Some people are quickly perceived as boring by others. The psychological processes and perceptions underlying this sensation have, however, only been sparsely researched so far. The three researchers Wijnand AP van Tilburg, Eric R. Igou and Mehr Panjwani took on this question in a study.
When surveying the study participants from Great Britain and the USA, the main focus was on which stereotypical characteristics were automatically assigned to people who found them most boring. The scientists took a special look at the jobs, hobbies and character traits of the bores. At the top of the list of the most boring professions are those in data analysis, taxes and accounting.
Something similar is also reflected in the hobbies and interests of people who are perceived as uninteresting. Anyone who counts math among their hobbies did very poorly in the survey of the protagonists in the category of an interesting person. But leisure activities such as sleeping, watching TV, practicing religion and observing animals were at least as unexciting as simply not having a hobby at all.
Not being interested in anything at all and hardly having an opinion on topics was one of the most boring aspects of a person when it came to character traits. Likewise, a lack of humor, a lack of interpersonal warmth and incompetence are: traits that bring a person no closer to a connection, either when dating or making other connections. If you have characteristics like these, people will avoid you a lot more, and when you come into contact with them, you get the feeling that you need compensation in time or a pleasant compensation for dealing with them.
So if you are looking for new friends or even a date, you should be careful not to write mathematics as a hobby in your online dating profile, as this significantly reduces the chances of a date. But not to leave that unmentioned, the journalist also came up a little further down the boring list of professions.
Sources: Editorial Network Germany, Sage Journals
