Behavioral Grooves Podcast Eight Years Grooving: The Theory of Boredom | George Loewenstein (Republish)
Sep 11, 2025
In this engaging discussion, George Loewenstein, a pioneer in behavioral economics from Carnegie Mellon University, dives into the uncharted waters of boredom. He explores how boredom can enhance attention and productivity, especially in workplace settings. Loewenstein shares fascinating insights on curiosity and the dynamics of meetings, advocating for strategies that transform tedium into meaningful engagement. He also connects emotions, flow, and even music, revealing that boredom might be the secret ingredient to unlocking deeper focus and creativity.
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Boredom Is An Attention-Switch Signal
- Boredom functions as an automatic signal to change your focus of attention.
- It arises without conscious deliberation and preserves attention as a limited resource.
Flow Signals Stay-The-Course
- Flow is the opposite signal to boredom: it tells you not to change focus.
- Overriding flow with deliberate choice creates misery similar to overriding boredom.
Cues Drive Boredom Expectations
- The implicit system uses environmental cues to set expectations about how much sense-making should occur.
- Boredom appears when current sense-making falls short of those implicit expectations.
