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Andrew B. Moynihan
Department of Psychology, University of Limerick, Limerick, Republic of Ireland V94 T9PX

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Review
Published: 15 December 2020 in European Review of Social Psychology
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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.

ACS Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Eric R. Igou; Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg. Existential escape of the bored: A review of meaning-regulation processes under boredom. European Review of Social Psychology 2020, 32, 161 -200.

AMA Style

Andrew B. Moynihan, Eric R. Igou, Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg. Existential escape of the bored: A review of meaning-regulation processes under boredom. European Review of Social Psychology. 2020; 32 (1):161-200.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Eric R. Igou; Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg. 2020. "Existential escape of the bored: A review of meaning-regulation processes under boredom." European Review of Social Psychology 32, no. 1: 161-200.

Journal article
Published: 21 August 2020 in Personality and Individual Differences
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We investigated the relationships between boredom susceptibility, perceived meaninglessness, and attitudes to sex among heterosexual and bisexual men. We propose that meaninglessness is associated with men's increased endorsement of sensational and uncommitted sex via boredom susceptibility. In Study 1, we found a significant indirect relationship consistent with our hypothesis. In Study 2, we replicated this finding in a larger sample. Further, we showed that using sex as a coping mechanism to deal with unpleasant affective states explained the relationship between boredom susceptibility and our sex composite. Specifically, meaninglessness in life was associated with increased boredom susceptibility. In turn, boredom susceptibility was associated with the use of sex as a coping mechanism, which ultimately was associated with increased endorsement of sexual sensation seeking and promiscuous attitudes. We discuss these findings in light of research on sexuality, boredom, and meaninglessness.

ACS Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Eric R. Igou; Wijnand A.P. van Tilburg. Bored stiff: The relationship between meaninglessness, sexual sensation seeking, and promiscuous attitudes via boredom susceptibility. Personality and Individual Differences 2020, 168, 110295 .

AMA Style

Andrew B. Moynihan, Eric R. Igou, Wijnand A.P. van Tilburg. Bored stiff: The relationship between meaninglessness, sexual sensation seeking, and promiscuous attitudes via boredom susceptibility. Personality and Individual Differences. 2020; 168 ():110295.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Eric R. Igou; Wijnand A.P. van Tilburg. 2020. "Bored stiff: The relationship between meaninglessness, sexual sensation seeking, and promiscuous attitudes via boredom susceptibility." Personality and Individual Differences 168, no. : 110295.

Journal article
Published: 04 June 2020 in Sustainability
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Values are important antecedents of how people view themselves, known as self-identities. Self-identities differ in their content and the importance that people attach to them. In turn, important self-identities promote attitudes that are compatible with a sense of who one is. This paper builds on existing work that highlights that self-identities explained the relationship between values and environmental judgments. This study incorporates a broader range of values (i.e., conservatism, openness to change, self-transcendence, self-enhancement) and self-identities (i.e., environmental, economic, political) and tests how they are related to acceptability of four geoengineering technologies. Whilst support was found for the overall model, the results also show that technology acceptability is context dependent. That is, which specific values and self-identities explain acceptability judgements depends on the specific technology that is evaluated. In general, an environmental self-identity related more to geothermal energy, an economic self-identity was most relevant to geotechnical engineering, and a political self-identity to nuclear power. Each self-identity seemed relevant to mining. This research contributes to the literature by applying this framework to acceptability of geoengineering technologies and discusses practical implications.

ACS Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Geertje Schuitema. Values Influence Public Acceptability of Geoengineering Technologies Via Self-Identities. Sustainability 2020, 12, 4591 .

AMA Style

Andrew B. Moynihan, Geertje Schuitema. Values Influence Public Acceptability of Geoengineering Technologies Via Self-Identities. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (11):4591.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Geertje Schuitema. 2020. "Values Influence Public Acceptability of Geoengineering Technologies Via Self-Identities." Sustainability 12, no. 11: 4591.

Research article
Published: 13 June 2018 in European Journal of Social Psychology
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Belief in free will is founded on the idea that people are responsible for their behavior. People who believe in free will derive meaning in life from these beliefs. Conformity refers to succumbing to external pressures and imitating others’ behaviors. Sometimes, conformity involves a loss of self‐awareness, which reduces perceived meaninglessness. We tested if disbelief in free will increases perceived meaninglessness and if people subsequently become more conformist to address this negative existential perception. We conducted three studies to test this hypothesis. In Study 1, experimentally induced disbelief in free will resulted in perceived meaninglessness. In Study 2, perceived meaninglessness correlated with conformity. Finally, in Study 3, perceived meaninglessness mediated the relationship between disbelief in free will and conformity, especially under high self‐awareness. We conclude that perceptions about meaning play a central role in the relationship between disbelief in free will and conformity. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

ACS Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Eric R. Igou; Wijnand A. P. Van Tilburg. Lost in the crowd: Conformity as escape following disbelief in free will. European Journal of Social Psychology 2018, 49, 503 -520.

AMA Style

Andrew B. Moynihan, Eric R. Igou, Wijnand A. P. Van Tilburg. Lost in the crowd: Conformity as escape following disbelief in free will. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2018; 49 (3):503-520.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Eric R. Igou; Wijnand A. P. Van Tilburg. 2018. "Lost in the crowd: Conformity as escape following disbelief in free will." European Journal of Social Psychology 49, no. 3: 503-520.

Journal article
Published: 01 September 2017 in Social Psychology
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High (vs. low) levels of boredom are associated with greater (vs. lesser) impulsiveness. It is important to examine the psychological processes that link boredom and impulsiveness to understand this relationship. We propose that heightened impulsiveness in response to boredom partly stems from people’s attempts to deal with meaninglessness when bored. In Studies 1–2, we found that perceived meaninglessness, characteristic of boredom, mediated the relationship between boredom and impulsiveness. In Study 3, we additionally hypothesized that self-awareness serves as a catalyst of boredom-induced impulsiveness by highlighting meaninglessness. Accordingly, Study 3 showed that manipulated boredom promoted impulsiveness through meaninglessness, particularly at greater levels of self-awareness. These studies support our hypothesis that impulsiveness is a response to boredom and the meaninglessness that boredom signals.

ACS Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Eric R. Igou; Wijnand Van Tilburg. Boredom Increases Impulsiveness. Social Psychology 2017, 48, 293 -309.

AMA Style

Andrew B. Moynihan, Eric R. Igou, Wijnand Van Tilburg. Boredom Increases Impulsiveness. Social Psychology. 2017; 48 (5):293-309.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Eric R. Igou; Wijnand Van Tilburg. 2017. "Boredom Increases Impulsiveness." Social Psychology 48, no. 5: 293-309.

Journal article
Published: 01 March 2017 in Personality and Individual Differences
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Previous research suggests that belief in free will helps to inhibit anti-social impulses. As a result, belief in free will enables the creation of and participation in society. Consistently, we propose that belief in free will is associated with a sense of belongingness. As previous research indicates that belongingness is a source of meaning in life, we predicted that belief in free will in turn facilitates increased meaningfulness via feelings of belongingness. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two preliminary, small-scale studies and a large-scale study using individual difference data. As expected, in Study 1, the positive association between free will beliefs and meaningfulness was mediated by feelings of belongingness. In Study 2, this effect emerged using alternative measures of free will belief and belongingness, adding to the findings' reliability and validity. In Study 3, these effects were again replicated with a large sample of participants using separate and composite measures of free will belief and belongingness. Finally, we conducted multiple group comparisons and meta-analyses. These confirmed that the proposed correlations and indirect effects were significant and consistent across studies. Our findings provide important understandings of the functions and consequences of free will beliefs.

ACS Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Eric R. Igou; Wijnand Van Tilburg. Free, connected, and meaningful: Free will beliefs promote meaningfulness through belongingness. Personality and Individual Differences 2017, 107, 54 -65.

AMA Style

Andrew B. Moynihan, Eric R. Igou, Wijnand Van Tilburg. Free, connected, and meaningful: Free will beliefs promote meaningfulness through belongingness. Personality and Individual Differences. 2017; 107 ():54-65.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Andrew B. Moynihan; Eric R. Igou; Wijnand Van Tilburg. 2017. "Free, connected, and meaningful: Free will beliefs promote meaningfulness through belongingness." Personality and Individual Differences 107, no. : 54-65.

Original research article
Published: 01 April 2015 in Frontiers in Psychology
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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, sugar, 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.

ACS Style

Andrew Bryan Moynihan; Wijnand Van Tilburg; Eric R. Igou; Arnaud Ewisman; Alan Donnelly; Jessie B. Mulcaire. Eaten up by boredom: consuming food to escape awareness of the bored self. Frontiers in Psychology 2015, 6, 369 .

AMA Style

Andrew Bryan Moynihan, Wijnand Van Tilburg, Eric R. Igou, Arnaud Ewisman, Alan Donnelly, Jessie B. Mulcaire. Eaten up by boredom: consuming food to escape awareness of the bored self. Frontiers in Psychology. 2015; 6 ():369.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Andrew Bryan Moynihan; Wijnand Van Tilburg; Eric R. Igou; Arnaud Ewisman; Alan Donnelly; Jessie B. Mulcaire. 2015. "Eaten up by boredom: consuming food to escape awareness of the bored self." Frontiers in Psychology 6, no. : 369.