Scientists find out what kind of people think are boring

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The perception is influenced not only by personality traits but also by profession.

Researchers from universities in Great Britain and Ireland decided to find out what traits people tend to consider people around them boring. It's not about introverts. It's about how your profession, hobbies, and personality traits describe you. To do this, they conducted five studies, interviewing more than 500 people.

The first two surveys were dedicated to identifying and ranking occupations, hobbies, and personality traits that participants considered boring. The third paid attention to perceptions of the friendship and competence of people with “boring” characteristics. The remaining two were devoted to studying the respondents’ responses: their desire to avoid boring people and their willingness to pay for the sake of not having to socialize anymore.

As a result, the authors ranked the characteristics that survey participants most often associated with boring people.

Professions: data analyst, accountant, tax or insurance professional, cleaning, bank employees, clerks, office workers, salespeople, and cashiers.

Hobbies: sleeping, religious activities, watching television, animal watching, mathematics, drinking alcohol and cigarettes, studying, and collecting. Character traits: dryness, lack of interest, lack of humor and opinion, pessimism, poor communication skills (endlessly talking and/or not listening to the interlocutor), closed-mindedness, and shallowness.

The article points out that although perceptions of a person may change during a conversation with that person, not everyone will waste time talking to someone who is known to have “boring” hobbies or a job. Most people would rather avoid such a person. It is worth noting that the surveys were conducted on a reasonably small number of people, most of whom were from the same country — the United States. Likely, the understanding of tedious occupations, hobbies, and character traits differs from region to region.

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