Spiritual boredom is associated with over- and underchallenge, lack of value, and reduced motivation

Abstract

The emotion of boredom has attracted considerable research interest. However, boredom experienced in spiritual contexts (i.e., spiritual boredom) has rarely been investigated. Based on control-value theory (CVT), we investigated the occurrence, antecedents, and motivational effects of spiritual boredom in five different spiritual contexts: yoga, meditation, silence retreats, Catholic sermons, and pilgrimage. For each context, we conducted two independent studies, one including trait and another including state measures. The set of 10 studies included a total sample of N = 1267 adults. We complemented individual study results with an internal meta-analysis. The results showed a mean level of spiritual boredom of $$\bar{M}$$ M ¯ = 1.91 on a scale of 1 to 5. In line with CVT, spiritual boredom was positively related to being overchallenged ( $$\bar{r}$$ r ¯ = 0.44) in 9 out of the 10 studies and positively related to being underchallenged ( $$\bar{r}$$ r ¯ = 0.44) in all studies. Furthermore, as expected, spiritual boredom was negatively related to perceived value in all studies ( $$\bar{r}$$ r ¯ = −0.54). Finally, boredom was negatively related to motivation to engage in spiritual practice ( $$\bar{r}$$ r ¯ = −0.46) across studies. Directions for future research and practical implications are discussed.