Is Boredom the Opposite of Interest? A Longitudinal Reciprocal Effect Study

Abstract

After decades of being conceptualised solely as a lack of interest, boredom has recently gained attention as an important construct in its own right. However, there is still a lack of studies focusing on the relations and developmental interplay of these two closely related constructs. This study examines the overall long-term developmental structure and interplay of students’ boredom and interest in the school domains of mathematics and German from fifth to eighth grade. We investigated German secondary school students (N = 1471) over four waves of measurement, using self-report questionnaires. Confirmatory factor analyses in preparation to the longitudinal approach revealed a significantly better fit for two- vs. one-factor models, indicating an empirical separability of boredom and interest. This was further supported by different stabilities in our latent cross-lagged models with low autoregressive paths for boredom and high paths for interest. The latent cross-lagged models also revealed that higher levels of earlier interest were related to lower levels of later boredom. Surprisingly, individuals with higher boredom scores relative to others on average increased in their interest from the second time point onwards. Findings were robust for German and mathematics. Overall, the results show that while boredom and interest have a large phenomenological overlap, they are empirically separable constructs with different levels of stability and influence each other in a distinctive manner throughout their developmental interplay. Implications for research and practice are outlined.