Individual differences in experience after a control task: Boredom proneness, curiosity, and grit correlate with emotion

Abstract

Objectives The aims of the present study are to investigate (a) whether a control task (i.e., the grocery imagery task) classically used in emotion research and designed to emulate emotional neutrality is truly neutral and (b) how boredom proneness, curiosity, and grit influence emotions following this control task. Method State feeling of emotions were measured on 178 participants before and after the control task. Boredom proneness, curiosity, and grit was measured to examine the effect of these personality traits on participants' emotion before and after the control task. Results The findings demonstrate that the control task does not evoke a neutral state, but rather, it results in fluctuations in emotional experience and these fluctuations are only partially explained by personality traits associated with engagement and disengagement (boredom, curiosity, and grit). External boredom proneness was positively correlated with post‐task boredom, resignation, and sadness. Internal boredom proneness and the feeling‐of‐interest dimension of curiosity were both positively correlated with joy and challenge/determination, whereas the feeling‐of‐deprivation dimension of curiosity was negatively correlated with joy. Finally, grit was positively correlated with interest. Conclusion The present study found that even following a control task intended to be emotionally neutral, emotional experience differs and personality can paint the way we perceive and thus react to these control conditions. These findings highlight the importance of considering the neutrality of control tasks and the effects of personality on control tasks in emotion research.

Keywords

• boredom
• curiosity
• emotion
• grit
• neutrality