Boredom is a common, unpleasant emotion that conveys meaninglessness in life and compels people to escape from this adverse existential experience. Within the paradigm of social psychology frameworks, previous research found that bored people endorse cultural sources of meaning as compensation against this state (e.g., nostalgia, political ideologies). In recent years, another form of defence against meaning threats has been identified. An existential escape hypothesis relating to boredom claims that people seek to avoid meaninglessness when people encounter meaning threats such as boredom. By engaging in behaviours with low self-awareness, people counteract awareness of their bored and meaningless self. In this article, we review the current literature on boredom in light of such acts of existential escape. We also provide suggestions for future research to highlight under which circumstances people are more likely to engage in existential escape and identify phenomena that need to be tested within the escape process.
History
Publication
European Review of Social Psychology; 32 (1), pp. 161-200
Publisher
Taylor and Francis
Note
peer-reviewed
Rights
This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in the European Review of Social Psychology 2021 copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2020.1829347