John EASTWOOD johneast@yorku.ca Boredom Lab (Canada) Self-focused but lacking self-insight: The relationship between boredom and self- consciousness Boredom, the uncomfortable feeling of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity [1,2] is associated with a high level of self- consciousness. That is, when bored we are painfully stuck in ourselves, unable to connect, and unable to loose ourselves in activity. In this regard boredom can be categorized as a self-referential feeling (akin to other feelings such as guilt and shame). However, only a handful of studies have explored the links between boredom and self-consciousness and have found disparate, and potentially confusing, patterns. We propose that the confusion arises because boredom has a differential relationship with two aspects of self-consciousness that must be distinguished. Whereas boredom is positively correlated with the tendency to scrutinize and direct focus towards oneself (i.e. self-directed attention), it is negatively correlated with the ability to identify and categorize one’s inner experiences (i.e. self- insight) [3,4,5,6]. We will report empirical findings that support our model. People who often feel bored tend to focus attention on them selves but also lack self-insight. Moreover, people manipulated into a state of boredom report higher levels of self focused attention whereas manipulating levels of self focused attention did not result in increased boredom levels suggesting a particular causal relation at the state level. In study 1, within both the undergraduate and community sample, we found evidence of a 3-factor model, with Factors 1, 2, and 3 defined by salient loadings from measures of trait boredom, measures of self-insight, and measures of self directed attention, respectively. Trait boredom was positively associated with the latent factor of self-directed attention and negatively associated with the latent factor of self-insight.