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

• Main Author: LUA, Verity Yu Qing
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2023
• Subjects: Personality and Social Contexts
• 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
• Institution: Singapore Management University

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.