Preferred Leisure Type,Value Orientations,and Psychological Well-Being Among East Asian Youth

ABSTRACT

This study investigated preferred leisure type and its associations with value orientations and psychological well-being (PWB) among adolescents in South Korea, China, and Japan (N = 6,157). Chi-square analyses were performed to examine differences in preferred leisure type (i.e., active vs. passive) across countries. Overall, adolescents preferred passive to active leisure. A series of logistic regressions showed that students who value religion (Japanese and Korean), community (Chinese), and same-sex friends (Chinese) were more likely to prefer active leisure. Furthermore, active leisure pursuit was associated with high PWB among adolescents in all three countries. Though some of the findings support previous studies suggesting cultural differences in leisure, values, and PWB, similar patterns were observed in the associations between variables among Korean, Chinese, and Japanese adolescents.     

Consumer culture,the mobilisation of the narcissistic self and adolescent deviant leisure

The purpose of this analysis is to investigate the consumer packaging of adolescent deviance through commodified leisure. It argues that under conditions of neoliberalism, deviant leisure is commodified by industry, emptying deviance of its political potential, selling it back to adolescents in the form of narcissistic self-identities. These self-identities appear to challenge authority, albeit produced within youth culture and marketing, purchased and consumed in the belief that it is resistance. Forms of adolescent deviance and narcissism are normalised as challenging, exciting and risky while providing associations with power, wealth, celebrity and physical beauty. In the final analysis, we explore some possibilities for the resistance of market-based constructions of self-identity for adolescents in western consumer cultures.     

Relation between intrinsic motivation and boredom in leisure time

Abstract

The present investigation replicated and extended an earlier finding of the negative relation between intrinsic motivation in leisure behavior and boredom in leisure time (Iso‐Ahola & Weissinger, 1987). Secondary analysis of data from 474 college undergraduates was used to construct a regression model of boredom. Results indicate that the self‐determination component of intrinsic leisure motivation explained the greatest portion of boredom variance (R = .38). Other variables entering the regression equation, in descending order of variance explained: competence, leisure ethic, age, and leisure repertoire (total R² = .52). Gender was not a significant predictor of boredom in leisure time. Results suggest that boredom in leisure time is usefully conceptualized as a disruption of the intrinsic motivation process.     

Perceived Parental Control,Restructuring Ability,and Leisure Motivation: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

ABSTRACT

Leisure is viewed worldwide as an important developmental context for adolescents. As leisure research and programs are shared across nations, it is crucial to examine the cultural equivalence of leisure-related constructs and how they are related. Grounded in self-determination theory, this study explored the influence of perceived parental control and leisure restructuring ability on leisure motivation (amotivation and autonomous motivation) using samples of eighth grade adolescents in the United States and South Africa. Results of multiple-group structural equation modeling showed that the measurement model of the constructs was equivalent across the two samples, but the determinants of leisure motivation differed between the two samples. The findings provide implications for future cross-cultural research in leisure and offer insights on design and adaptation of leisure-based intervention and education programs in different cultural contexts.     

Accessing leisure in an unfamiliar society via mobile instant messaging: A case study of academic sojourners visiting South Korea

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how academic sojourners, unfamiliar with the local language and culture, accessed casual leisure through mobile instant messaging during a short stay of one or two semesters in South Korea. Ninety-six English-speaking academic sojourners on Korean government scholarships covering tuition, room and board in exchange for contact with local university students seeking informal English language practice took part in this study. They represent a shift in academic sojourner mobility from outbound Asian students seeking language study in English-speaking countries to inbound English-speakers providing language support within Asia. Qualitative analysis revealed how casual leisure, the features of South Korea’s advanced digital environment and mobile instant messaging chat rooms coalesced. The findings show how local digital practices complement casual leisure access and how digital practices can become casual leisure despite limits in language ability and cultural understanding. It recommends further exploration of links between leisure, digital environments and mobile instant messaging in other research settings that are experiencing flows of globally mobile populations.     

Locating leisure as the route to well-being: challenges of researching women’s leisure in Turkey

ABSTRACT

This article interrogates the relation of leisure to subjective well-being by focusing on the language-based challenges during empirical research, which deeply impact upon both the substance of the data collected and its interpretation, thereby the knowledge that is produced on leisure. Drawing upon the empirical data collected via qualitative methods, the article seizes on the relationship between women’s free-time, labour, leisure and subjective well-being. The findings of the research suggest that the translation of leisure as ‘free time activities’ in Turkish creates serious challenges in researching women’s leisure. Women in this research understand leisure in multiple ways, such as an escape from boredom, a sphere of recuperation, pleasure and self-fulfilment which altogether represent their understanding of leisure as a route to their subjective well-being. Building on these findings, the article aims to highlight the importance of ethnographically guided qualitative research in uncovering both the meanings of and the interdependence between leisure and subjective well-being in both Turkey, the focus of the study, and other comparable societies around the world.     

“I Like My Peeps”: Diversifying the Net Generation's Digital Leisure

ABSTRACT

The current generation of adolescents is the first to have grown up with the widespread use of the internet as part of their everyday lives; they are the Net Generation. To diversify existing research on this generation's digital practices, this study explored the intersectional experiences of diverse immigrant adolescent girls' digital leisure. Conversational interviews with nine girls revealed that they encountered numerous interpersonal leisure constraints following their immigration to Canada. Within their digital leisure, girls were able to negotiate these constraints through online connections with family and friends back home, Canadian friends, and the global village. These online connections facilitated an expansion of social boundaries and communication with both familiar and broad networks to maintain and develop relationships, pursue interests, share culture, and resist limiting gendered norms with the unparalleled interactivity and sociability of digital leisure.     

Book reviews

Abstract

This article examines the cultural field of fitness as a network of producers, consumers, products and practices that has developed around the care of the body through physical exercise. Drawing on a thematic text analysis of US exercise manuals, the paper focuses on how the commercial fitness field naturalizes associations between physical exercise and leisure, and between leisure and self‐work. In particular, the analysis examines three themes and their relevance to our broader understanding of leisure in contemporary consumer society: the management of leisure time; the use of leisure for self‐investment strategies; and the promotion of consumption as the framework for leisure and an accompanying notion of pleasure. The fitness field casts light on how leisure more generally is constructed as a sphere of obligations to make productive use of one’s time, to improve one’s body and self, and to do so through the wares of the consumer marketplace. The cultural imaginary of leisure as a time of freedom from work and responsibility is thus recast, in an age of individualization, as a time of freedom to accomplish the work of self‐production.     

Leisure Constraints for Adolescents in Cape Town,South Africa: A Qualitative Study

This study identified leisure constraints, constraints negotiation strategies, and their relative frequencies among 114 high school students from one under-resourced area of South Africa. Through focus group discussions, participants identified intrapersonal, interpersonal, structural, and sociocultural constraints to leisure, suggesting some degree of universality in this previously documented typology. Intrapersonal constraints were mentioned most often. Whereas participants readily identified ways to overcome interpersonal and structural constraints, strategies for overcoming intrapersonal and sociocultural constraints were not mentioned frequently, suggesting a potential need to help adolescents identify and employ these types of strategies.     

Variety seeking in restaurant choice and its drivers

The purpose of this study was to identify variety drivers in restaurant settings and to examine their influence on diners’ variety seeking intentions. More specifically, this study considered perceived quality, customer satisfaction, overall boredom, and boredom with restaurant attributes as variety drivers and examined how they affect customers’ variety seeking intentions. Further, this study investigated the moderating role of personality characteristics and overall loyalty level toward a restaurant in the relationship between variety drivers and variety seeking intentions. The results showed that atmospheric quality, overall boredom, and boredom with atmospheric attributes significantly influence variety seeking intentions. Personality characteristics reflecting optimal stimulation level also played a moderating role in the relationship between overall boredom and variety seeking intentions. Theoretical and managerial implications are provided in the conclusion.     

Migrating to the East: a qualitative investigation of acculturation and leisure activities

This study sought to explore leisure behaviours associated with acculturation and immigration experiences among emigrants from the United States and Canada who moved to South Korea. Three main themes were identified as leisure engagement associated with acculturation: (a) embracing new leisure behaviours, (b) experiencing dynamics of interpersonal relationships and (c) improving cultural understandings. The findings of this study indicated that leisure provided an opportunity for participants to develop the ability to adapt to a new environment and gain cultural knowledge. In addition, this study indicates that as a result of leisure activities, participants explored, understood and experienced a new cultural environment that may facilitate acculturation.     

The immediate and subsequent effects of public health interventions for COVID-19 on the leisure and recreation industry

Public health interventions to combat COVID-19 can be viewed as an exogenous shock to the economy, especially for industries—such as leisure, recreation, and tourism—that rely heavily on human mobility. This study investigates whether and how exactly the economic impact of government public health policies varies over time. Focusing on the leisure and recreation industry, we use data for 131 countries/regions from February to May 2020 and employ generalized difference-in-differences models to investigate the short- and longer-term effects of public health policies. We find that stricter policies lead, on average, to an immediate 9.2–percentage-point drop in leisure and recreation participation. Even so, that industry recovers in about seven weeks after a COVID-19 outbreak in countries/regions that undertake active interventions. After thirteen weeks, leisure and recreation involvement recovers to 70% of pre-pandemic levels in a place that actively intervened but stagnates at about 40% in one that did not.     

What Would Veblen Say?

It has been more than 100 years since Thorstein Veblen published The Theory of the Leisure Class (TLC). The book was a scathing attack on the greedy leisure class of his day and described how people used wealth to elevate their social position in society. Surprisingly, few researchers use this book to understand leisure in contemporary society. TLC remains as relevant today as it did when first published. In this essay I elucidate some of Veblen's ideas and show how they shed light on leisure spending, emulation among birdwatchers, our display of books, boundary maintenance and social distance, and environmental destruction.     

Stress,resilience and leisure coping among university students: applying the broaden-and-build theory

Evidence suggests that leisure coping is affiliated with resilience, and that both predict stress-coping and well-being. However, a theoretical explanation of how resilience is associated with the stress-reducing properties of leisure coping is lacking. Using the broaden-and-build theory, a model was developed proposing that resilient individuals proactively use leisure coping to cultivate positive emotions and in turn enhance well-being. Leisure coping and positive affect (PA) were suggested to mediate the relationship between resilience and well-being outcomes (stress and flourishing). The model was tested among 202 U.K undergraduates, a population reported to experience high stress. Structural equation modelling revealed that resilience had a significant positive effect on flourishing. Leisure coping beliefs demonstrated a positive relationship with resilience, PA and flourishing. PA mediated the relationship between resilience and flourishing and between resilience and stress. Leisure coping strategies did not meaningfully contribute to the model. Leisure beliefs may have emerged as more important than leisure strategies because leisure beliefs are relatively stable with more enduring effects on health and well-being, while leisure strategies are transient and situation-based. Future research should examine the relationships longitudinally to explore developmental change. Implications of the findings for undergraduates are discussed.     

Farewell to the intelligentsia: political transformation and changing forms of leisure consumption in the former communist countries of eastern Europe

This paper refers to evidence from studies of young adults conducted in eight different ex‐communist countries from 1993 onwards, but it is based primarily on data gathered in Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia in 2002. The evidence is used to chart the disintegration of the intelligentsia strata that were consolidated under communism. Members were highly educated and were unified by an intelligentsia lifestyle that included the consumption of state‐subsidized high culture and typically involved interest and participation in public affairs. The evidence that is presented shows that under post‐communism higher education graduates continue to be distinguished by their consumption of high culture. However, their occupations are more diverse in terms of work and market situations. Many, especially those in the more intellectual occupations, have been impoverished, state subsidies for their lifestyles having been withdrawn or reduced, making their lifestyles more expensive. The better‐off are now even more exposed to and involved in the new consumer cultures. This paper explains how the cessation of the intelligentsia’s reproduction as a lifestyle group, and the spread of commercial leisure, will have contributed to the post‐1989/91 decline in political interest and activity among young people in the former communist countries of eastern Europe.     

The Relationship Between Father Involvement in Family Leisure and Family Functioning: The Importance of Daily Family Leisure

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between fathers’ involvement in family leisure and aspects of family functioning from both a father and young adolescent perspective. The sample consisted of fathers and their adolescent child from 647 families throughout the United States. Results from both the father and youth perspective indicated significant relationships between father involvement in both core and balance family leisure with family cohesion, family adaptability, and overall family functioning. Satisfaction with core family leisure that included the father's involvement was the single strongest predictor of all aspects of family functioning from both perspectives highlighting the importance of regularly occurring home-based family activities such as eating dinner together, participating in hobbies and informal sports or yard activities together, watching television together, or playing board games and video games together. Discussion and implications for fathers, families, practitioners, and future research are presented.     

Recreationists’ Constraints Negotiation Process for Continual Leisure Engagement

Unlike prospective participants with desire for initial participation, current participants are likely to have different interest in habitual leisure engagement from participation itself. Accordingly, they may respond to the effects of leisure constraints differently in order to progress toward a higher level of leisure involvement. This study aims to construct a theoretical framework that demonstrates how diverse components of current participants’ constraints negotiation process are conceptually connected to each other. Study results suggest that different negotiation strategies help current participants adjust their willingness to participate in the activity more frequently. Results also denote that the three dimensions of leisure constraints are differently associated with cognitive negotiation strategies, and commitment plays an important role in promoting the use of negotiation strategies to mitigate current participants’ perception of leisure constraints.     

Moving Beyond Conspicuous Leisure Consumption: Adolescent Women,Mobile Phones and Public Space

Abstract

In this paper we explore mobile phones as a form of fashion accessory for young women in contemporary culture and the possible value of such fashionable items as a source of identity and self‐worth. Despite reliance on the usual stultifying stereotypes produced by marketeers to promote mobile phones, we explore the possibility that increased access to public space generates for adolescent girls alternative choices of leisure experiences and possibilities of multiple enriching identities. The findings suggest that mobile phone use can impart a sense of self‐confidence, sexuality and autonomy which defies the male gaze in public spaces and may allow adolescent women to reject traditional images of femininity at a formative stage in the life course and take steps to a further array of leisure choices. It may only be a temporary image that assists a sense of self at a vulnerable time in life, or it may infiltrate other aspects of subjectivity and assist an ongoing sense of self‐confidence. However, this particular leisure activity can be seen as enabling, allowing entry to an arena, that of public space, that has hitherto been limited by the male gaze and other stereotypes of adolescent women. Through in‐depth interviews with teenage mobile phone users and a review of the literature we have examined the success that this form of technology has had with this social group.     

Updating the Family Operating System: A Literature Review of Information Communication Technology and Family Leisure

ABSTRACT

This article examines the ways in which information communication technology (ICT) influences how contemporary families function, build relationships, and enjoy leisure. The literature review focuses on several areas of family life influenced by ICT use, specifically e-leisure, family communication, and family intimacy. A call for future research outlines several areas of exploration, including ICT use and family leisure, changes in perception of healthy and well-functioning families, the influence ICT use has on the development and well-being of individual family members and families with diverse family structures, and characteristics of technology that might be used by family members to improve leisure and relationships.     

Youth leisure careers during post‐communist transitions in the South Caucasus

This paper reports findings from interview surveys with 1215 respondents, split between the capital cities (Yerevan, Baku and Tbilisi) and one non‐capital region (Kotayk, Aran‐Mugan and Shida Kartli) in each of the three South Caucasus countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The respondents, who were drawn from households in larger representative household social surveys, were all born between 1970 and 1976 and were aged 31–37 at the time of the fieldwork in 2007. Their life stage transitions from childhood to adulthood had roughly coincided with their countries’ transitions from communism to post‐communism. Data was collected on the samples’ participation in selected leisure activities from age 16 to 30. Similar data was collected on the samples’ careers in education, the labour market, housing and family relationships. This information enables us to identify typical leisure careers and how their development was affected by events in other life domains, all in the context of the macro‐changes that were in process in each of the research locations. The evidence enables both personal leisure careers and aggregate leisure trends in different socio‐demographic groups to be identified This shows that changes in leisure behaviour between age 16 and 30 were neither widening nor narrowing the differences between the leisure of males and females, or those who married and became parents on the one hand, then, on the other, those who were still single and childless at age 30. In contrast, differences by place, and by social class, grew progressively wider, thus raising the social costs of geographical and social mobility. Changes in leisure behaviour between age 16 and 30 were separating young adults into those who participated in little, if any, structured out‐of‐home leisure, whose main leisure spending, if any, was on alcohol and tobacco (typically consumed in homes and neighbourhoods), and those whose leisure was characterised by relatively high and sustained participation in sport, consumption of high culture, and going out to bars, cafes, cinema, discos, etc.