Boredom Is in Your Mind: A Shared Psychological-Philosophical Approach

Description

This book offers a unique perspective on the topic of boredom, with chapters written by diverse representatives of various mental health disciplines and philosophical approaches. On one hand, studying boredom involves the mental processes of attention, memory, perception, creativity, or language use; on the other, boredom can be understood by taking into account many pathological conditions such as depression, stress, and anxiety. This book seeks to fill the knowledge gap in research by discussing boredom through an interdisciplinary dialogue, giving a comprehensive overview of the past and current literature within boredom studies, while discussing the neural bases and causes of boredom and its potential consequences and implications for individual and social well-being. Chapters explore the many facets of boredom, including: Understanding the cognitive-affective mechanisms underlying experiences of boredomPhilosophical perspectives on boredom, self-consciousness, and narrativeHow boredom shapes both basic and complex human thoughts, feelings, and behavior Analyzing boredom within Freudian and Lacanian frameworks Boredom Is in Your Mind: A Shared Psychological-Philosophical Approach is a pioneering work that brings together threads of cross-disciplinary boredom research into one comprehensive resource. It is relevant for graduate students and researchers in myriad intersecting disciplines, among them cognitive psychology, cognitive neurosciences, and clinical psychology, as well as philosophy, logic, religion, and other areas of the humanities and social sciences. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxvii Is It a Good Thing to Be Bored? (Peter Toohey)....Pages 1-10 The Unbearable Lightness of Boredom: A Pragmatic Meaning-Regulation Hypothesis (Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg, Eric R. Igou)....Pages 11-35 Boredom: Managing the Delicate Balance Between Exploration and Exploitation (James Danckert)....Pages 37-53 Boredom Is a Feeling of Thinking and a Double-Edged Sword (John D. Eastwood, Dana Gorelik)....Pages 55-70 Boredom and Psychoanalysis (María Cecilia Antón, Josefa Ros Velasco)....Pages 71-89 The Transformative Potential of Boredom (William McDonald)....Pages 91-110 Heidegger on Creativity: From Boredom to Re-engagement with the World (Erik Ringmar)....Pages 111-121 Facing Boredom: Essential Indexicals and Narratives of the Self (Ricardo Gutiérrez Aguilar)....Pages 123-134 Animal Boredom (Lars Svendsen)....Pages 135-147 The Helix Center Roundtable on Boredom (New York, April 2018) (Josefa Ros Velasco)....Pages 149-167 Back Matter ....Pages 169-179