Acta Psychologica 49 (1981) 53-82 53

North-Holland Publishing Company

BOREDOM: PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES AND A THEORY *

James F. O’HANLON
Traffic Research Centre, Universityof Groningen, The Netherlands

Accepted October 1980

Boredom is defined as a unique psychophysiological state possessing interrelated and insepa-

rable emotional, motivational, perceptual and cognitive concomitants. Practical consequences
of boredom are reviewed, including diminished performance efficiency, general life satisfaction
and health. Finally, the outline of a theoretical model is presented.

Introduction

Boredom is an ill-defined scientific concept. Previous definitions of

boredom (or equivalent terms in languages other than English) are
largely phenomenological descriptions of subjective concomitants (Bar-
mack 1937; Bartenwerfer 1957; Bartley and Chute 1947; Gewitz 1964;
Gubser 1968; Haider 1962; McBain 1970; Myers 1972; Welford 1968).
Rather than belabor the obvious difficulties of applying phenomeno-
logical definitions for relating physical causes, psychophysiological
mediating mechanisms and behavioral effects, we shall turn to points of
general agreement regarding where boredom occurs and how it may be
recognized.

* The substance of this paper was presented upon the author’s assumption of the position of
Bijzonder Hoogleraar in de Verkeerskunde (Special Professor, Traffic Science) at the Rijks-
universiteit Groningen (Groningen, The Netherlands, November 11, 1980). Thanks are given
to the Rector Magniticus, Prof. Dr. J. Borgman, and the administration of the University for
providing this opportunity and to the Noordelijk Technisch Wegenbouwcentrum (Ir. 0. Sietze-
ma, Director) for providing the professorial chair. The author is further indebted to Prof. Dr.
J.A. Michon, Prof. Dr. A.F. Sanders and L.C. O’Hanlon for indispensible critical advice.
Requests for reprints should be sent to James F. O’Hanlon, Traffic Research Centre, Univer-
sity of Groningen, Kerklaan 30,975O AA Haren, The Netherlands.

0001-6918/8 l/0000-0000/$02.75 0 1981 North-Holland

54 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

(1) Boredom occurs as a reaction to task situations where the pattern

of sensory stimulation is nearly constant or highly repetitious, and
particularly when required motoric responding is contingent upon
information contained within the monotonous stimulation.
(2) Degrees of boredom reported by different individuals in the same
monotonous working environment vary greatly.
(3) An emotional component of boredom includes aversion to mono-
tonous elements of the situation that are identified by the individ-
ual as the source of the feeling. Simultaneously, the individual is
motivated to change the environment, vary his activity or escape
the situation altogether.
(4) Boredom can occur within minutes after the commencement of
repetitive activity, particularly if that activity has been frequently
experienced in the past.
(5) Boredom is highly situation-specific and is immediately reversible
when the situation changes to any large extent.

As shall be shown, performance deficits indicating perceptual, cog-

nitive and motoric impairment have been frequently observed in situa-
tions that produce the emotional and motivational components of bore-
dom. The former, like the latter, begin to occur within a very short
period of exposure and are quickly reversed by situational change. A
few researchers (e.g. Bartenwerfer 1957; Gilbertova and Glivicky 1967,
and below) have found relationships between these objective and sub-
jective changes in persons performing monotonous work and have gone
on to suggest that all are really manifestations of the same process.
We shall also see that chronic boredom has been cited as the cause of
serious social and medical problems. Clearly it is absurd to explore this
possibility while continuing to define boredom as a wholly subjective
phenomenon.
At this point, let us accept a working definition of boredom as a
unique psychophysiological state that is somehow produced by pro-
longed exposure to monotonous stimulation. The classical emotional
and.motivational concomitants of boredom are accepted merely as signs
of the occurrence of that state. In the section that follows, other psy-
chological concomitants of boredom are identified from performance
changes, either by coincidence with the classic signs or by following the
same rapid course of development during monotonous tasks and imme-
diate reversal with situational change. Observed social and medical con-
 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory 55

sequences of chronic boredom are also reviewed as these may be related

to the repeated elicitation of the acute psychophysiological state and
indicate that it constitutes one of the conditions of disturbed homeo-
stasis known commonly as “stress”.
The review is mainly restricted to studies of repetitive task effects in
actual or realistically simulated working environments. Boredom was
first recognized in actual working situations as a topic worthy of scien-
tific inquiry (Munsterberg 19 13) and the stimulus for further labora-
tory investigation has come mainly from the field (see below). More-
over, as Hockey (1979) has recently observed, results of laboratory
studies involving the short-term exposure of inexperienced subjects to
simple repetitive work (his examples, monitoring and serial reaction
time tasks) are difficult to extrapolate to everyday monotonous work-
ing situations. According to him, laboratory results may yield a “very
pretty theory that doesn’t actually help anyone to cope with stress”.
Hopefully, the emphasis on practical aspects of boredom will lead to
a more pragmatic concept. An attempt to integrate such findings with
current concepts of arousal, effort and stress is made in the final sec-
tion. A hypothetical outline of the psychophysiological state emerges.
This concept of boredom is offered here as its final definition; less
succinct than the predecessors, but perhaps of greater heuristic, explan-
atory and predictive value.

Practical effects of monotonous work

Reports of monotonous work effects can be categorized as showing (1)

diminished performance efficiency with respect to an initial level or
some imposed criterion, (2) a pervasive attitude of dissatisfaction with
the working environment, and (3) pathological changes. These distinc-
tions mainly reflect the way separate effects have been studied in the
past. However, the respective effects are often observed in similar envi-
ronments and for that reason may be considered as arising from the
same physical and psychophysiological sources.

Efficiency

If there are reliable perceptual and cognitive concomitants of boredom,

these should appear in monotonous tasks as either a gradual perfor-
56 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

mance decrement or as a sustained low level of performance efficiency,

depending upon how rapidly the effects of monotonous sensory stimu-
lation overcome the individual’s effort to resist them, if indeed he
makes.any effort at all. Evidence exists for both types of impairment in
several types of monotonous tasks: mechanical assembly, inspection
and monitoring and continuous manual control.

Mechanical assembly
The results of early industrial studies seemed unequivocal: the individ-
ual unit-output rates of many assembly workers followed a predictable
time course; high initially, then much depressed, and finally elevated
again before the end of a spell of continuous work (Wyatt et al. 1929).
The magnitude of boredom reported by these workers was inversely
related to their work output. Unfortunately, several modern studies
have failed to replicate these results (Smith 1953; Hulin and Blood
1968; Murrell 197 1). No systematic and parallel patterns of work out-
put and boredom were found. On the other hand, in simulated indus-
trial assembly tasks a substantial increase in output variability has been
observed after about one hour’s time (Bujas and Petz 1954; Hartnett
1967; Manenica and Corlett 1977; Murrell 1962, 197 1; Murrell and
Forsaith 1963). In all cases, this was attributed to the increasing occur-
rence of very long work cycle times, followed by a catch-up effort and
short cycle times.
Murrell (197 1) believed that output decrements were found in the
early field studies, but not in later ones, because assembly tasks were
formerly performed over longer continuous periods of time. In modern
British industry, he observed that workers exercised their option of
structuring their working regimes to achieve particular quota without
prolonged periods of continuous work. Nachreiner (1977) found that
German workers did the same and showed no decrement. On the other
hand, Japanese and Russian assembly workers who were required to
perform continuously for 1.5-2.0 hour periods between pauses, did
show performance decrements (Zolina et al. 1973; Kishida 1973).
Branton ( 1970) reported a decrement in automatized motor skill
proficiency leading to 427 injuries among 180 lathe, punch press and
drill operators over a two year period. These workers continuously
operated their machines in a rapid and repetitive manner during 105-
135 minute periods between rest pauses. Branton analyzed the accident
frequency as a function of each continuous working period over the
 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory 51

day to show that accidents increased progressively during each working

period and fell after every pause. A closer look at the individual perfor-
mance of lathe operators revealed the probable immediate cause: a
time-related increase in the frequency of ballistic hand movements that
were either mistimed or misdirected. In Branton’s view, motor repeti-
tion somehow affected the workers in a manner interrupting the normal
proprioceptive feedback which guided the control of ballistic hand
movements. When this occurred the worker’s hand was not in the
appropriate place at the appropriate time. If his hand was then juxta-
posed with moving machinery, the accident occurred. Similar results
and conclusions were obtained in a punch-press simulation study by
McKelvey et al. ( 1973)
Haider (1963) used the “secondary task” approach to show that
assembly-line workers grow increasingly insensitive to task-irrelevant
information as they perform machine-paced tasks over prolonged
periods. The workers were engaged in assembly-line operations and
responded as rapidly as possible by depressing a foot pedal whenever
small lamps over their work stations were briefly illuminated. The
workers’ reactions in the secondary task grew progressively slower as
the day wore on, although partial recovery occurred after short pauses
and nearly complete recovery after the longer midday pause. Self-
paced assemblers showed no deterioration in secondary task perfor-
mance over time. Haider attributed the performance decrement to a
loss of worker vigilance, and felt that the results implied a general loss
of capability to respond to all peripheral information sources, including
those relevant to machine operation and safety.

Inspection and monitoring

A decrement in efficiency has also been found in monotonous tasks
requiring little or no motor output, but instead continuous attention,
perceptual discrimination and decision making. Again, Wyatt’s group
(Wyatt and Landon 1932) conducted the pioneering research. They
found that the fault-detection performance consistently followed the
same time course over several hours of continuous work; mediocre for
the first 15 minutes; very much better during the next quarter hour;
then progressively worse until shortly before the end of the work
period when a relatively high level of efficiency was briefly regained. In
recent times, the decrement was again observed in actual industrial
inspection (Chapman and Sinclair 1975; Fox and Embrey 1972; Saito
58 J. F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

et al. 1972) and in laboratory simulation of that task (Badalamente and

Ayoub 1969; Ehlers 1972).
Perhaps the most famous decrement of detection efficiency was ini-
tially revealed in an anonomous R.A.F. report during the early stages of
the Second World War (later cited by Baker 1962). This survey of con-
tacts reported by airborne radarmen astonished authorities by revealing
a substantial drop in hostile U-boat and aircraft sightings as a function
of the operator’s times on watch. Assuming that the frequency of con-
tacts was actually constant over time, the declining frequency of sight-
ings indicated that the radarmen were missing at least about 50% of the
targets (Baker 1962). The R.A.F. Costa1 Command commissioned N.H.
Mackworth at Cambridge to investigate this problem. Mackworth’s
(1950) studies involved both simulation and abstraction of the radar-
man’s task, the latter leading to his development of the now famous
“clock test” which has provided the experimental paradigm for literally
hundreds of laboratory studies on human vigilance (reviews by Davies
and Tune 1970; Mackie 1977; J.F. Mackworth 1969; Stroh 1971).
The major contribution of Mackworth and his followers was to show
that a decline in signal detection efficiency can occur over time on task
when the aperiodic and infrequent signals differ little perceptually from
monotonous background stimuli, or “noise”. Sometimes, however, the
measured performance decrement was slight and task modifications
that reduced its monotony or increased the incentive for efficient per-
formance abolished the decrement entirely. This has encouraged several
authors to believe that the so-called “vigilance decrement” may be a
laboratory artifact or at least not relevant to practical monitoring prob-
lems in today’s more complex surveillance systems (Kibler 1965; Nach-
reiner 1977 ; Smith and Luccaccini 1969; Teichner 1972).
But the decrement has been found in more or less realistic task simu-
lations of radar target detection (Caille et al. 1965; Beatty et al. 1974;
O’Hanlon and Beatty 1976, 1977; O’Hanlon et al. 1977), radar naviga-
tion and collision avoidance (Schmidtke 1966), air traffic control
(Thackray et al. 1977, 1979), train control at a terminal station (Reh-
berg and Neumann 1969) and television surveillance within a prison
(Tickner and Poulton 1973). No decrement was observed in one ship-
board study of radarman and sonorman target detection efficiency, but
instead, occasional periods of operationally unacceptable performance
lasting the entire watch period (Elliot 1960). No unusual situational or
individual factor could be identified to account for the sustained
depression of operator vigilance.
 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory 59

For practical purposes it matters not at all whether the vigilance

decrement is due to an attentional, perceptual or motivational deficit.
Ultimately it does not even matter whether the rapidity or magnitude
of the decrement is large or small. The fact is that all surveillance sys-
tems are designed to be operated by monitors performing above some
criterion level of efficiency. Maximum, sustained vigilance is demanded
in a few cases (from the airplane pilot) and something less in all others.
No report of sustained maximum efficiency by a group of operators in
any realistic monitoring task has ever been offered, but there are ample
reports to the contrary. The practical question is whether normal levels
of vigilance suffice to achieve the particular performance criterion. The
more fundamental question is why task monitoring should reduce
ability and/or motivation to perform at a maximal level.
There has been a tendency among vigilance researchers to treat atten-
tional and motivational deficits as separate issues. Yet, in what appears
as the only attempt to relate attentional loss to feelings of boredom, a
relationship emerged. Thackray et al. (1977) distinguished groups of
subjects on the basis of boredom experienced during a very realistic and
perceptually complex air traffic control task. High boredom accom-
panied a performance decrement, and low boredom, no decrement.
Nonetheless, the high boredom group also claimed that they had
exerted considerably more effort to perform well than the others.
These results indicate that feelings of boredom accompany deficient
performances in monitoring tasks (see also Davies and Tune 1970: 11).
More importantly, ‘they suggest that the bored individual is not pas-
sively resigned to performing badly. Instead, he may actively attempt to
do better, more indeed than the individual who is not bored and is
more efficient.

Continuous manual control

Operating an airplane under instrument flight conditions, or an auto-
mobile over long highways at night can be highly monotonous activi-
ties. If the continuous perceptual-cognitive motor process is somehow
compromised by these monotonous activities, one would expect to see
a decline in performance efficiency resembling that observed in other
environments where work is repetitious. The first clue that this occurs
in pilots again emerged from British wartime research in a Cambridge
laboratory.
Bartlett (1943) simulated instrument flight conditions, requiring the
60 J.F. 0 ‘Hanlon/Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

pilot’s coordinated hand, foot and eye movements to maintain a pre-

scribed altitude and heading in response to visual information displayed
from several sources. The test was continuous and normally lasted two
hours. A highly reliable pattern of performance deterioration began
within the first half hour and progressed rapidly until it reached dra-
matic proportions. Tracking error increased without the pilot’s aware-
ness. Coordinated timing of sequential limb movements was disturbed.
Responding to the integration of simultaneous information from several
sources was replaced by serial responding to separate sources. Peripheral
information sources were selectively ignored or forgotten. Short periods
occurred during which the pilot did nothing. Irrelevant stimuli caused
greater distraction from the task of flying. And finally, the pilots
expressed intense feelings of irritability.
Bartlett entitled the syndrome “skill fatigue” according to the
fashion of the day. However, it is a peculiar kind of fatigue that arises
so rapidly in presumably normal individuals during physically light
work and disappears as quickly after work termination. (If the pilots
showed residual effects, Bartlett uncharacteristically neglected to men-
tion it.) Moreover, the rapid loss of efficiency and the intense aversion
to the task, of “skill fatigue”, resemble the findings reported from the
equally classic continuous tracking experiments of Barmack (1937),
and repetitive work experiments of Karsten (1928), where these
changes were said to accompany “boredom” and “~berdttigung”
(satiation), respectively.
Bartlett’s experiments have never been completely replicated but
recently Stave (1977) reported similar results from five helicopter pilots
who repeatedly undertook 3- to 6-hour missions in a modern simulator.
Again the pilots’ subjective feelings of fatigue and irritability mounted
over time, but surprisingly, faster in shorter missions. With some nota-
ble exceptions where something like “skill fatigue” occurred in a rela-
tively short time, the pilots’ average performance did not deteriorate.
This was attributed to progressively increasing effort which was obvious
from the pilots’ incidental behavior. Yet the pilots occasionally expe-
rienced “lapses”, or transient periods of inattention, when they simply
did nothing and allowed their tracking error to mount. The frequency
of lapses was strongly correlated with expressed feeling of fatigue; and
was likewise greater during the shorter missions. Rest periods lasting
only one minute forestalled the further occurrence of lapses. Stave
believed that lapses occurred as an effect of continuous attention to the
 J. F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory 61

monotonous task: also that rest pauses were effective because they
relieved the attentional demand, the necessity for effort, and also bore-
dom.
A deterioration in lateral road tracking performance also occurs in
prolonged driving simulations (Bartenwerfer 1957; Dureman and BodCn
1972; Ellingstadt and Heimstra 1970; Heimstra 1970; Mast et al. 1966;
Suhr 1956; Sussman and Morris 1970), as well in the actual task (Caille
and Bassano 1976; Forbes et al. 1958; Lauer and Suhr 1959; Mackie
and Miller 1978; O’Hanlon and Kelley 1977; Riemersma et al. 1977;
Suggerman and Cozad 1972). The performance decrement often began
within the first half hour of driving for subjects who were not tired
beforehand; further deterioration usually followed a linear course; and
a short rest pause was enough to restore tracking efficiency temporarily
to something approaching_ the initial level (e.g. Sussman and Morris
1970; and Riemersma et al. 1977). Moreover, after one hour of simu-
lated driving it was possible to diminish the rate of tracking decrement
merely by making the subject drive faster. Slower driving had the op-
posite effect (Bartenwerfer 1957). In the real environment comparable
groups driving at night over different rural highways showed a loss of
tracking efficiency in inverse relationship to the traffic density (O’Han-
lon and Kelley 1977). When the density was high and constant no per-
formance change occurred over five hours of continuous driving. But
great deterioration in a shorter period of time occurred when traffic
density was initially high but gradually fell thereafter. Drivers were
capable of operating without performance decrement for as long as 12
hours in daytime, city traffic (Brown et al. 1967; Brown et al. 1966).
So it seems that the more monotonous sensory stimulation provided by
the stimulator and night driving environments, and not simply repeti-
tious motor activity, was responsible for the rapid performance decre-
ment.

Satisfaction

The, classic emotional and motivational concomitants of boredom might

easily lead one to expect the generalization of aversive feelings from a
monotonous task to the entire .working environment. Accepting such a
possibility, social scientists have sought to determine whether repeated
exposures to monotonous tasks create pervasive attitudes, indicating
personality changes, that affect behavior outside of the task’s confines.
62 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

The monotonous situations thus considered have been mass production

industry and school.

Industry
Among assembly workers interviewed by Wyatt et al. (1929) about 26%
said that they were virtually never bored whereas 15% were nearly
always .bored in their jobs. Thirty years later, surveys of similar occupa-
tional groups placed the percent of very bored workers at between 20%
and 50% (Cox et al. 1953; Kornhauser 1965; Smith 1953, 1955; Turner
and Miclette 1962; Walker and Guest 1952). The greater frequencies
were found in the most routine and machine-paced tasks, such as auto-
mobile assembly (Walker and Guest 1952), and the lower frequencies, in
high-technology industry where assembly was self-paced and required
greater skill for evolving products that were judged of greater impor-
tance for achieving national goals (Turner and Miclette 1962).
Realizing that many workers experienced boredom, and some to
what seemed agonizing degrees, the scientists set out to determine
whether absenteeism was used by workers as an escape from boredom.
An early report of a direct relationship (Walker and Guest 1952) was
soon challenged by failures to find any relationship (Kilbridge 196 1;
MacKinny et al. 1962). Two subsequent surveys have provided contra-
dictory findings (Turner and Lawrence 1965; Hackman and ,Lawler
1971). Most Western authorities have now concluded that it is next to
impossible to show a relationship between boredom and absenteeism
owing to the natural confounding of boredom with other causes of ab-
senteeism.
Japanese scientists, on the other hand, have been highly successful in
showing how task repetitiveness, assumed to directly influence bore-
dom, affects absenteeism. For example, Saito (1973; Saito et aZ. 1972;
Saito and Endo‘ 1977) demonstrated that absenteeism was greater in
machine-paced assembly than when the same work was done at the
workers’ chosen pace; and that absenteeism rose in machine-paced work
(assembly and inspection) as work cycle time diminished. Industry
norms for absenteeism are lower in Japan than in developed Western
nations (Saito et al. 1972). This implies that fewer factors contribute
substantially to absenteeism in Japan. The effect of boredom may be
more apparent for that reason.
Lately more attention has been devoted to the relationship between
boredom as related specifically to the performance of a monotonous
 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: pmctical consequences and a theory 63

task, and more general dissatisfaction with the occupation. Garde11

(197 1) determined that about 20% of male machine-paced workers in a
Swedish light engineering firm found their tasks too monotonous.
Among this group, only 20% said they were happy with their jobs, as
compared to 70% of their colleagues who found the same work interest-
ing. More importantly, those who perceived the work as being too
monotonous were significantly less satisfied with life in general, pos-
sessed greater doubts regarding their prestige, experienced greater
anxiety, and complained more about vague medical problems.
Caplan et d’s (1975) survey of 2010 American male workers from
23 occupation groups yielded the following major results.

(1) Boredom was strongly related to overall job dissatisfaction (r =

0.63).
(2) Boredom varied in an expected manner between occupational
groups (e.g. assembly-line workers were much more bored than phy-
sicians). Still, only 42% of the variance in reported boredom was
attributable to occupational differences. The combined variance of
boredom within all occupational groups was the greater component
(58%).
(3) Comparing average boredom scores across all groups, boredom was
very strongly related to group job dissatisfaction (r = 0.85), depres-
sion (0.68) and complaints about general health (0.62).

Cox and Mackay (in press) demonstrated that English women work-
ers seem able to dissociate unpleasant boredom experienced from the
routine performance of highly repetitious assembly-line tasks, and satis-
faction gained from other factors in the working environment (mostly
social contacts). The overall judgment of job pleasantness was, in this
study, independent of reported boredom. A French survey (Teiger and
Laville 1978) of female electronics and garment assemblers also found
no apparent relationship between boredom and overall job satisfaction.
The majority .of the workers disliked their jobs, but mainly because of
poor social relationships with peers or supervisors.
The age of the worker also determines his tolerance for monotonous
work. In seven separate surveys reported boredom, job dissatisfaction
or both, diminished as a function of age for both male and female
assembly-line workers (Cox and Mackay in press; Garde11 1971; Hill
1975; Kornhauser 1965; Nachreiner 1978; Smith 1955; Stanger 1975).
64 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

Because none of these surveys was longitudinal, it is unknown whether

the relationship between age and boredom was due to adaptation, or
merely the selective attrition of less tolerant individuals who leave the
monotonous working environment at their earliest opportunity.

School
In Gjesqe’s (1977) survey of Norwegian sixth graders (1 l-l 2 years
old), ratings of dissatisfaction with school were strongly correlated with
feelings of boredom at school (to virtually the same degree as reported
by Caplan et al. for industrial workers). The children’s boredom was
not related to their intelligence or motivation to avoid scholastic fail-
ure.
Boredom in British primary (Fogelman 1976) and secondary (Robin-
son 1975) school students adversely affected their satisfaction, achieve-
ment and behavior in a variety of ways. Chronically bored students
were under-achievers, in spite of the fact that they were little different
from other students with respect to intelligence. Teachers’ ratings of
the non-academic classroom behavior of bored students were consider-
ably worse than ratings of the others. In secondary schools, bored stu-
dents’ truancy and drop-out rates were approximately double those of
the others. Not surprisingly, the teachers of bored secondary school
students were very pessimistic regarding the students’ further educa-
tional development, and evinced little sympathy for them. The teachers
described the bored students as more hostile and disinterested. So one
can reasonably suppose that less understanding teachers reciprocated in
kind and thereby further diminished the students’ satisfaction with
school. Viewed in this manner, the greater truancy and early final
departures of the bored students from school appear to be rational
avoidance reactions to an unrewarding, irrelevant, punitive and, in
short, stressful environment.

Health

Behavioral evidence suggests that boredom arises from some distur-

bance in normal brain functions that may occur within and extend
beyond the spatial and temporal confines of a monotonous task. If this
is true one might expect to fiid an unusually high evidence of psychi-
atric and psychosomatic’ disease among populations of workers who
have performed very repetitive tasks over periods of years. This expec-
 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory 65

tation was partially confirmed by the results of mental and physical

health surveys.

Mental
All of the attempts by social and medical scientists to find a link
between occupational boredom and poor mental health have suffered
from serious methodological deficiences (Kasl 1978). Every epidemio-
logical survey has employed the cross-sectional or “weakest” (Kasl
1978: 48) design. The designation of target and control groups was
usually made on the basis of job-title, and never upon objectively mea-
sured differences in exposure to the supposed pathogen, task repetition.
The criteria for assessing mental health were either the investigator’s
own invention (Caplan et al. 1975; Kornhauser 1965; Garde11 1971)
or taken from short psychiatric screening inventories that were not
standardized for the target population (Roman and Trite 1972; Siassi
et al. 1974). Control groups were never matched to target groups with
respect to personal factors known to affect occupational boredom, and.
occasionally neither sample, closely resembled the occupational popula-
tion (again, Roman and Trite 1972; and Siassi et al. 1974).
About the best that can be said from the accumulated evidence is
that within the same monotonous occupation, workers who complain
of chronic boredom tend to be more neurotic and otherwise less men-
tally healthy than those who do not (Garde11 197 1; Hill 1975; Korn-
hauser 1965; Nachreiner and Ernst 1978). They tend strongly to harbor
feelings of resentment and repressed hostility (Broadbent 1979; Korn-
hauser 1965); and more weakly, feelings of depression (Caplan et al.
1975) or anxiety (Garde11 1971). Whether these factors contribute to,
or arise from, chronic boredom is presently unknown.
Another, frightening, effect of prolonged engagement in repetitive
assembly work was recently suggested by Martin et al. (1980). They
surveyed a group of predominantly female Swiss watch makers who had
worked for various periods at the same repetitive tasks. A significant
inverse correlation (-0.55) was found between a measure of the work-
er’s verbal intelligence (from the Paragraph Completion Test) and their
tenure at the boring job. No significant correlation was found between
test scores and the workers ages, or between ages and terms at present
jobs. The possibility exists that monotonous work somehow diminished
the workers’ intelligence. Yet, because this study also followed the defi-
cient cross-sectional design, the authors could not discount the possi-
66 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

bility that the result simply arose from selective attrition of more intel-
ligent workers.

Physical
The first and largest survey (Samilova 197 1) compared morbidity pat-
terns between Russian women who were either employed in repetitive
machine-paced occupations (punch-press operation, fabric cutting, and
bottling) or in less repetitive, self-paced occupations (packing and up-
holstering). The former workers suffered:

( 1) 3-5 times the incidence of cardiovascular disease;

(2) 4-7 times the incidence of peripheral neurological disorders (neu-
ritis and radiculitis);
(3) twice the incidence of gastritis;
(4) 2-3 times the incidence of diseases affecting the muscles, tendons
and joints; and
(5) were absent from work 3-5 times as often for medical reasons.

In Australia, Ferguson (1973) conducted a survey of the health of tele-

graphists who had, among other things, complained about extreme task
monotony. He compared the telegraphists with clerical, maintenance
and supervisoral personnel in the same office. In the busiest office (Syd-
ney) the telegraphists were more likely to be “neurotic” and suffered
more frequently from asthma, bronchitus, trunk myalgia, exaggerated
tendon reflexes, .hand tremor, regular drinking and excessive smoking.
Among a group of French assemblers, Laville and Teiger (1975)
found that approximately three-quarters experienced occasional hys-
terical reactions (“crise de nerves et envanouissements”). The same
number suffered from chronic gastritis and/or vomiting. Half experi-
enced regular insomnia and nearly all occasionally manifested some
neuropsychiatric disorder, such as hypersensitivity to noise and light,
extreme emotional lability and anxiety. Though no control group was
studied, the workers’ morbidity pattern can be considered as highly
aberrant with respect to those in most normal working situations.
Nerell (1975) reported that Swedish mill workers having physically
constraining and repetitious jobs were severely afflicted with peptic
ulcers and gastritis. Overall, one-third of the workers and as many as
60% on one task category were receiving treatment for these diseases at
the time of the survey.
 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory 67

The probable cause for these workers’ ill-health was revealed in a

companion attitude survey (Nilsson 1975). Mill workers complained
that task monotony was a stress factor; 18% to a great degree and
another 29% to some degree. Workers in the line of process control who
possessed the greatest skill and responsibility (i.e. edgermen, sawers and
trimmer-graders) were in nearly unanimous accord regarding the adverse
effects of monotony. They said that repetitive work with cycle times of
five seconds or less produced somnolescence, distracting day-dreams
and sometimes even hallucinations. The need to exert effort in over-
coming these aberrations was deemed responsible for commonly
expressed feelings of mental fatigue and strain among these workers.
A follow-up empirical study was conducted using as subjects two
groups of mill workers; the high-risk process controllers and the low-
risk maintenance men (Johansson et al. 1978). The majority (57%) of
the process controllers said they were chronically bored and half dreaded
the beginning of each day’s work. None of the maintenance men shared
these feelings. Measured adrenaline excretion rates for process con-
trollers at work were twice the resting values, inversely related to feel-
ings of calmness and well-being and inversely related to the work cycle.
Noradrenaline excretion rates were elevated to a similar extent, but
directly related to feelings of irritation and the degree of imposed phys-
ical constraint. The excretion rates of the hormones for the mainte-
nance men were not elevated by their work.

Conclusions from the literature

Deficient performance has often been observed in monotonous tasks

that continue without interruption for an hour or more. When those
tasks involved repetitive motoric activity, the impairment took the
form of occasional slow reactions that either increased output variabil-
ity or led to timing errors. The latter were identified a.s a cause of indus-
trial accidents (Branton 1970). Tracking performance deteriorated
during continuous manual control tasks, particularly when the opera-
tor’s visual stimulation was limited to that providing the information
required for completing the task. Part of this impairment was attributed
to transient attentional lapses causing interruptions in the operator’s
motoric output. Finally, fault or target detection performance was
found to deteriorate over time in task, or to remain stable at a low level
of efficiency, in more than a dozen realistic versions of inspection on
68 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

monitoring tasks. All types of decrement were reversed by short pauses

in the working regimen.
Perceptual and/or cognitive impairment is implied by performance
changes in monotonous tasks. Critical information is either not per-
ceived or, if perceived, fails to rapidly and reliably elicit the required
motor reaction. Rehberg and Neumann’s (1969) results indicated that
both impairments may occur together: both the variability of detection
latencies, and of the times to expedite decisions based upon detections,
increased in parallel in the most monotonous version of their train con-
trolling task.
From evidence discussed in the following section, there is reason to
believe that monotonous sensory stimulation depresses the perceptual
and cognitive functions of the cerebral cortex. This could account for
the performance failures by individuals in monotonous tasks, but not
for their subjective reactions. Thackray et al’s (1977) air traffic con-
trollers and Stave’s (1977) pilots exerted compensatory “effort” to sus-
tain efficient performance. Also, the subjects of such studies have fre-
quently shown intense hostility, particularly when the requirement for
repetitive or continuous motor activity precluded any voluntary cessa-
tion of attention to the task. The complaints of industrial workers have
also been interpreted as revealing their continual effort to overcome
some attentional deficit, and further, anxiety associated with the occur-
rence of attentional failures (Ferguson 1973; Laville and Teiger 1975;
Nilsson 1975). The hostility felt by workers and students under such
circumstances was likewise well documented (Broadbent 1979; Korn-
hauser 1965; Robinson 1975).
Before returning to the causes of boredom and its immediate psycho-
logical effects, it seems appropriate to consider the consequences of
chronic boredom. Acute behavioral effects may be more important
with respect to errors and accidents within the task, but over time,
effects of chronic boredom extending beyond the task can be more
detrimental. It may even be impossible to fully appreciate the meaning
of acute effects without considering their long-term consequences.
Repeated occurrence of boredom within a monotonous task can
foster pervasive feelings of dissatisfaction with the entire working envi-
ronment (Caplan et al. 1975; Gjesne 1977); the behavioral effects of
boredom leading to dissatisfaction were sufficient to seriously reduce
the academic achievements of students (Fogelman 1976; Robinson
1975). The behavioral effects of boredom leading to dissatisfaction
 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory 69

among industrial workers are currently a matter of controversy (see

Dubois 1976, [ 19791; O’Toole 1973). However, in the only study
where absenteeism was gauged in relation to the objectively defined
repetitiveness of a single task, a relationship emerged: absenteeism
among groups of bottle inspectors was directly related to inspection
rate, and inversely, to time spent at the monotonous task (Saito et al.
1972).
Chronic boredom was reported by a minority of workers, performing
all but except the most repetitive, machine-paced tasks. Whether these
individuals were unusually sensitive, or unable to adapt to monotonous
stimulation was not revealed by survey results. Nevertheless, their afflic-
tion was apparently severe. They were seen as more neurotic, depressed
and anxious than others in the same situation. Although physical health
impairment has not been related to boredom per st, the striking inci-
dence of psychosomatic disease (e.g. gastritis and peptic ulcers) in occu-
pations where severe boredom is prevalent, reasonably leads one to
infer that relationship.

Toward a theory of boredom

A comprehensive theory of boredom should relate the eliciting physi-

cal factors to the mediating brain process, then to observable behaviors
and whole-body physiological reactions, and finally to their practical
consequences. It is doubtful whether the available information would
permit anyone to formulate such a theory ,at this time. It might just
suffice for constructing an outline of a concept of boredom serving as
the first stage in the theory’s evolution. The attempt made here to con-
ceptualize boredom as a unique psychophysiological state rests mainly
upon previous concepts of arousal, habituation, effort and stress. The
latter first must be briefly defined and related to observations of bore-
dom’s concomitants.
According to Duffy’s ( 1962: 17) most general definition, arousal is
the conversion of potential energy sources into neuronal impulses that
either excite another physiological mechanism, or inhibit it from per-
forming some function already in progress. This definition still applies,
although it is now recognized that there exist several major arousal gen-
erators that function in partial independence to control the same or dif-
ferent systems (Berlyne 1967; Blum et al. 1967; Routtenberg 1968; Pri-
70 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

bram and McGuinness 1975). Rather than restricting the definition to

apply for arousal generated by any hypothetical mechanism, arousal
shall refer here only to the condition of the cerebral cortex.
Cortical arousal can vary across a continuum from coma, through
stages of sleep and wakefulness, to extreme, disorganized excitation.
The efficiency of behavior is a non-monotonic function of cortical
arousal, rising in the wakeful state to some maximum point and dimin-
ishing as arousal increases further (the “Yerkes-Dodson law”, Duffy
1962; Hockey 1979; Kahneman 1973). The point of optimal arousal
for behavioral efficiency depends upon the complexity of information
processing to meet task requirements: the optimal point diminishes as
a function of the task difficulty. Several authors have argued that the
optimal arousal must be homeostatically maintained by arousal generat-
ing mechanisms, not only to sustain efficient performance but to save
the system from a variety of malfunctions and even structural damage
(Hebb 1955; Lindsley 196 1; Schultz 1967; Zuckerman 1969). This
implies either a self-monitoring cortical function (Broadbent 1971) or
the existence of yet another system having the specific function of
monitoring cortical arousal and initiating compensatory activity to
restore arousal. The compensatory activity can either be wholly inter-
nal, or that, in combination with behavior modifying the sensory input
(Fiske and Maddi 1961).
Arousal is to a large part determined by sensory stimulation. When a
person first encounters a task, the relatively high degrees of stimulus
novelty, complexity and surprisingness, relative to his prior experience
and expectations, and conflict with respect to simultaneously elicited
response tendencies, are thought to produce arousal at or above the
optimal level (Berlyne 1960). Stimuli which possess high values in any
or all of these dimensions reliably evoke the phasic rise in arousal
known as the “orienting reaction” and many in succession sustain a
high tonic arousal level. However, as exposure to the task continues,
stimuli become less novel and surprising and one response tendency
becomes predominant, reducing conflict. Habituation, or the decrease
in both phasic and tonic arousal in response to repetitive sensory stimu-
lation, is then said to occur (Lynn 1966).
Habituation of cortical arousal is apparently the result of a direct
inhibitory action by some cortical or subcortical mechanism that is acti-
vated by monotonous sensory stimulation (Groves and Thompson
1970; Horn 1967; Kimble 1968; Sokolov 1963). J.F. Mackworth
 J.F. 0 ‘Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory 71

( 1969) has proposed that active inhibition of cortical arousal by repeti-

tive stimulation is generally responsible for the observed performance
decrements in all types of monotonous work. She cited evidence to
show that the same factors affect both habituation during simple expo-
sure to repetitive stimulation and performance during monitoring tasks;
e.g. the rate of monotonous stimulation directly affected the rate of
habituation and that of the decrement. Mackworth’s “habituation hy-
pothesis” would lead one to predict that a rise or fall in the frequency
of a monitoring task should, respectively, impair or facilitate signal
detection performance. This was in fact observed by Krulewitz et al.
(1975). As mentioned already, the stimulus rate also determines some
of the behavioral, subjective and physiological concomitants of bore-
dom in repetitive work (Saito et al. 1972; Johansson et al. 1978; Thack-
ray et al. 1979).
However, there are several problems with using the habituation hy-
pothesis to explain a low level of behavioral efficiency associated with
boredom. Simple habituation occurs much more rapidly and usually
follows a more monotonic timecourse than the performance decrement
in monotonous tasks (Posrier 1975). Also, humans undergoing simple
habituation experiments are said to experience little of the emotional
reaction of boredom (Lynn 1966). Instead, they often go to sleep in
less than 30 minutes time (e.g. Bohlin 1971, 1973).
Habituation may nonetheless be the psychophysiological beginning
of boredom. The trend of diminishing arousal that would ultimately
lead to sleep may be attributed to a lowering of the homeostatic set-
point for arousal. Optimal arousal now possesses two meanings: that
which is task-optimal with respect ,to performance and that which is
personal-optimal as determined by the homeostatic set-point. So long
as the individual is unaware of this difference and allows habituation to
determine his personal-optimal arousal level, he should experience no
drive or motivation to raise his arousal. He should experience none of
the emotional reaction which is commonly associated with a drive to
‘restore arousal homeostasis (Stanger 1977). He will, however, perform
less efficiently than when personal-optimal and task-optimal arousal
levels are the same.
Sooner or later, declining arousal in any monotonous task situation
will fall below a level allowing the continuation of adequate perfor-
mance. This we shall define as the minimaI arousal level. “Minimal” in
this definition does not refer to the individual’s physiological condition,
 72 J.F. O’Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

except as it affects his ability to perform the task without interruption

or a failure to react appropriately to the sudden occurrence of a critical
event. Evidence for the transient form of arousal below the minimal
level in monotonous tasks is abundant. The above-mentioned “lapses”
in practical tasks, the “mental blocks” responsible for extra long reac-
tion times in serial responding tasks (Bills 1931; Sanders and Hoogen-
boom 1970), sudden error increase in continuous tracking tasks (Kogi
and Saito 1973) and failures to detect signals in monitoring tasks are
all attributed to this event (as originally suggested by Haider 1962).
The individual’s recognition of performance failure occurs after the
fact. As arousal below the minimal level does not necessarily imply a
loss of consciousness, he may still be able to perceive his own failure
(e.g. that he is off track or that he has not immediately responded to
the occurrence of a critical event). In real tasks, of course, the perfor-
mance failure can be of such consequence as to bring immediate punish-
ing feedback from an outside agent. In any case, the recognition of a
performance failure might be expected to immediately restore the
arousal set-point to a level approximating the task-optimal level.
The individual whose arousal has successfully recovered from its first
descent below the minimal level now faces a difficult choice. He can
permit the same to occur again, but may choose not to do so in antici-
pation of the punishing consequences. He can leave the environment
that provides him with inadequately arousing stimulation, &enliven it
in some way. However, when he is constrained to remain in place and
forbidden to break his monotonous routine then he must choose the
only other available alternative. He must exert effort to maintain his
arousal setpoint at the task-optimal level, or something between that
and the minimal.
The concept of effort was introduced by Kahneman (1973) as the
capacity (or attention) available to perform some task. The miscella-
neous determinants of arousal in the task were thought to determine
the baseline level of effort. Beyond that, voluntary mobilization of
effort was possible to a limit that was in part intrinsic, and in part set
by external arousal determinants (i.e., more effort is possible in more
arousing tasks). Pribram and McGuinness ( 1975) offered an alternative,
but. not wholly distinct, definition of effort as part of a 3-process neu-
ropsychological model of attention. “Effort” was described as the coor-
dinating process between “arousal” (stimulus determined) and “activa-
tion” (controlling response readiness). Effort was necessary to uncouple
 J.F. 0 Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory 13

arousal and activation. When monotonous stimulation depresses the

arousal process, their model indicates that attention and the readiness
to respond must be sustained by effort. Effort is simply defined here as
a voluntary, internally generated process that increases arousal when
the available sensory stimulation is insufficient for maintaining it at the
task-optimal level.
Effort is commonly reported to be an unpleasant subjective compo-
nent of boredom. By itself, effort achieves no reward from the environ-
ment. Whatever the brain process for effort might be, it seems apart
from that mediating the experience of positive affect (e.g. Routten-
berg’s “Arousal System II”). One might, therefore, expect the extinc-
tion of effort over time in so far as it resembles any type of unrein-
forced behavior.
Boredom thus involves the conflict between habituation and effort
to maintain a satisfactory level of arousal for performing the task. But
if the process responsible for the former is constant whereas that for
the latter varies with recurrent voluntary elicitation followed by invol-
untary extinction, a fluctuating level of arousal and performance effi-
ciency would result. Lowenstein and Lowenfeld (1952) may have
measured this in successive pupillary dilations of humans whose only
task was to stay awake while viewing a flashing light. Dilations were
initially large but declined and recovered regularly in direct correspon-
dence with feelings of fatigue and boredom. The periods of recovery
were said to reveal the individuals’ repeated efforts to stay awake. Indi-
viduals who were extremely fatigued prior to the repetitive stimulation,
and animals that presumably made none of the human effort, showed
no periodic pupillary fluctuations. Instead, the reflex grew weaker and
both humans and animals rapidly went to sleep. Human pupillary dila-
tions to similar acoustic events constituting signals and noise in a pro-
longed monitoring task followed a similar time course and were also
related to the efficiency of performance (i.e. detections of signals,
Beatty and Wagoner 1975; Beatty and Wilson 1977). These results are
particularly interesting because of Kahneman’s claim that changes in
pupillary dilation reflect momentary effort fluctuations.
Other objective measures of effort are.conceivable. In particular, the
activity level in the somatic musculature either inferred from movement
frequency (restlessness), from EMG correlates of sustained isometric
tension in face and neck muscles, or from finger tremor frequency,
increased over time in subjects performing various types of mono-
74 J.F. 0 ‘Hanlon /Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

tonous, though sedentary, work (Movement: Baker 1959; Thackray et

al. 1977; EMG: Eason et aZ. 1965; Luccacini 1968; Stern 1966; Weber
et al. in press; Wilkinson 1960; Tremor: Groll 1966). In every case this
occurred while performance efficiency declined, and in most cases,
when other physiological measures indicated a general waning of corti-
cal or autonomic arousal. In referring to Wilkinson’s results, Broadbent
( 197 1: 4 12-4 13) speculated that muscle tension might be a singularly
revealing measure of effort, in this case to offset the dearousing effects
of sleep loss. Fussler-Pfohl et al. (in press) went further to show that
elevated EMG activity in the neck accompanied the requirement for
sustained attention to make a difficult size discrimination among ball-
bearings in a repetitive manual sorting and packaging task. Neck EMG
activity was about 30% less when the same subjects merely packaged
the ball-bearings without regard to size.
Recently, Hockey ( 1979) asserted that low arousal becomes stressful
if an individual is required to counteract this state. Presumably he was
referring to something like effort as defined here. Yet effort is not
stress. Stress as originally defined (Selye 1976), is the whole-body reac-
tion to preserve homeostasis in the presence of some agent that would
disturb it (ie. a stressor). If optimal arousal is homeostatically main-
tained, and if it must not be allowed to fall to a level that monotonous
sensory stimulation can sustain, then that stimulation is the stresspr and
effort is a stress-controlling process. If so, some measure of effort
would be a useful sign of stress in boredom (Teichner 1968), and per-
haps the only sign in a task where effort is successful.
To say that effort is not stress, is to say that boredom, as a state of
the brain, is also not stress. But the consequences of boredom, subjec-
tive, behavioral and physiological, may well satisfy every definition of
stress. Effort seemingly has a negative affective component that alone
may cause pervasive attitudes of dissatisfaction and lead to aversion to
the entire working environment. Effort may also have peripheral phys-
iological correlates (e.g. elevated muscle tension) that lead eventually to
disease (see Fussler-Pfohl et al. in press). Moreover, in the real world,
performance failures as a consequence of boredom may have pro-
foundly stressful effects. Failures there are sometimes punished. Where
performance failures are frequent and invariably result in punishment,
one might expect the individual to react with anxiety and/or hostility.
Both reactions are accompanied by well known peripheral reactions
(e.g. elevated catecholamine production) that may again lead to disease.
 J.F. 0 ‘Hanlon/Boredom: practical consequences and a theory 75

The now intensely negative feelings might become associated by con-

tiguity with other perceived aspects of the working environment so that
stress reactions extend beyond the temporal and spatial limits of the
monotonous task.
The Swedish edgerman (Nerell 1975; Nilsson 1975; Johansson et al.
1978) seems the archetype of an individual who suffers from the stress
of boredom. His work was rapidly and automatically paced. He was not
allowed to pause or divert his attention from the monotonous task. His
errors were immediately apparent and highly consequential. The work
required a high degree of sustained attention, yet he said he was unable
to satisfy that requirement. His anxiety and adrenaline rose with the
pace of work; his hostility and noradrenaline, with the degree of physi-
cal constraint imposed. He.was anxious in the anticipation of the work.
And, he was liable to develop psychosomatic disease.
Few tasks are as bad as this and most individuals seem able to cope
in normally boring situations. Their physical tasks may be more benign
in the sense of being shorter, less repetitive and constraining. The op-
portunities for performance failures or the consequences of failures
may be less. Workers may even learn to perform less demanding tasks in
a low state of arousal which can be maintained by minimal effort. Yet
it cannot be denied that for still unexplained reasons of greater sensi-
tivity, a sizeable minority of individuals in all monotonous occupations
complain of boredom and show some of the signs of the edgerman’s
stress. On this basis one can conclude that stress due to chronic bore-
dom is a common problem of enormous proportions.
The present concept of boredom explains why stimulation repetitive-
ness is a determinant of boredom: that factor directly affects habitua-
tion. It also explains why rapid machine-paced work is more stressful
than more variable but just as rapid self-paced work: attentional failures
are less likely to lead to performance failures and punishment. Finally,
it accounts for the ameliatory effect, of short rest pauses as the only
way to reduce habituation in an otherwise constant environment.
The concept leads to several rather surprising predictions. Boredom
should increase with the perceptual difficulty of the task as performed
within constantly repetitious, short working cycles, insofar as this raises
the task-optimal arousal lever more than the personal-optimal level, and
thereby the effort requirement. It should increase with more stringent
performance demands, as this raises the minimal arousal level and
denies the individual the possibility of working with much less than
76 IF. 0 ‘HanIon/Boredom: practical consequences and a theory

task-optimal arousal. Stress as a consequence of boredom should

increase in direct relationship to the immediacy and intensity of punish-
ment for performance failures. On the individual level, boredom should
be greatest in persons (1) whose arousal habituates most rapidly in the
presence of monotonous stimulation, (2) whose personal-optimal
arousal levels are the lowest, either naturally or as the result of some
external factor (e.g. sleep loss), and (3) who actively strive to maintain
a task-optimal arousal level, and peak performance efficiency, by the
expenditure of effort.

Summary: a concept of boredom

Boredom was defined as a unique psychophysiological state. It com-

prises a set of interrelated emotional, motivational and cognitive reac-
tions having a common biological basis. Boredom is a prevalent and
sometimes very serious problem in real-life situations. Performance inef-
ficiency accompanies boredom as does general dissatisfaction with the’
setting in which boredom occurs.
The physical factors that cause boredom are complex, but always
include exposure to constant or repetitious sensory stimulation. Two
underlying physiological factors were identified: the process, initiated
by monotonous stimulation, of inhibiting cortical arousal (habituation);
and a compensatory process elicited to restore arousal to an optimal
level for task performance (effort). Effort is the more dynamic process.
It is an unrewarding voluntary activity that tends to extinguish over
time. When effort is no longer able to counteract habituation, cortical
arousal declines below the point necessary for supporting acceptable
performance. The continuous flow of information through the cortex
to response systems is interrupted and a performance failure occurs.
This plienomenom has previously been called a “lapse” or “mental
block”. Performance failures can have punishing consequences. Effort
is mobilized to forestall the recurrence of the failure. Effort, hostility
and sometimes anxiety contribute to an emotional disturbance that,
with its peripheral correlates, may constitute the state of stress. Any
perceived aspect of the situation can become associated with the emo-
tional disturbance by contiguity. The entire situation may finally come
to elicit the emotional reaction and stress, soon after exposure begins or
even in its anticipation.
 J. F. 0 ‘Hanlon/Boredom: practical consequences and a theory II

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