One is narcissism not the ordinary kind, in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and greatness, characteristic of certain politicians, but covert narcissism. This type involves people feeling like theyre fabulously talented, but they arent being given due credit for it. They're like If only the world knew, says Danckert.

No one knows for sure what explains the link, but an early theory is that, if theres a gap between your natural abilities and your goals, you are setting yourself up for failure and this leads to feelings of disenchantment and boredom. Another is that once a covert narcissist has received the empty approval they crave from the people around them, they will lose interest and become bored.

In fact, boredom is just one of many unpleasant side-effects to keeping narcissism bottled up. For example, covert narcissists tend to have low psychological wellbeing, while overt narcissists are relatively happy and have higher self-esteem.

Other personality traits linked to boredom include anger aggressive drivers tend to be especially susceptible and neuroticism, which involves having high levels of anxiety, guilt and jealousy. In all, being prone to boredom is generally a bad sign and may be partly caused by having poor emotional control.

We need to try and understand the causal nature of these relationships. And we haven't really done that yet, says Danckert. So for example, in the relationship between boredom and depression, does boredom precede depression is it a risk factor for depression? I think the answer to that will be yes.

The ultimate question is whether the strategies that make some people susceptible are all learned or whether boredom can be genetic. This is something Danckert is currently looking into. Again, we dont have the data yet, but my speculative answer is that this is going to be related to something within certain individuals.

However, Danckert expects that, as with all emotions, boredom is likely to arise from a combination of learned and genetic factors. It looks like Hadfield honed his ability to cope with boredom in childhood and with the right techniques, even the most agonisingly boredom-prone might be able to lead richer inner lives.

So the next time you find yourself lamenting how tedious life is, think back to Lebedev and Hadfields differing experiences in space. You might well discover that its just a matter of perspective.

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What the mysterious boredom divide teaches us - BBC News