How do you cope with boredom? : common strategies for dealing with a negative emotion

Abstract

The goal of this study is to explore different strategies of coping with boredom. A questionnaire was developed targeting two dimensions of coping that can be assumed to be relevant to boredom, namely approach- versus avoidance-orientated coping and cognitive versus behavioral-orientated coping. Given to a sample of 979 students, the structure of the coping with boredom scales could be verified by confirmatory factor analysis. In a second step, 3 different boredom-coping groups were identified by latent profile analysis. In a third step, differences of these groups in their emotions, cognitions, and academic achievement were analyzed. Students who used cognitive-approach coping strategies were less frequently bored, experienced more positive emotions and cognitions and performed better than behavioral-avoidance-orientated students.