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Background: There is increasing recognition of the clinical significance of boredom associated with functional impairments in schizophrenia. Previous work has highlighted the importance of motivational deficits more broadly, although no study has yet explored the unique effects of boredom on community outcomes., Aims: This study aims to measure boredom proneness among outpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia to determine whether it is elevated in this population and to determine its relation to quality-of-life outcomes., Methods: A self-report measure of boredom proneness along with standard measures of symptoms and functional status was administered to a community-dwelling sample of schizophrenia outpatients., Results: Boredom proneness was found to be elevated in this population and was associated with reduced quality of life, specifically with leisure activity dissatisfaction and reduced sense of financial well-being. Negative symptoms were determined to be associated with reduced work and school functioning., Conclusion: This pattern of unique effects on quality of life highlights the clinical relevance of identifying a subjective state of boredom and has theoretical importance in distinguishing boredom proneness specifically from more general avolitional and amotivational conditions that have tended to be the focus of clinical observation and previous research., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

A variety of causes of boredom have been proposed including environmental, motivational, emotional, and cognitive factors. Here, we explore four potential cognitive causes of boredom: inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and executive dysfunction. Specifically, we examine the unique and common associations between these factors and boredom propensity. Recent research has established that the two most commonly used measures of boredom propensity (BPS and BSS) are not measuring the same underlying construct. Thus, a second goal of the present project is to determine the unique and common roles of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity and poor executive system functioning in predicting the BPS and BSS specifically. The findings reveal that inattention, hyperactivity and executive dysfunction predict boredom propensity, with shared variance accounting for the greater part of this effect. Further, executive dysfunction and hyperactivity uniquely predict boredom propensity as measured by the BPS and BSS, respectively., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)