Mitigating the Experience of Everyday Boredom: The Role of Conscientiousness

This study examined the relation between HEXACO personality traits and the experience of everyday boredom. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks concerning both boredom and personality, we particularly focused on the link and underlying mechanisms of conscientiousness and state boredom. Three studies-two daily diary studies and one experience sampling study-were conducted. Across the three studies, with 401 Chinese participants answering around 5900 daily episodes, the results consistently demonstrated that trait conscientiousness was a negative predictor of everyday boredom. State conscientiousness explained the conscientiousness-boredom relation. More importantly, situational meaning moderated the conscientiousness-boredom relation in the way that conscientious people were less likely to feel bored even in situations that were less meaningful to them. The implications of these findings are discussed.