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This study attempts to identify the structural-intellectual domain of the Boredom construct. To that end, a bibliometric content analysis was performed on the major studies on boredom indexed in the PsycINFO database from 1923-2013. To examine historical trends, the analysis compared recent studies to nascent research. The findings revealed that boredom research continues to struggle with rudimentary concerns like taxonomy, construct issues, and a lack of investigatory direction. Despite these concerns, studies with a focus on individual differences, measures, and mental health seem to be popular over the last 2 decades. Historically, from 1950-1988, a sizeable majority of the research reflected the impact of boredom in psychotherapy. Interestingly, during the seminal era, researchers studied the effects of boredom directly in industrial settings. The current analysis identified several neglected areas of research, i.e., work-life- factors, drug abuse, burnout, and creativity.
Scholarly research on the construct of Boredom, a ubiquitous topic in the I/O literature, has a long history. However, few studies (e.g., Smith, 1981) have investigated the domain structure of extant literature on the topic of boredom. Moreover, no studies on boredom have examined research trends or shifts in topical emphasis over time. Thus, it appears worthwhile to examine the scholarly literature on boredom and determine the major areas that researchers are emphasizing in their investigatory efforts. One approach is to apply bibliometric methods to gauge evolving research trends in scholarly databases (e.g., Piotrowski, 2012). This strategy has served as a valid and informative exercise in addressing the popularity or shifts in attention on a host of I/O topics of...