A dangerous combination

Study explores what may be driving some to break public health rules,

A study by the University of Waterloo reveals some people’s boredom during the pandemic may have driven them to break physical distancing rules in rebellion, after it found a link between boredom, political ideology and failure to adhere to public safety measures.

The study, recently published in the Motivation and Emotion journal, focused on psychology and behaviour, surveyed around 900 participants in April and May of 2020 who are mostly from the United States, along with a small percentage of Canadians. Participants were asked about their proneness to boredom, their political ideologies and compliance with physical-distancing requirements.

It found that people who suffered from boredom frequently and intensely during the pandemic were more likely to break public safety rules like mask-wearing and distancing. They were also more likely to self-identify as being socially conservative.

But why is that?

James Danckert, a professor of cognitive neuroscience in the University of Waterloo’s psychology department and co-author of the study, said previous research suggests boredom leads people to align more fiercely with political beliefs they held before the pandemic. As safety measures become more politicized, his study reveals those who hold right-wing beliefs that value personal liberty are then more likely to break rules put in place to promote public health.

Boredom, Danckert explained, traditionally has many behavioural consequences, as it is linked with a lack of fulfilment or meaning in life. This drives people into action to curb this sense of boredom. That action varies from person to person, depending on where they find most meaning. For many, meaning and action are found in politics.

“It goes back to boredom, where your sense of agency is diminished,” said Danckert, who also co-authored a book published last year on the psychology of boredom.

The study follows other research done globally during the pandemic that also found a link between rule-breaking and boredom. A study out of the University of Konstanz in Germany in July 2020 found a similar correlation, that “the difficulty of adhering to social distancing guidelines was particularly high among boredom prone individuals with low selfcontrol, which might make them vulnerable to violations of the guidelines,” the research said.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has forced most people to retreat indoors since March 2020, leaving them bored and with little to do, rule-breakers only make up a fraction of the population.

This is why Danckert’s team wanted to build on existing research, he said, and understand the reasons why some people’s boredom could lead to a rebellion against public health measures.

In reference to a 2016 study out of King’s College in London, which found a correlation between boredom and extreme political views, Danckert and his team decided to ask study participants about their political ideologies to determine if people’s beliefs could be amplified by boredom, becoming the driving force behind their decision to rebel.

“A lot of the (safety) measures we had have become highly politicized,” especially something as simple as mask-wearing, Danckert explained.

In the U.S., mask mandates were initially left up to the states to enforce, which caused a divide among those whose political beliefs value individual rights and freedom, despite physical-distancing measures and masks being promoted by doctors as essential to save lives and curb the spread of COVID-19.

This resistance is not unique to the U.S. Canada has seen its own movement against physical distancing and mask-wearing, with antimask rallies held frequently in downtown Toronto. Other acts of defiance, like holding religious services despite gathering restrictions, have taken place elsewhere in the country, namely in Alberta with GraceLife Church.

“We often talk about ‘American exceptionalism’ and I think Canada has a sense of ‘Canadian exceptionalism’ in that we’re not as bad as the Americans … but I think that’s a falsehood,” Danckert said.

“There’s plenty of evidence in Canada that we have been breaking the rules and if you look anecdotally at the evidence (this rule-breaking) tends to line up with a social conservative ideology.”

Danckert said his research may offer insights on how to effectively communicate public health and safety measures now and in the future. A lot of the communication during the pandemic, he said, focused on personal responsibility, when it may be more effective to focus on people’s commonalities within their community.

“It’s up to you to stick to the rules and it’s up to you to get your vaccine, so we’ve focused very heavily on the individual,” he said. “We might get better compliance if we focus on the group, because whether or not you have social conservative or far left-wing ideologies, there are many things that we have in common,” like caring about our children and the health of our elders.

And while society is slowly reopening in Canada and the U.S. due to rapidly increasing vaccination rates, Danckert said this lesson on messaging could be applied to other existential threats, namely climate change — a threat that has also been politically polarizing.

“More often than not, we tend to shut down once we see (others’) differences, certainly big differences like political ideology,” Danckert said.

“We need to focus on our shared values and see how we can move forward with that focus.”