Predicting Boredom Based on Gratitude and Integrative Self-Knowledge in Adolescents: With the Mediating Role of the Meaning of Life from Three Existential, Cognitive, and Neurological Approaches

Boredom signals a lack of meaning. Gratitude and self-knowledge promote feelings of meaning in life. I proposed accordingly that gratitude and self-knowledge, by engendering meaning, shield against boredom in adolescents. Specifically, I hypothesized that gratitude and self-knowledge prevent boredom by increasing perceptions of meaning in life, through existential, cognitive, and neurological approaches. A total of 238 high school students (both girls and boys) from Shiraz, Iran, participated in this study, selected through a multi-stage cluster sampling method. Participants completed questionnaires measuring trait boredom, gratitude, meaning in life, and integrative self-knowledge. Results indicated that gratitude and reflective self-knowledge significantly and positively predicted the ‘meaning presence’ component, which in turn significantly and negatively predicted trait boredom. The mediating role of the meaning presence was confirmed. These findings suggest that gratitude and reflective self-knowledge reduce boredom by enhancing meaning presence in life. To summarize, gratitude and reflective self-knowledge correspond with the cognitive, existential, and neurological functions of boredom and can predict a decrease in boredom.