The fear of being idle: What it is and how it relates to goal pursuits

Modern society places a strong emphasis on making full use of one’s time and the aversion of idleness. While urging people to spend their time wisely can promote productivity and personal striving, an overemphasis on this ideal can also have detrimental effects on their sense of well-being. However,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: LUA, Verity Yu Qing
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/517
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/etd_coll/article/1515/viewcontent/GPPS_AY2021_MbR_Verity_Lua_Yu_Qing.pdf
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Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
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Summary:Modern society places a strong emphasis on making full use of one’s time and the aversion of idleness. While urging people to spend their time wisely can promote productivity and personal striving, an overemphasis on this ideal can also have detrimental effects on their sense of well-being. However, to date, there is limited research on individuals’ belief about aversion towards idle time – in part due to the lack of a measurement scale to assess such a disposition. Thus, the current work proposed a novel construct and measure—the fear of being idle (FOBI)—to capture the individual differences in affective responses towards the perception of being idle. Across three culturally diverse samples (American, French, and Singaporean samples), a one-factor FOBI scale was developed and validated. The FOBI scale displayed good psychometric properties and there was strong evidence of the scale’s criterion validity, convergent and discriminant validity, test-retest reliability, and cross-cultural measurement invariance. The current work presents the first empirical findings on the correlates of FOBI and discusses the implications of studying FOBI in our increasingly fast-paced society.