Fermat's Library | Does Being Bored Make Us More Creative? annotated/explained version.

### TL;DR Boredom is often associated with negative connotations b...

I think the method is a bit flawed: Both are boring-followed-by-cre...

Here is a great video **The Scientific Benefits of Boredom** by Ver...

#### What is boredom? - "state in which the level of stimulation...

Do these studies also take into account the number of genius level ...

Recent studies have shown that being bored is not all that negative...

I wonder whether there are any examples of what appears to be bored...

Only 2??

#### Study 1: 1. There were 40 participants in the control group a...

>***"it might be a worthwhile enterprise to allow or even embrace b...

>***"It could be that daydreaming is more significant a factor in t...

Does Being Bored Make Us More Creative?

Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman

University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom

Boredom has traditionally been associated with a range of negative outcomes, both

within the workplace and outside it. More recently, however, it has been suggested that

boredom can have positive outcomes, one of which might be increased creativity. This

study addressed this proposition by examining the relationship between boredom and

creative potential on a range of tasks. Two studies were carried out; the ﬁrst involved

80 participants taking part in either a boring writing activity or not (control group) fol-

lowed by a creative task. The second study involved a further 90 participants who varied

in the type of boring activity they undertook (either a boring written activity, a boring

reading activity, or a control) and the type of creative task that followed. Results sug-

gested that boring activities resulted in increased creativity and that boring reading

activities lead to more creativity in some circumstances (such as convergent tasks) than

boring written activities. The role of daydreaming as a mediator between boredom and

creativity is discussed and implications are outlined.

Contrary to popular wisdom, boredom is not the result

of having nothing to do. It is very hard to co me up with

a situation where a person’s options are so limited that

he or she literally can do nothing. Rather, boredom

stems from a situation where none of the possible things

that a person can realistically do appeal to the person in

question. This renders the person inactive, and generally

unhappy. Thus, boredom is the result of having nothing

to do that one likes, rather than nothing to do per se.

For most people, boredom is a negative experience; even

described in one study as ‘‘an extremely unpleasant and

distressing experience’’ (Martin, Sadlo, & Stew, 2006,

p. 193 ).

Some researchers have attempted to deﬁne boredom

although there is no real consensus. What is agreed

about boredom is that it is a ‘‘complex phenomenon’’

(Martin et al., 2006, p. 196). Hebb (1996) deﬁned it as

a ‘‘state in which the level of stimulation is perceived

as unsatisfactorily low’’ (in Drory, 1982, p. 141). Lack

of external stimulation leads to increased neural arousal

in search of variety—failure to satisfy this leads to the

experience of boredom. Many argue that boredom is a

distinct emotional state, leading Fisher, one of the

forerunners in boredom research, to deﬁne boredom as

‘‘an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the

individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and dif-

ﬁculty concentrating on the current activity ...[such

that] it takes conscious effort to maintain or return

attention to that activity’’ (Fisher, 1993, p. 396).

Despite the variations in deﬁnitions, there is sur-

prising consensus in laypeople’s descriptions of the

experience of boredom. A qualitative study by Martin

et al. (2006) reported that all respondents described

boredom as ‘‘feeling stressed, agitated, yet at the same

time lethargic’’ (p. 208). This concurs with a study of

teachers in which respondents described being bored

as tiring, miserable, and frustrating (Mann and

Robinson, 2009). Indeed, boredom has been associated

with a range of negative outcomes both at work and

beyond. Negative consequences at work include: poor

work performance (Vodanovich, 2003), correlations

with anger (Vodanovich, 2003), accidents (Brant on,

1970; Drory, 1982), absenteeism (Brisset & Snow,

1993), more errors (Cox, 1980; Drory, 1982; O’Hanlon,

1981), stress, increased risk taking=thrill seeking (e.g.,

Hamilton, 1983), sleepiness (Grose, 1989), stress-related

Parts of this article were presented at the British Psychological

Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology Annual Conference,

January 13th, 2013.

Correspondence should be sent to Sandi Mann, Senior Lecturer in

Occupational Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of

Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE. E-mail: smann@uclan.ac.uk

CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL, 26(2), 165–173, 2014

ISSN: 1040-0419 print=1532-6934 online

DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2014.901073

health problems, e.g., heart attacks (e.g., Alfredsson,

Karasek, & Theorell, 1982), job dissa tisfaction (Caplan,

Cobb, French, van Harrison, & Pinneau, 1975), and

property damage (Drory, 1982). Some of these conse-

quences are clearly symptoms of the boredom experi-

ence; accidents, mistakes, sleepiness, etc. are all the

result of being unable to sustain attention. Other conse-

quences are a result of the ways that individuals try to

cope with their boredom by either refocusing atte ntion

on the task or seeking additional sti mulation.

In education, boredom has been linked with dimin-

ished academic achievement and school dissatisfaction

(e.g., Maroldo, 1986). For example, students who rated

themselves as often bored had generally lower scores on

academic tests than those who were sometimes bored

(Mikulas & Vodanovich, 1993). Stu dent boredom has

also been shown to be a contributor to truancy (e.g.,

Watt & Vodanovich, 1992). For example, boredom

is one of the most frequently identiﬁed causes for

students leaving school temporarily (e.g., skipping

classes, feigning illness) or permanently (Farmer &

Sundberg, 1986; Larson & Richards, 1991). Students

who do not miss classes have been shown to have

higher performance scores (e.g., Farmer & Sundberg,

1986; Grabe, 2005; Handelsman, Briggs, Sullivan, &

Towler, 2005; Maroldo, 1986; Mikulas & Vodanovich,

1993).

IS BOREDOM ALW AYS BAD?

As the previous review suggests, resear ch shows that

being bored is generally a negative experience. Yet bore-

dom, like most emotions, has a purpose and, despite

widely held views about its negative connotations, it is

speculated that there are potentially many beneﬁts to

being bored. These include that of communicating to

others interests, values, and beliefs, and for communi-

cating lack of presence—that the bored person does

not want to be here, functioning as an excuse or jus-

tiﬁcation (Scott & Lyman, 1968) for noninvolvement

or respite. Boredom might also communicate a desire

to be stimulated by others, as well as providing an

adaptive mechanism against societal noise or infor-

mation overload (Klapp, 1986). Boredom might also

be a ‘‘shield against self-confrontation’’ (Hoover, 1986,

p. 43); a means to avoid discomfort or new knowledge

(Dehlinger, 1975).

Like most emotions, boredom is likely to have had

evolutionary value; as a stimulus proves itself neither

dangerous nor reinforcing, people would simply lose

interest in it and turn attention to other stimuli. If

humans did not bore of things, it would be impos sible

to habituate to the continued minutiae of life and every-

one would be constantly preoccupied with every minor

stimulus to such an extent that they might not attend

to real threats.

A ﬁnal function or beneﬁt of bor edom is that it might

stimulate the ‘‘production of fantasies, awakening crea-

tiveness’’ (Brisset & Snow, 1993, p. 243). Boredom is,

paradoxically, a motivating force=catalyst for action:

‘‘Boredom ...is an alerting phenomenon that all is

not well and something must be done’’ (Gaylin, 1979,

p. 129). Boredom might stimulate the need to redecor-

ate, take up a new hobby, or look for a new job. The

feeling, then, can induce challenge-seeking behavior,

and therein lies the paradox that boredom, associated by

many with lethargy, can actually be energising, inspiring

a search for ‘‘change and va riety’’ (Harris, 2000, p. 578).

BOREDOM, CREATIVITY AND

DAYDREAMING

This idea that boredom can lead to a search for variety

was taken up by Bell (2011), who suggested that bore-

dom may well boost creativity. When individ uals are

bored, they ﬁnd it difﬁcult to focus their attention on

the task, and thought processes shift to other areas that

can provide more stimulation. When the bored individ-

ual cannot physically escape the task to undertake a

more engaging one, this attention shift is often from

an external focus on the task, to a more interna l focus

on inner thoughts, feelings, and experiences. This inner

focus allows a way of gaining the stimulation that is

being craved and that is missing from the boring task.

This internal focus could involve a search for new ways

to carry out the boring task to make it more engaging

(Toohey, 2011) or could involve thinking about unre-

lated problems or ideas the consideration of which is

more appealing than the boring task at hand. It is this

attention-shifting that is termed daydreaming, and is

thus a common by-product of boredom (Smallwood &

Schooler, 2006). Indeed, previous research has shown

that individuals use daydreaming to regulate boredom-

induced tension (Tushup & Zuckerman, 1977), thus

suggesting that daydreaming is used as a coping strategy

for dealing with the unpleasant state of boredom (Smith,

1981).

In concordance with this, Singer (1975) described

daydreaming as shifting attention from the external

situation or problem to the internal representation of

situations, memories, pictures, unresolved things, sce-

narios, or future goals. Smallwood (2011) more recently

explained the process of daydreaming as ‘‘a state of

decoupled processing in which attention to ongoing per-

ceptual information is reduced often in favor of the

active consideration of internally generated thoughts

and feeling’’ (p. 63). Schank (1982) proposed that

daydreaming is a part of dynamic memory. Dynamic

166

MANN AND CADMAN

memory is the ability to reevaluate information and

possible solutions with the reexamining of a problem

or unresolved scenario (Schank, 1999). The act of day-

dreaming can thus provide individuals with the opport-

unity to reexamine a prob lem or situation that is

preoccupying their minds as many times as they wish,

in varied ways and each time incorporating new

information and possible solutions. The beneﬁt of day-

dreaming, then, is that seemingly illogical ideas can be

explored in ways that may not be practically feasible

and through this exploration a new or more suitable

solution to problems or unresolved situations may be

found. This, then, can lead to creative problem-solving

(Singer, 1981) and suggests a link between daydreaming

and creativity (Singer, 1975). This theme was taken up

more recently, in an article in Newsweek (Begley, Bailey,

Sone, & Interlandi, 2009) which described daydreaming

as a ‘‘propitious mental state for creativity, insight and

problem solving’’ (Begley et al., 2009, p. 36) in which

‘‘truly novel solutions and ideas emerge’’ due to the day-

dreaming brain being able to bring togeth er unrelated

facts and thoughts.

THE PRESENT STUDIES

Our studies explored the hypothesis that boring activi-

ties lead to increased creativity. The ﬁrst study used a

boring writing task to induce boredom and a divergent

thinking task to measure creative potential. Divergent

tasks are where there are no set answers to creative

problems, but divergent thinkers can come up with a

range of novel answers; these are among the most com-

mon means of assessing creative potential. Divergent

thinking tasks require the individual to think creatively

by using lateral thinking to produce various solutions

to a given problem (Plucker & Renzulli, 1999) and lend

themselves to boredom research given the daydreaming

element of boredom (Smallwood et al., 2006).

The writing task might hinder the daydreaming

thought to be necessary for creativity to be enhanced,

due to it interfering with the propensity for attention

to wander. This was suggested by previous research;

for example, doodling when bored improved cognitive

performance for students and it is thought this was

due to it interfering with daydreaming (Andrade, 2010).

Thus, the second study introduced a boring reading task

in addition to the writing task.

Divergent thinking is not the only form of assessment

in creativity, however, and has not been without its cri-

tiques (Weisberg, 2006). Part of the criticism of diver-

gent thinking as a measure of creative potential has

been in the scoring of divergent thinking tasks, in parti-

cular with the commonly used method of frequency and

uniqueness scoring, which simply looks at the number

and rarity of the answers—rather than taking into con-

sideration how useful or creative the answers are (Silvia

et al., 2008). This can lead to confounding results, as

with more answers there is a higher prob ability of there

being unique answers (Silvia et al., 2008). To address

this limitation, both frequency (number of answers)

and creative usefulness (in terms of the range of creative

uses of the responses that were generated), were assessed

independently by two raters, as suggested by Silvia et al.

(2008), in these studies. The use of more than one

creative divergent thinking task also address ed the

concerns that Silvia et al. (2008) had in relation to

the problems of reliability in using only one task. In

addition, Study 2 also introduced a convergent creative

task (where there are deﬁnite answers to a problem) to

further address any possible limitations.

STUDY 1

This study investigated the impact of undertaking a bor-

ing writing activity (copying telephone numbers from a

phone directory) on subsequent levels of creativity

shown in a divergent thinking task (to come up with

as many uses for a pair of polystyrene cups as possible).

The independent variable (IV) was the precreativity

activity—either a boring task or not. The dependent

variables (DVs) were the number of answers produced

in the creative potential task and the degree of creative

usefulness of those answers.

The participants were from an opportunity sample

from a community church local to one of the researchers.

No ages were recorded; however, all participants were

over 18. There were 80 participants (40 control condition

and 40 boredom condition) with an even split of gender

for each condition. Two raters were used to assess the

level of useful creativity (i.e., the degree of creativity in

coming up with different uses of the objects) of the

answers provided. These raters were colleagu es of one

of the authors, but blind to the hypotheses of the study.

Materials/Apparatus

The participants in the boredom condition recei ved an

information brieﬁng sheet, pages from a telephone book,

and a recording sheet on which to write down the tele-

phone numbers. After this, participants in both the

boredom and the control conditions underwent the

same creative task. Both sets of participants received

the same instruction sheet for this task, two polystyrene

cups, the recording sheet to write down their list

of different uses for the cups, and a postprocedure

information sheet containing the researcher’s contact

information.

The boredom task was created especially for this

study; howeve r, the creative uses task was an adapted

DOES BEING BORED MAKE US MORE CREATIVE?

167

version of Guilford’s Alternative Uses Brick Task (1967,

cited in Silvia et al., 2008), which has been widely used

and has become an accepted measure of divergent

thinking.

The raters were provided with the instruction sheets

brieﬂy explaining the study and the criteria, the parti-

cipants answer sheets from the creative task, and a

recording sheet to record the scores.

Procedure

The participants in the boredom condition were asked

to write down telephone numbers from a phone book

for 15 min. Once the time had elapsed, they were asked

to rate how boring they found the activit y as a manipu-

lation check, on a 5-point Likert scale (1 ¼ not boring,

5 ¼ extremely boring) and participants with scores below

4 did not continue with the study, to ensure that the

participants were experiencing a boring task.

Participants were also asked to state if they noticed

that they daydreamed at any point during the boring

task. Only those who admitted to daydreaming contin-

ued on to the creative task.

The creative potential task consisted of the parti-

cipants being given 3 min to list as many different uses

for the two polystyrene cups they were provided with.

Once the 3 min had elapsed, the participants were asked

to circle their two most creative uses of the cups. The

participants were then fully debriefed. All the answers

were compiled and given to two raters to assess the

two most creative answers.

The experimenter was on hand at all times to answer

any queries. The rater began by eliminating any

duplicate answers from the list and then rated the two

most creative answers on a 5-point Likert scale (1 ¼ no

creativity,5¼ high creativity). They wer e assessing the

answers for both quality (jn terms of how useful the

suggestions were) and how unusual the answers were.

They then recorded the average score for the two most

creative answers and recorded it on the sheet provided.

Results

The mean Kappa coefﬁcient (0.82) revealed a high

reliability (Kappa result ov er 0.70), so no alterations

were made to the rater procedures. The rater scores were

averaged and an overall score was assigned to each

participant.

The mean frequency and standard deviation were

obtained for the number of answers provided (Table 1).

An independent t-test was used to investigate the

mean frequency of the number of answers provided.

The results revealed that there was a signiﬁcant differ-

ence between scores for the two conditions (t ¼

"4.316, df ¼ 78, p < 0.0005), indicating that the number

of answers were higher for participants who completed a

boredom task followed by the creative task than for

participants who completed the creative task alone

(control condition). This is also conﬁrmed by the mean

scores (see Table 2). An independent t-test was used to

investigate the mean creativity of answers provided.

The results revealed that there was a nonsigniﬁcant dif-

ference between scores for the two conditions (t ¼"4.

df ¼ 78, p > 0.05).

Results from Study 1 suggested then that the boring

writing task did increase the number of responses

produced, which is one measure of creative potential;

however, being bored did not appear to lead to more

creative answers. These results led to the adaption of

new techniques for Study 2.

STUDY 2

The second study atte mpted to investigate further the

hypothesis that boredom leads to enhanced creativity

by making changes to the design of Study 1. In Study

2, a second boredom task was introduced (a boring

reading task), as well as two extra creative potential

tasks (one of whic h was a convergent task). The extra

creative potential tasks were added as a way of ensuri ng

generalizability of ﬁndings. It was further predicted that

participants’ creativity would be higher following the

reading boredom task than following the written boring

task an d the control, because of the greater opportu-

nities for daydreaming afforded by reading over writing

(Andrade, 2010).

Participants

Participants were recruited on an opportunistic basis at

the same venue as Study 1, but individuals who had

TABLE 1

Mean Frequency and Standard Deviation Scores for the

Number of Answers Provided After Completing a Creative

Task Across a Control and Boredom Condition

Mean SD

Control 7.33 2.01

Boredom 10.63 4.4

TABLE 2

Mean Frequency and Standard Deviation Scores for the

Level of Creativity of the Two Most Creative Answers

Provided After Completing a Creative Task Across a

Control and Boredom Condition

Mean SD

Control 3.58 0.68

Boredom 3.65 0.98

168 MANN AND CADMAN

taken part in Study 1 were excluded. They were ran-

domly assigned to the various conditions by selecting a

time slot. Again, no ages were recorded but all parti-

cipants were over 18. There were 90 participants for

Study 2: 30 in the control condition, 30 in the written

boredom condition, and 30 in the reading boredom con-

dition, with an even split of gender for each condition.

Materials/Apparatus

The participants in the two boredom conditions (written

or reading ) received an information sheet and pages

from a telephone book. Participants in the written bore-

dom condition also received a recording sheet to write

down the telephone numbers.

All conditions received an instruction sheet for

Creative Potential Task 1 (which was the same task as

in Study 1), two polystyrene cups, and the recording

sheet to write down their list of different uses for the

cups. Once Creative Potential Task 1 was completed,

they underwent Creative Potential Task 2 and received

an instruction sheet and recording sheet to write a list

of different consequences to global narcolepsy (a chro-

nic sleep disorder that can include excessive sleepiness

and sleep attacks).

Once Creative Potential Task 2 was completed, they

moved onto the last task. They received an instruction

sheet and recording sheet for Creative Potential Task

3, which consisted of a series of word problems. After

all the tasks were completed, the participants were given

a postprocedure information sheet containing the

researcher’s contact information.

The boredom tasks were created especially for this

study; however, the creative uses task was an adaptation

from other research. Creative Potential Task 2 was

adapted from Christ ensen, Merriﬁeld, and Guilford’s

Consequences Task (1953, cited in Furnham, Crump,

Batey, & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2009); Creative Potential

Task 3, a convergent creative task, was created for this

study and adapted from Mednick and Mednick Remote

Associations Test (1962, 1967, cited in Isen, Daubman,

& Nowicki, 1987) and involved completing as many

answers as possible (in 3 min) to a series of 40 word

problems. Participants were permitted to answer them

in any order. They consisted of three stimulus words

and were asked to generate the fourth word that

combined with each of the stimulus words . They could

combine to form a compound word=phrase, a shared

meaning word or a shared relationship. For example

the answer to the three stimulus words MEASURE,

WORM, and VIDEO would be TAPE (tape measure,

tape worm, and video tape).

These methods of assessing creative thinking have

been widely used as a measure of creativity (Furnham

et al., 2009; Isen et al., 1987; Silvia et al., 2008) and by

using more than one creative task, it increases the

reliability of the results (Silvia et al., 2008).

The raters were provided with the instruction sheets

that were used in the pilot study, the participants answ er

sheets and three copies of the reco rding sheets.

Procedure

The tasks were conducted in the same mann er as in

Study 1. The participant s in the written boredom con-

dition were asked to write down telephone numbers

from a phone book for 15 min, and in the reading bore-

dom condition were asked to read the telephone num-

bers for 15 min. Once the time had elapsed, they were

asked to rate the boredom activity on a 5-point Likert

scale (1 ¼ not boring,5¼ extremely boring) and parti-

cipants with scores below 4 did not continue with the

study. Those who rated the task as boring and indicated

that they daydreamed continued on to do the three cre-

ative potential tasks. Participants in the control con-

dition undertook the three creative potential tasks

without either of the telephone numbers tasks.

Before beginning, each creative potential task the

participants received an instruction sheet. The exper-

imenter was on hand to answer any queries. Each task

was 3 min long and, once the time had elapsed, parti-

cipants were asked to circle their two most creative

answers. Once this was completed, they moved on to

the next task.

Once all the tasks were completed, all the answers

were compiled and given to two raters to assess the

two most creative answers. This followed the same

procedure as Study 1.

Results

The mean boredom score (for how boring they found

the boredom task) for those that took part in the written

boredom task condition was 4.3 and the mean score for

those taking part in the reading boredom task was 4.5.

The mean frequency and standard deviation were

obtained for the number of answers provided for each

of the ﬁrst two tasks of creative potential and for the

number of correct answers in the third creative task

(Table 3).

A one-way between-subjects analysis of varianc e was

(ANOVA) conducted for Task 1 to see if the mean num-

ber of answers on this task differed for each of the three

conditions. The results revealed a signiﬁcant effect of

condition, F(2, 87) ¼ 14.45, p ¼ 0.000, g

¼ 0.25. Post

hoc Bonferroni paired comparisons tests suggested that

the written and reading conditions did not differ signiﬁ-

cantly from each other (p ¼ 0.062), but written differed

signiﬁcantly from the control condition (p ¼ 0.01) and

DOES BEING BORED MAKE US MORE CREATIVE?

169

the reading different signiﬁcantly from the control

condition (p ¼ 0.000).

A one-way between-subjects ANOVA was conducted

for Task 2 to see if the mean number of answers on this

task differed for each of the three conditions. The results

revealed a signiﬁcant effect of condition, F(2, 87) ¼

36.098, p ¼ 0.000, g

¼ 0.45. Post hoc Bonferroni paired

comparisons tests suggested that the reading and writing

conditions differed signiﬁcantly (p ¼ 0.000) from each

other, the reading and control differed signiﬁcantly

(p ¼ 0.000) and that the writing and control differed

signiﬁcantly (p ¼ 0.003).

A one-way between-subjects ANOVA was conducted

for Task 3 to see if the mean number of correct answers

on this task differed for each of the three conditions.

The results revealed a signiﬁcant effect of condition, F(2,

87) ¼ 4.334, p ¼ 0.016, g

¼ 0.09. Post hoc Bonferroni

paired comparisons tests sugg ested that the only signiﬁ-

cant differences lay between the reading and control

conditions (p ¼ 0.019).

The level of creativity of answers given in the creative

tasks 1 and 2 was examined next (but not for Task 3,

which involved only supplying right or wrong answers);

see Table 4.

Two one-way ANOVAs were performed to investi-

gate the differences between scores for each task across

the three conditions.

The Task 1 ANOVA revealed that there was a signiﬁ-

cant effect of the condition, F(2, 87) ¼ 7.574, p ¼ 0.001,

¼ 0.15. Post hoc Bonferroni paired comparisons tests

suggested that the control group differed signiﬁcantl y

from the written condition (p ¼ 0.043) and the reading

condition (p ¼ 0.001) but that the written and reading

conditions did not differ signiﬁcantly from each other

(p ¼ 0.56).

The Task 2 ANOVA revealed that there was a signiﬁ-

cant effect of the condition, F(2, 87) ¼ 11.67, p ¼ 0.000,

¼ 0.2. Post hoc Bonferroni paired comparisons tests

suggested that the control group differed signiﬁcantl y

from the written condition (p ¼ 0.002) and the reading

condition (p ¼ 0.000), but that the writt en and reading

conditions did not differ signiﬁcantly from each other

(p ¼ 0.98).

DISCUSSION

The aim of the two studies reported here was to examine

the effects of boredom on creative potential. Two differ-

ent methods of inducing boredom were used (written

task in Study 1 and both reading and writing tasks in

Study 2) and creative potential was measured with a

range of different tasks.

Study 1 revealed that participants came up with sig-

niﬁcantly more answers to a creative task following a

written boredom task than without such a task. How-

ever, although more answers were produced following

the boring task, these were not judged to actually be

more creative. This suggests that being bored can lead

to increased creativity in terms of quantity, but not

necessarily in terms of quality. This dichotomy could

be due to the writing task interfering with the ability to

daydream, because the active act of writing is likely to

have the role of refocusing attention on the task (and

thus inhibiting daydreaming) in accordance with

Andrade’s (2010) ﬁnding that doodling inhibi ted

daydreaming.

Study 2 thus introduced a reading boring task in

addition to the written boring task, but the results sug-

gested that the number of creative answers and their

level of creativity in Task 1, although higher for the

reading condition, were not signiﬁcantly higher. This

suggests that boring reading tasks do not lead to signiﬁ-

cantly more creativity (at least for this type of task) than

boring writing tasks do and thus suggests that either the

written task did not inhibit daydreaming enough for it

to effect creativity or that daydreaming is a not as

important a moderator of the boredom-creativity link

as hypothesised.

However, the boring tasks, whether written or read,

did lead to an increase in both the number of creative

answers produced in Task 1, as well as their level of

TABLE 3

Mean Frequency and Standard Deviation Scores for the

Number of Answers Provided After Completing a Series of

Creative Tasks (1, 2 and 3) Across a Control, Written

Boredom and Reading Boredom Condition

Task Group

Creative Task

Row

Mean

Task 1 Task 2 Task 3

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Control 8.03 2.83 6.73 1.95 6.47 0.82 7.08

Written boredom 10.03 2.09 8.70 1.95 6.97 0.81 8.57

Reading boredom 11.60 2.74 11.60 2.71 7.10 1.00 10.10

Column mean 9.89 2.94 9.01 2.99 6.84 0.91

TABLE 4

Mean Frequency and Standard Deviation Scores for the

Level of Creativity of the Two Most Creative Answers Provided

After Completing a Series of Creative Tasks (1 and 2) Across a

Control, Written Boredom and Reading Boredom Condition

Task 1 Task 2

Mean SD Mean SD

Control 2.67 0.66 2.73 0.83

Written boredom 3.17 0.79 3.47 0.86

Reading boredom 3.43 0.86 3.67 0.66

Column mean 3.09 0.83 3.29 0.88

170 MANN AND CADMAN

creativity (in terms of how useful they were), when

compared to the control (nonboring) condition. These

ﬁndings contradict those of Study 1, which found that

level of creativity did not signiﬁcantly increase after

the reading boring task and demonstrates the need for

more research in the area.

Study 2 also introduced two new creative potential

tasks to investigate whether the type of creative task

makes a difference. In Task 2, the number of answers

(but not their level of creativity) did differ signiﬁcantly

between the reading and writing conditions such that

more answers were produced in the reading condition.

This supports the idea that ﬂuency (or number of ideas)

does not necessarily equate to originality and creativity

of those ideas because previous researchers (e.g., A.

Snyder, Mitchell, Bossamaier, & Pallier, 2004) have sug-

gested that adding more ideas within the same category,

is not necessarily as creative as add ing new categories. It

also lends some support to the hypothesis that boring

reading tasks facilitate more daydreaming than boring

written tasks—and it is this daydreaming that leads to

an increase in creativity. Both conditions also produced

signiﬁcantly more answers than in the control group.

Like in Task 1, these answers were signiﬁcantly more

creative in the two boring conditions than in the control

group. The use of Task 2 then, like Task 1, clearly

showed a link between boredom and creativity; Tasks

1 and 2, which were both creative uses or divergent

tasks, showed similar ﬁndings in that preceding them

with a boring task increased both the number of creative

answers and the level of creativity of those answers.

Task 3 was a totally different type of creative task

that could produce only right or wrong answers (a con-

vergent task). Here, only the reading boring task, and

not the written boring task, led to a signiﬁcant increase

the number of correct responses. This again lends

further support to the hypothesis that writing inhibits

daydreaming (Smallwood et al., 2006) and that day-

dreaming is a mediator of boredom and creativity

(e.g., Klinger 1987). It could be that daydreaming is

more signiﬁcant a factor in the stimulation of creative

thoughts with convergent creative tasks than with the

divergent tasks; daydreaming might be more useful in

creative problem-solving tasks in which there are ﬁnite

solutions to be found, than in more imaginative creative

tasks where there are inﬁnite possible outcomes.

Implications of Study

The ﬁndings have implications for the way that bore-

dom is viewed both by society at large and by communi-

ties, such as within the work or education spheres. Until

recently, boredom has been viewed as a negative emo-

tion with only negative outcomes, but these studies

add weight to the evidence that suggests that boredom

can sometimes be a force for good. This means that it

might be a worthwhile enterprise to allow or even

embrace boredom in work, education, and leisure. On

an individual basis, if one is trying to solve a problem

or come up with creat ive solutions, the ﬁndings from

our studies suggest that undertaking a boring task

(especially a reading task) might help with coming up

with a more creative outcome.

Limitations and Implications for Future Research

Within the two studies, there was one contradictory

ﬁnding; in Study 1, the level of creativity in the an swers

given did not increase (when compared with the control

group) following the writing boredom task, but they did

when using the same task in Study 2. This suggests the

need for further replication using much larger numbers

of participants. It would also be useful to explore the

role of daydreaming as a mediator of the proposed

boredom-creativity link further by more in-depth mea-

surement of daydreaming during boring tasks followed

by regression techniques.

It should also be considered that the method of

asking respondents to select their own most creative

answers might be ﬂawed in that previous research has

suggested that individuals are poor at doing this; asking

independent raters to do this might have produced more

clarity in the results (Runco & Smith, 1992). There may

also have be en some confusion as how respon dents

selected their two responses reﬂecting the most creative

use of the cups and how these were subsequently rated

by the raters. Previous studies ha ve simp ly used useful-

ness of the responses, so introducing the word term cre-

ative usefulness may have confused matters such that it

cannot be certain that the most useful responses were

being selected and rated, as oppose to the most creative

responses (which might not be the same thing) . Useful-

ness is considered by some to be more important than

creativity, as ideas that are bizarr e and impractical are

not always seen as evidence of creativity when compared

with ideas that have practical value (Zeng, Proctor, &

Salvendy, 2011).

Future studies could also examine originality of

answers, which was alluded to in our studies but not

objectively measured, or other more objective measures

such as those enco mpassed in A. Snyder et al.’s (2004)

creativity quotient, which incorporates both ﬂuency

and ﬂexibility of ideas. Zeng et al. (2011) reviewed a

range of DT measures of creative potential and

concluded that assessing appropriateness and novelty

are key.

A further important limitation in Study 2 was in the

temporal relation of the three creative tasks wi th the

boredom task. The boredom task was carried out ﬁrst,

then Creative Task 1, then Creative Task 2, then

DOES BEING BORED MAKE US MORE CREATIVE?

171

Creative Task 3. This meant that by Creative Task 3,

two creative tasks had intervened since the boring task

and this might have negated the effects of the boring

task. It would be useful in future studies to precede eac h

place, namely a church. Although the relationship

between religiosity and creativity has rarely been

explored in the literature, links between them have been

theoretically proposed (Zysberg & Schenck, 2013), so

future research could ensure greater external validity

by ensuring a wider mix of participants.

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Discussion

>***"It could be that daydreaming is more significant a factor in the stimulation of creative thoughts with convergent creative tasks than with the divergent tasks; daydreaming might be more useful in creative problem-solving tasks in which there are finite solutions to be found, than in more imaginative creative tasks where there are infinite possible outcomes."*** #### What is boredom? - "state in which the level of stimulation is perceived as unsatisfactorily low" - "an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and dif- ficulty concentrating on the current activity" - "feeling stressed, agitated, yet at the same time lethargic" >***"it might be a worthwhile enterprise to allow or even embrace boredom in work, education, and leisure. On an individual basis, if one is trying to solve a problem or come up with creative solutions, the findings from our studies suggest that undertaking a boring task (especially a reading task) might help with coming up with a more creative outcome."*** Only 2?? I wonder whether there are any examples of what appears to be boredom within primates or other animal species. I think the method is a bit flawed: Both are boring-followed-by-creative task and then "creativity" was measured; yet there isn't a reverse direction. I.e. creative-followed-by-boring task and then "creativity" measured. Or alternatively, some tasks may be boring to the mind but require intense concentration. These may not reach the same conclusion. Do these studies also take into account the number of genius level students who are bored by subject matter that is too easy? Or is that proportion negligible with respect to these studies? Here is a great video **The Scientific Benefits of Boredom** by Veritasium about the benefits of being bored: [![veritasium](https://i.imgur.com/0F42BDJ.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKPwKFigF8U) Recent studies have shown that being bored is not all that negative. As a matter of fact being bored could have a positive impact on: - **Empathy:** Being bored induces us to think about others in an altruistic way. Studies designed to induce boredom have shown that bored participants were more likely to donate to charity, or give blood. - **Creativity:** Boredom induces daydreaming which leads to a creative problem-solving and is related with higher creativity. Recent studies have shown that people tend to be more creative after being bored for a short amount of time (several minutes). - **Productivity:** Boredom acts like a warning that the task at hand is not stimulating enough. It will push us to act in order to get out of the current unpleasant situation. - **Goal setting:** When we are bored we are stimulated to think about our life and what we want to do in the future thus helping us set meaningful goals. ### TL;DR Boredom is often associated with negative connotations but recent studies show that being bored might actually be beneficial. This paper **discusses the main benefits of boredom and studies the impact of boredom on creativity and problem-solving capacity**. Some of the benefits of boredom include: - More altruistic thought and developed empathy. - Boredom induces daydreaming which leads to increased creativity and problem-solving. - When we are bored we are stimulated to introspect and think about thus helping us with goal setting. The main findings of this paper are: - Being bored seems to induce daydreaming and spark creativity and improve our problem-solving capacity. - Being bored and daydreaming seem to have a greater impact on creative problem-solving tasks in which there are finite solutions to be found than in more imaginative creative tasks where there are infinite possible outcomes. >***"it might be a worthwhile enterprise to allow or even embrace boredom in work, education, and leisure. On an individual basis, if one is trying to solve a problem or come up with creative solutions, the findings from our studies suggest that undertaking a boring task (especially a reading task) might help with coming up with a more creative outcome."*** #### Study 1: 1. There were 40 participants in the control group and 40 participants in the "boring-writing" group. 2. Participants were asked to do a boring writing task. 3. After the boring task, they were asked to come up with creative ideas (no right or wrong answers). **The boring group managed to produce more ideas/answers than the control group.** The creativity of ideas did not differ much which could be related to the fact that writing inhibits daydreaming and thus inhibits creativity. #### Study 2: 1. There were 30 participants in the control group, 30 participants in the "boring-writing" group and 30 participants in the "boring-reading" group. 2. Participants were asked to do respectively a boring writing or reading task. 3. After the boring task, they were asked to come up with creative ideas for 3 different tasks. 4. The last task (task 3) is a different type of task, **only right or wrong answers**. **The boring reading and writing groups produced more ideas/answers than the control group.** The "boring-reading" group managed to produce more ideas than the two other groups. The creativity of their ideas differed significantly between the "boring" groups and the control group. Boring reading tasks seem to facilitate more daydreaming than boring writing tasks. The boring reading group outperformed both other groups thus indicating that **being bored might be useful in creative problem-solving tasks in which there are finite solutions.**

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