title: Boredom Prone or Nothing to Do? Distinguishing Between State and Trait Leisure Boredom and its Association with Substance Use in South African Adolescents.
abstract: Reducing adolescent substance use is important in South Africa, a developing nation with increasing adolescent substance use, lack of leisure/recreation opportunities, and high rates of adolescent discretionary time. Previous research suggests leisure boredom and adolescent substance use co-occur in this setting. Using longitudinal data from 2,580 SA adolescents as they progressed from the 8thto 11thgrade, the current study disentangles the associations of trait and state leisure boredom with substance use, and examines how ability to restructure boring situations moderates those associations. On average, individuals with higher trait boredom used more substances, and on occasions when state boredom was high, the prototypical adolescent used more substances. Although restructuring did not moderate these associations, greater ability was associated with lower substance use independent of leisure boredom. Findings illustrated the importance of considering how trait and state aspects of leisure may contribute to adolescents' risk behavior and addressed through preventive intervention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Weybright
authors.affiliation: Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Linda L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Caldwell
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Nilam
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ram
authors.affiliation: The Prevention Research Center, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Edward A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Therapy, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wegner
keywords: South Africa; adolescence; leisure boredom; multi-level modeling; substance use