Can a search for meaning explain the flood of quarantine projects?

Boredom was omnipresent during the first few months of lockdown. This led to a deluge of quarantine projects and social media sites were filled with photos and videos of successfully completed projects. Not to mention challenges, trends, streaming, tagging games, so on and so forth.  Here, we’ll try to understand if this burst in activity was driven by a need to find meaning.

How are boredom and search for meaning related?

Boredom is a universal human experience. Psychologists define it in many ways, and it affects humans in multiple areas such as their thoughts, actions and behaviours, motivations, etc (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012). And Raffaelli, Mills and Christoff (2018) state that boredom with the current situation leads to feelings of agitation, being unchallenged and meaninglessness.

But first, what exactly does a person experience when they feel bored? Van Tilburg and Igou (2012) conducted a study with one hundred and six undergraduates where they compared past experiences of boredom with three other negative affect* states: sadness, anger and frustration. Also under study were the typical contexts of boredom experiences that participants recalled.

The following illustration depicts the findings from their study:

Picture illustrating the four findings of Van Tilburg and Igou’s study: (1) boredom experiences involve a sense of restlessness and lack of challenge; and (2) thinking that the situation has no purpose. (3) This motivates a desire to act in “differe…

Picture illustrating the four findings of Van Tilburg and Igou’s study: (1) boredom experiences involve a sense of restlessness and lack of challenge; and (2) thinking that the situation has no purpose. (3) This motivates a desire to act in “different and purposeful ways”; (4) which leads to search for activities that are meaningful. Illustration by Roshni Ranganathan

The authors concluded that these aspects, especially its relation to meaning, differentiate boredom from other negative affect states. The contexts that participants recalled varied among participants. Some participants recalled boring lectures, or times when they were alone, or when they had nothing to do.

Sounds familiar?

Keeping these findings in mind, let us explore the connection between meaning and boredom. There’s a rich literary and existential tradition that links meaning with boredom. A lack of meaning and purpose is associated with boredom (Fahlman, Kimberley, Gaskovski, Eastwood, & Eastwood, 2009).

Frankl (1962) called the feeling of meaninglessness an ‘existential vacuum’ and one of the primary symptoms is boredom. Maddi (1967) states that with the exception of boredom, existential sickness (“a settled, continuous state of meaninglessness, apathy, and aimlessness”) is characterized by an absence of either positive or negative affect.

Fahlman et.al (2009) conducted a study where they measured boredom, life meaning and negative affects like depression and anxiety to see if these variables were related yet significantly distinct from each other. Mirroring Van Tiburg and Igou’s (2012) findings, they found that boredom is distinct from negative affect, and also from life meaning. So, meaning and boredom are distinct constructs. Based on these findings, they conducted another study where they explored the relationship between meaning and boredom.

They hypothesized “meaning” as a causal variable* would predict boredom across time. Their second hypothesis was that boredom and other negative affects would not predict “meaning”. This second hypothesis was constructed to show that meaning has a causal effect on boredom. Regression Analyses* were conducted and they found that life meaning did predict boredom levels across time, but also, interestingly, boredom also predicts levels of meaning. They concluded that meaning and boredom have a “bi-directional causal relationship”.

So, can this relationship between meaning and boredom explain the flood of quarantine projects?

Take into consideration Raffaelli, Mills, & Christoff’s (2018) statement that boredom with the current situation spurs a person to behave in ways that reduce boredom and help find meaning. Also, Fisher (1998) refers to Klinger’s conceptualisation of current concerns which state that goals give meaning to life and current concerns are goals that an individual has presently adopted. Furthermore, Petrou, Bakker and Heuvel (2017)  talk about ‘leisure crafting’ which they define as “proactive pursuit of leisure activities targeted at goal setting, human connection, learning, and personal development” and consider it as a way to make meaning.

Especially in the first few weeks of lockdown, when various institutions were still putting in place the infrastructure for work and learning, and there was free time, quarantine projects perhaps helped ward off boredom and even find meaning, or vice-versa.

Baumeister (1991), concluded that there were four aspects to meaning and satisfying all of them generally led to the feeling that life was meaningful. These four aspects are:

a)     need for purpose: There are two types of purpose. One is goals which involve objective states (completion of something, earning money, etc.) and the other is fulfilment which involves subjective states (happiness, pride, etc.)

b)    need for value and justification: having a criteria for right and wrong that is used to interpret events and make choices that one feels are moral

c)     need for efficacy: this need requires a sense of autonomy and control because it is associated with the belief that one does have an impact on external events and that one can bring about desired outcomes

d)    need for self worth: “positive affirmation of the self” leads to feelings of self-worth. This generally occurs when one feels superior to others on the basis of “membership to an elite group” or on the basis of personal characteristics and accomplishment.

 All of these can be associated with the general flavour of things that people undertook as projects. Van Tilburg mentioned that boredom acts as a “signal that makes people very aware that in their current situation there is a lack of purpose” (Mann, 2020). In the same article, Mann mentions how ‘quick-fixes’ are temporarily satisfying as making big changes requires time, effort and patience. Educating oneself, creating something, making memes, etc, all of them probably provided comfort to individuals at some point. 

Boredom Proneness, Individual Differences and Situational Factors

Some are more vulnerable to the feeling of boredom than others. Van Tilburg and Igou (2012) found that people who are more prone to boredom because of their disposition are more likely to have the distinct experiences that make up boredom. Raffaelli, Mills and Christoff (2018) systematically mention the different correlates of boredom such as attention, the perception of psychological time (subjective experience of passage of time), a sense of agency, fatigue, mood, etc. All of these can influence boredom. So, in a sense, the contexts and experiences of boredom are different for everyone.

Furthermore, as Coco Khan (2020) said, not everything should be judged by how productive or unproductive it was. This article doesn’t hold up productivity as the most appropriate response because people’s situations differ and a host of other factors might not make productivity possible. Also, it is necessary to acknowledge that people have their own subjective reasons for their behaviour and actions. Maybe some people engaged in activities to find meaning and maybe others did it for the sake of it, and maybe others just didn’t want to do anything. And it is possible to find meaning outside the context of 'productivity'.

Lastly, pandemic and lockdown are a collectively stressful situation and the way it is experienced differs for everyone. This is just one narrative out of many narratives that seeks to understand people’s behaviours during lockdown. 

What are your thoughts on this?

 
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KEY TERMS

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NEGATIVE AFFECT

In psychology, affect is the experience of feelings and emotions. Thus, negative affect is the experience of negative emotions such as anger, depression, sadness, etc.

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CAUSAL VARIABLE

A variable that influences another variable

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REGRESSION ANALYSIS

As defined by APA Dictionary of Psychology, it is a statistical method used to “describe, explain, or predict (or all three) the variance of an outcome or dependent variable.”

 
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References

Baumeister, R. (1991). Meanings of Life. New York: Guildford.

Fahlman, S. A., Kimberley, M. B., Gaskovski, P., Eastwood, A. E., & Eastwood, J. D. (2009). Does a lack of life meaning cause boredom? Results from psychometric, longitudinal, and experimental analyses. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 307-340.

Fisher, C. D. (1998). Effects of external and internal interruptions on boredom at work: Two studies. Journal of Organizational Behaviour, 503-522.

Frankl, V. (1962). Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. New York: Pocket Books.

Khan, C. (2020, May 22). Lockdown boredom has not sparked my creativity - and I'm fine with that. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/may/22/lockdown-boredom-has-not-sparked-my-creativity-and-im-fine-with-that

Maddi, S. R. (1967). The Existential Neurosis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 311-325.

Mann, M. (2020, May 9). Don’t Fight the Boredom. Retrieved from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/05/why-you-should-embrace-boredom-lockdown/611392/

Petrou, P., Bakker, A., & Heuvel, v. d. (2017). Weekly job crafting and leisure crafting : Implications for meaning-making and work engagement. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 129-152.

Raffaelli, Q., Mills, C., & Christoff, K. (2018). The knowns and unknowns of boredom: a review of the literature. 2018, 2451-2462.

Van Tilburg, W. A., & Igou, E. R. (2012). On boredom: Lack of challenge and meaning as distinct boredom experiences. Motivation and Emotion, 181-194.

Deepika Gangadharan.jpeg

Deepika Gangadharan

Deepika did her Masters in Psychology. She is now busy handling an existential crisis or figuring out what to say next. Also a passionate proponent of the “cats are just misunderstood” agenda.

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