Individual Differences and the Function of Emotions in Socio-Emotional and Cognitive Conflict: If an Agent Shames you, will you still be Bored?

Abstract

Employers seek to support their employees to increase their well-being and long-term performance. Boredom is considered as a main unpleasant emotional state at the workplace, which could lead to stress, depression and decreased well-being. Boredom is related to the situation at hand and may lead to decreased performance. We frame the situation by connecting socio-emotional and cognitive conflict and individual differences to shed light onto the function of boredom. We look at the relation of boredom to theoretically connected emotions and their regulation. We conducted an online experiment in a virtual workplace setting (N = 57). We induced a socio-emotional and cognitive conflict situation by using a socially interactive agent which shames participants. Individual differences were operationalised through social identity and self-consciousness. We tested how social identity (predictor) and self-consciousness (moderator) influence cognitive appraisal of threat (mediator) and boredom (outcome). The results revealed that self-consciousness moderates the effect of social identity on cognitive appraisal of threat which then mediates the effect of social identity on boredom.