The Effect of "Novelty Input" and "Novelty Output" on Boredom During Home Quarantine in the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Moderating Effects of Trait Creativity

Relationship Between Personality Traits and Emotional Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Canadian Emerging Adults

We assessed whether traits from the four-factor vulnerability model for substance misuse are associated with the content of emotional descriptions given by Canadian university students of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their lives. Personality traits were measured in 1185 first- and second-year undergraduates (mean age = 19.11 years; 79% female). Written responses to "Tell us about how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting your life" were coded using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software. Negative binomial analyses were run to examine links between traits and emotion word types used in responses. Anxiety sensitivity was associated with increased use of anxiety words; hopelessness was associated with increased use of negative emotion and sadness words, and decreased use of positive emotion words; and impulsivity was associated with increased use of anger words. Findings have implications for personality-tailored interventions for students vulnerable to distress resulting from highly stressful situations such as pandemics.

Improving Social and Personal Rhythm Dysregulation in Young and Old Adults with Bipolar Disorder: Post-Hoc Analysis of a Feasibility Randomized Controlled Trial Using Virtual Reality-Based Intervention

Introduction: Rehabilitative interventions employing technology play a crucial role in bipolar disorder (BD) treatment. The study aims to appraise the virtual reality (VR)-based cognitive remediation (CR) and the interpersonal rhythm approaches to treatment outcomes of BD across different age groups. Methods: Post-hoc analysis of a 12-week randomizedcontrolled cross-over feasibility trial involving people with mood disorders (BD, DSM-IV) aged 18-75 years old: thirty-nine exposed to the experimental VR-based CR vs 25 waiting list controls. People with BD relapse, epilepsy or severe eye diseases (due to the potential VR risks exposure) were excluded. Biological Rhythms Interview of Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (BRIAN) was used to measure the outcome. Results: Cases and controls did not statistically significantly differ in age and sex distributions. Personal rhythm scores improved over the study follow-up in the experimental vs the control group (APC = 8.7%; F = 111.9; p < 0.0001), both in young (18-45 years) (APC = 5.5%; F = 70.46; p < 0.0001) and, to a lesser extent, older (>46 years) adults (APC = 10.5%; F = 12.110; p = 0.002). Conclusions: This study observed improved synchronization of personal and social rhythms in individuals with BD after a virtual reality cognitive remediation intervention, particularly in social activity, daily activities, and chronotype, with greater benefits in the younger population.

In search of boredom: beyond a functional account

Boredom has been characterized as a crisis of meaning, a failure of attention, and a call to action. Yet as a self-regulatory signal writ-large, we are still left with the question of what makes any given boredom episode meaningless, disengaging, or a prompt to act. We propose that boredom is an affective signal that we have deviated from an optimal ('Goldilocks') zone of cognitive engagement. Such deviations may be due to a perceived lack of meaning, arise as a consequence of struggles we are experiencing in attending to a task, or be interpreted as a blunt call to find something different to engage with. Thus, the key to understanding boredom lies in its role in keeping us cognitively engaged.

Aggressive behavior, boredom, and protective factors among college students during closed-off management of the COVID-19 pandemic in China

Background

Chinese colleges have implemented strict closed-off management in response to the outbreak of a new variant of the new coronavirus, Omicron. But such management measures may lead to more aggressive behavior. The study aimed to determine the associations between boredom and aggressive behavior with aggression and to examine the impact of boredom on aggression through the moderating role of cognitive flexibility.

Methods

The Multidimensional State Boredom Scale, the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire, and the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory were applied to a sample of 719 college students who were in a closed-off management environment.

Results

For individuals with high cognitive flexibility, the relationship between state boredom and proactive aggression was not significant. The relationship between state boredom and proactive aggression was significantly positively correlated for individuals with low cognitive flexibility, especially low substitutability. Cognitive flexibility has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between state boredom and reactive aggression.

Conclusion

The findings highlighted the importance of boredom as a potential risk factor for aggression, while cognitive flexibility appears as a potential protective factor.

Teacher Online Informal Learning as a Means to Innovative Teaching During Home Quarantine in the COVID-19 Pandemic

The home quarantine in the COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for teaching across the world and called for innovative teaching, as well as teachers' learning. Given the rapid development of teachers' online learning and teaching, identifying effective ways to facilitate innovative teaching under such challenging conditions is a critical issue. Although researchers have realized that workplace informal learning (IL) increasingly reveals its potential value to individual development, the relationship between IL and innovation has been under-explored. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of IL on innovative teaching, through the mediating roles of three types of teaching-related efficacy, with a particular focus on college teachers and online context. A sample of 479 Chinese college teachers was randomly selected to participate in the survey. The results showed that teachers' online IL in pandemic improved their personal teaching efficacy and ICT efficacy (information and communication technology efficacy), and then facilitated their innovative teaching without differences of gender and teaching-age effect. Whereas, general teaching efficacy was not a mediator between online IL and innovative teaching. Hence, we proposed a can-do motivating model of teacher efficacy in fostering innovative teaching through informal learning. It implies three properties of teachers' online IL: social interaction, autonomous learning and novelty-seeking. It also revealed that innovative teaching can be driven in COVID-19 pandemic, mainly by learning domain-specific knowledge and skills, thus enhancing personal teaching efficacy and ICT efficacy in online teaching context.