary task as boring, and higher boredom at the state and the trait level was associated with lower effort and higher difficulty, tiredness, and frustration. During the secondary task, boredom increased steadily but was generally lower in more self-control demanding trials. Finally, boredom predicted performance in the secondary task. These results show an intricate relationship between self-control and boredom that research on these two constructs should carefully disentangle.

摘要

自我控制并不总是有效的。这是否反映了全球自我控制资源的枯竭，仍有待讨论。我们将无聊视为推进这场辩论的潜在混淆变量。在高功率实验中（N = 719)，参与者完成了具有不同自我控制要求（低、高）和长度（2、4、8 分钟）的主要（转录）任务，然后是具有低和高自我控制的次要（Stroop）任务苛刻的试验。除了特质无聊之外，我们还在主要任务之后和次要任务期间反复测量了努力、困难、疲倦、沮丧和无聊。努力、困难、疲倦和挫败感随着主要任务的需求和持续时间的增加而增加；但是，不会影响次要任务的性能。重要的是，参与者将主要和次要任务都评为无聊，状态和特质水平上的无聊程度越高，努力程度越高，难度越大、疲倦和沮丧程度越高。在次要任务中，厌倦感稳步上升，但在要求更高的自我控制试验中普遍较低。最后，无聊会预测次要任务的表现。这些结果表明自我控制和无聊之间存在错综复杂的关系，对这两种结构的研究应该仔细解开。