The next time a feared work meeting arises, it is beneficial to reassure yourself that you will love it.
A study reveals that in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, expecting a lecture or presentation to be boring will make you feel even more bored.
According to researchers from the University of Hong Kong, we may pay less attention to a speech that we anticipate would be dull, and this disengagement ultimately makes us feel duller.
In the study, 121 students attending a psychology lecture were selected.
Five minutes before the lecture began, the students judged how boring they anticipated it to be and reported their current level of boredom.
They were again asked about their level of boredom following the lecture.
The researchers discovered that those who anticipated that the lecture would be more tedious reported feeling more bored afterward.
Even after controlling for pre-lecture levels of boredom, this impact persisted, indicating that it was not just the case that participants who were already bored continued to feel bored after the presentation.
In a separate study, participants were asked to view a video lecture on the theory of literature.
Some students were informed that the video was voted the most boring lecture of the year, while others were informed that it was considered the most intriguing.
Another group was also not informed; they were simply told they would be viewing a lecture.
The analysis found that individuals who were informed they would be exposed to a dull lecture anticipated boredom much more than those in the neutral group, and reported higher degrees of boredom following the lecture than the other two groups.
The British Journal of Educational Psychology published the study with the title, “Whatever will bore, well bore.”
In it, the authors, led by Katy Y Y Tam, wrote: ‘Boredom is frequently anticipated in daily life: people predict how interesting a movie will be before purchasing a ticket, researchers predict how dull a paper will be before reading it in its entirety, and students anticipate how tedious a lecture will be before it begins.
These findings imply that those who anticipate a lecture to be dull will be even more bored by it.
Not only would entering a lecture or meeting with an enthusiastic outlook prevent boredom, but it could also add years to your life.
A research team from Harvard University discovered in June that optimistic women live an average of 54% longer than their pessimistic friends or more than four more years.
Optimistic women had a 10% better chance of living to age 90 than their pessimistic counterparts.
While the study did not uncover the actual mechanism behind the changes in longevity, it has been known for a long time that positive thinking is associated with longer life.
