ABSTRACT

Boredom is a common, unpleasant emotion that conveys meaninglessness in life and compels people to escape from this adverse existential experience. Within the paradigm of social psychology frameworks, previous research found that bored people endorse cultural sources of meaning as compensation against this state (e.g., nostalgia, political ideologies). In recent years, another form of defence against meaning threats has been identified. An existential escape hypothesis relating to boredom claims that people seek to avoid meaninglessness when people encounter meaning threats such as boredom. By engaging in behaviours with low self-awareness, people counteract awareness of their bored and meaningless self. In this article, we review the current literature on boredom in light of such acts of existential escape. We also provide suggestions for future research to highlight under which circumstances people are more likely to engage in existential escape and identify phenomena that need to be tested within the escape process.

摘要

乏味是一种常见的，令人不快的情绪，它传达了生活中的无意义，并迫使人们摆脱这种不利的生存经验。在社会心理学框架范式下，先前的研究发现，无聊的人认可文化意义的来源，以此作为对这种状态的补偿（例如，怀旧，政治意识形态）。近年来，已经确定了另一种针对意义威胁的防御措施。与无聊有关的存在逃逸假说声称，当人们遇到无聊之类的意义威胁时，人们试图避免无意义。通过进行自我意识低下的行为，人们可以抵消对无聊和毫无意义的自我的意识。在本文中，我们将根据这种存在性逃避行为来回顾有关无聊的最新文献。