How to convince people you're interesting, according to the psychologist who says he identified the world's most boring person
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Stephen Jones
Jun 11, 2022, 14:14 IST
Being perceived as boring can have a negative impact on how people are seen by their peers.AlexanderFord / Getty
If you want to convince people you're not boring, be strategic about how you frame what you do.
That's according to the psychologist who identified the jobs and hobbies seen to be most boring.
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Boredom, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. That's according to Wijnand Van Tilburg, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex.
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Usefully, the study also gave Van Tilburg an understanding of how an "uninteresting" person might go about changing that perception.
If you want people to think you're less boring, frame the way they see you, he suggests. That's because there are a lot of inconsistencies in the stereotypes people see as boring, he said.
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For example, if Van Tilburg were to describe himself as a scientist, he would fall into the branch of the most exciting occupations, according to the findings. However, if he said that 90% of his day was spent conducting data analysis the impression would be the opposite.
"So in that way by framing it by using the right terms, it might be easier to avoid having that negative stereotype being applied," he told Insider.
By that logic, you don't sit around and watch movies, you're a cinephile; you don't live in a boring suburb but in an up-and-coming community.
"It's a bit more strategic," Van Tilburg said.
Boredom is both positive and negative — it really depends on the context
Van Tilburg is a self-labeled "boredom expert," who has dedicated the last 15 years of his career to researching it. It first piqued his interest as a Ph.D. student looking for a new way to research the psychology behind the meaning of life.
Van Tilburg generally agrees with the definition of boredom as an "adverse feeling that there is something to get on with, but you can't seem to find satisfactory activity."
It's mildly unpleasant, he added, but trying to think of it as good or bad is not really the right approach because it really depends on the context.
On the one hand, boredom is a "functional experience" that pushes one to explore new things and, as one study suggests, can encourage divergent thinking, he said.
On the other, it can be a "double-edged sword" that encourages risk-taking and can push us to quit our job without thinking of the consequences, for example.
"There is nothing wrong with boredom, in principle, but it does have quite a range of different impacts on people's lives," Van Tilburg told Insider. These can be negative, as his research found.
Participants not only perceived boring people to be less competent but they were more likely to want to avoid them.
Any evidence that this has a direct impact on a person's career is anecdotal but Van Tilburg said he wouldn't be surprised if someone who did fit the boring stereotype wasn't affected in some way.
"It's not just that people make snap judgments when you first meet someone. You don't even get the chance to potentially meet someone right?" he said. That's potentially problematic in the workplace because it may be difficult to change and challenge any stereotype that has been formed, he added.
Tilburg has one resounding lesson everyone should take from the study: put more effort into meeting people you don't know.
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"The obvious thing is that people should always question their stereotypes," he said.
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