This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Museums are regarded as places of inspiration and cultural experience—boredom is not the first thing that springs to mind. However, an international team of researchers led by Thomas Götz from the University of Vienna has now, for the first time, systematically investigated how frequently boredom occurs during museum visits.
The team found that while visitors are, on average, only slightly bored, this boredom has a negative impact on knowledge acquisition and their assessment of the museum visit. The research findings were recently published in the journal Scientific Reports. Although boredom has already been extensively studied in learning and performance contexts such as schools and universities, learning outside these settings—for example, during museum visits—has so far been largely overlooked.
Psychologists led by the University of Vienna, in collaboration with the University of Essex, the Australian Catholic University and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, conducted three studies involving a total of 1,269 participants ages 18 to 91 to investigate how frequently museum boredom occurs, what causes it and what its consequences are. Visitors to the Sigmund Freud Museum and the Museum of Art History (Kunsthistorisches Museum) in Vienna were surveyed. A total of 1,229 visitors at both museums were asked, immediately after their visit, to complete a questionnaire about their recent experience at the museum.
The questionnaire also included a knowledge test tailored to the respective museum, as well as a question asking visitors to rate the quality of the museum. In addition, qualitative interviews were conducted with 72 visitors at the Sigmund Freud Museum regarding their experience of boredom in the museum and its causes—these were also carried out immediately after their visit. The good news for museums: Overall, boredom was relatively mild, with a mean score across both museums of 1.74 on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very)—the difference between the two museums was not significant.
A total of 10 positive and negative emotions (e.g., joy, surprise, frustration, anger) were assessed. This comparison revealed that boredom was one of the most intense negative emotions, yet significantly weaker than all positive emotions experienced in the museum. Despite the relatively low mean score for boredom, a number of people reported very high levels of boredom, up to the maximum value.
The study is based on the control-value theory of emotions, according to which boredom arises primarily when people feel either over- or underchallenged, or when they perceive an activity as having little value. This was confirmed during the museum visits. The study showed that feeling overwhelmed or understimulated can have causes relating to both the physical space and the content.
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