The association between boredom and mind-wandering weakens with increasing depressive symptom severity

Boredom is an aversive state commonly elicited by monotonous or insufficiently engaging situations. Mind-wandering has been proposed as one possible response to boredom, but the association between these phenomena may vary with depressive symptom severity, particularly when mind-wandering is habitual, excessive, or poorly regulated. We therefore examined whether depressive symptom severity moderates the association between state boredom and habitual excessive mind-wandering in psychiatric patients.

This cross-sectional study examined self-reported state boredom, depressive symptoms, and habitual excessive mind-wandering in 94 psychiatric outpatients spanning multiple diagnostic categories and age groups.

Depressive symptom severity was reliably associated with state boredom across diagnostic categories (R_P=0.623, p < 0.001). In addition, when studying the moderating effects of depressive symptom severity on the association between boredom and excessive mind-wandering, we observed a positive association of boredom and mind-wandering that progressively weakened with increasing degrees of depression (interaction of depression and boredom: β=-0.184, p = 0.039, ΔR² = 0.033).

Our findings indicate a robust correlation of state boredom and depression in various mental health disorders. Moreover, higher severity of individual depressive symptoms is associated with an attenuation of the coupling between state boredom and excessive mind-wandering tendencies. Replication in larger and more homogeneous samples is required to determine the generalizability of these observations.

Not applicable.