Preventing boredom with gratitude: The role of meaning in life

IF 1.7 3区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL

Motivation and Emotion Pub Date : 2023-12-17 DOI:10.1007/s11031-023-10048-9

Muireann K. O’Dea, Eric R. Igou, Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Boredom signals a lack of meaning. Gratitude promotes feelings of meaning in life. We proposed accordingly that gratitude, by engendering meaning, shields against boredom. Specifically, we hypothesized that gratitude prevents boredom by increasing perceptions of meaning in life. We tested this hypothesis in five studies (N = 954). Study 1 revealed that grateful people are less prone to boredom. Studies 2a and 2b demonstrated that grateful people are less prone to boredom, and this relationship is statistically mediated by elevated meaning in life. Study 3 found that dispositional gratitude also predicted less state boredom in response to a behavioural task, via heightened perceptions of meaning in life. In Study 4, experimentally induced gratitude reduced boredom through increased perceptions of meaning in life. The findings demonstrate gratitude’s role in effectively reducing and preventing boredom by boosting the feeling that life is meaningful.

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用感恩之心防止无聊生命意义的作用

无聊是缺乏意义的信号。而感恩则能让人感受到生活的意义。我们据此提出，感恩通过产生意义来抵御无聊。具体来说，我们假设，感恩能增强人们对生活意义的感知，从而防止无聊。我们通过五项研究（N = 954）验证了这一假设。研究 1 表明，懂得感恩的人不容易感到无聊。研究 2a 和 2b 表明，懂得感恩的人不容易感到无聊，而这种关系在统计学上是由生活意义的提升所中介的。研究 3 发现，通过提高对生活意义的感知，性格上的感恩也能预示人们在应对行为任务时较少出现无聊状态。在研究 4 中，实验诱导的感激之情通过增加对生活意义的感知而减少了无聊感。这些研究结果表明，感恩能增强人们对生活意义的感受，从而有效减少和预防无聊感。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Motivation and Emotion Multiple-

CiteScore

5.40

自引率

4.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Motivation and Emotion publishes articles on human motivational and emotional phenomena that make theoretical advances by linking empirical findings to underlying processes. Submissions should focus on key problems in motivation and emotion, and, if using non-human participants, should contribute to theories concerning human behavior. Articles should be explanatory rather than merely descriptive, providing the data necessary to understand the origins of motivation and emotion, to explicate why, how, and under what conditions motivational and emotional states change, and to document that these processes are important to human functioning.A range of methodological approaches are welcome, with methodological rigor as the key criterion. Manuscripts that rely exclusively on self-report data are appropriate, but published articles tend to be those that rely on objective measures (e.g., behavioral observations, psychophysiological responses, reaction times, brain activity, and performance or achievement indicators) either singly or combination with self-report data.The journal generally does not publish scale development and validation articles. However, it is open to articles that focus on the post-validation contribution that a new measure can make. Scale development and validation work therefore may be submitted if it is used as a necessary prerequisite to follow-up studies that demonstrate the importance of the new scale in making a theoretical advance.