Boredom as a Motivator of Pain Infliction in Psychopathy

Abstract

Maladaptive behaviours have been associated with both psychopathy and boredom proneness—however, there remains limited evidence of how they interact to influence these behaviours. Given that psychopathy has been linked to boredom susceptibility, it is possible that boredom contributes to harmful behaviours in psychopathy. This thesis addressed this gap by investigating the interplay between boredom proneness, psychopathy, and the inclination to inflict pain on others. Chapter 1 described the current literature on how boredom and psychopathy influence maladaptive behaviours and highlighted limitations in the extant literature. The following chapters were comprised of four studies: the first study (Chapter 2) explored how individuals with different levels of psychopathy and boredom represented emotions in their bodies, to determine whether the traits of boredom proneness and psychopathy were associated with distinct embodied representations of affect. This was deemed important given the role both state and trait boredom would play in subsequent experimental chapters. Results showed that the embodied experience of boredom did not substantially differ as a function of psychopathy or boredom proneness. The second study (Chapter 3) examined whether boredom (both trait and state) and psychopathy traits exacerbated the tendency to inflict physical pain through an online game scenario. Results showed that state boredom diminished aggression strength in those with higher levels of psychopathy, particularly primary psychopathy. The final two studies (Chapter 4) investigated the likelihood of inflicting social pain using novel scenarios in which participants could choose to inflict social pain on a fictional person. In both Study 4A and 4B, trait boredom proneness did not emerge as a significant moderator between psychopathy and choosing socially painful options. However, when forced to consider the likelihood of choosing each option, boredom proneness did act as a significant positive moderator between psychopathy (and primary psychopathy) and social pain infliction. Chapter 5 concluded with a summary of the research findings and explored possible explanations for the discrepancies observed in the results, addressed the limitations of the current studies, and suggested avenues for future research.