Douglas A. Kleiber

Leisure as a Resource in Transcending Negative Life Events: Self-Protection, Self-Restoration, and Personal Transformation

Negative life events, such as the unexpected loss of a loved one, a disabling accident or a natural disaster, are inevitably distressing and disruptive. Coping with and recovering from such events generally requires a variety of personal and social resources. Previous research on leisure and coping has suggested that leisure orientations and relationships can be important in reducing the likelihood that stress becomes debilitating in some way. But the results of that work are equivocal and generally do not distinguish leisure resources that make events less stressful from those that are employed in coping with stressful events after they occur. This analysis examines the leisure-coping literature as well as recent work on the dynamics of coping and the impact of pleasant events and concludes in identifying four distinguishable functions of leisure that relate to self-protection, self-restoration, and personal transformation.

The Experience of Leisure in Adolescence

This article investigates the psychological dimensions of leisure for adolescents, examining their experience of freedom, intrinsic motivation and positive affect in free time versus productive and maintenance activities. In addition, it examines the degree of challenge and concentration in such activities in order to consider the preparation they provide for serious adult roles. Following the procedures of the experience sampling method, 75 adolescents provided 4,489 self-reports on various dimensions of experience during their daily lives. As expected, in free time activities the adolescents reported experiencing greater freedom, intrinsic motivation and positive affect than in productive and maintenance activities, while they reported higher degrees of challenge and concentration in productive rather than free time activities. However, several free time activities, specifically, sports and games and arts and hobbies, were higher on concentration and challenge than all other activities. Contrasted with the more “relaxed leisure” of activities such as socializing and television watching, these more structured activities are seen as “transitional” in being similar in their demand characteristics to the serious activities of adult roles.

Leisure as a coping resource: variations in coping with traumatic injury and illness.

The influence of leisure in coping with negative life events likely derives from its powers to distract, to generate optimism about the future, and to preserve a sense of self in the face of trauma (Kleiber, Hutchinson, & Williams, 2002). While there is recent evidence of leisures role in coping with daily hassles and normative life stressors (e.g., Iwasaki & Mannell, 2000), the nature and extent of leisures utility in coping with a life-altering event, such as a traumatic injury, is not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to examine how individuals used leisure in coping with a traumatic injury or the onset of a chronic illness. Qualitative data from two studies involving people with either a spinal cord injury or chronic illness were used for this analysis. Findings support suggestions from earlier research: leisure served to buffer effects of immediate life circumstances and it sustained their coping efforts in various ways. The authors end by discussing the data in light of recent theoretical propositions about the role of positive affect and meaning in coping.

Reconsidering change and continuity in later life: toward an innovation theory of successful aging.

This article examines the patterns and meanings of innovation in the activities of a group of retirees with an eye toward understanding the place and value of innovation in the aging process. Starting with a consideration of continuity theory, as a perspective that simply describes typical patterns of activity, and activity theory that prescribes expansion of activities as a key to well-being, this article highlights the characteristics, meanings and perceived benefits of a wide variety of innovative activities. The study utilized in-depth semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 20 male and female retirees involved in a “Learning and Retirement” program. Innovations that both preserve a sense of self (internal continuity) as well as those that allow one to strike out in entirely new direction are described, and, using a process of constant comparison, their motivational dynamics are explored. Given previous arguments that activity can be indiscriminate and disintegrative in some circumstances, we nevertheless suggest that innovation can be growth producing and liberating, even in later life, while at the same time generally protecting a sense of internal continuity.

Leisure in the identity formation of lesbian/gay youth: personal, but not social.

The purpose of this qualitative, retrospective study was to examine leisure as a context for identity formation among young people (aged 18?22) who self-identified as lesbian/gay while in high school. Phenomenology was the theoretical framework that guided the conceptualization, interviews, and data analysis for this study. Ten participants from the southeastern United States were asked to reflect on their experiences of leisure and the ways in which leisure contexts helped them to negotiate their understanding of themselves and their relationships with others. Although the purpose of the study was not to develop a global, explanatory model about lesbian/gay youth, leisure, and identity, we did, nevertheless, develop overarching themes that describe and grounded theory that explains the role of leisure in the process of identity formation in the lives of these participants. The four themes?reading myself, seeing myself: media consumption; playing myself: sports; and expressing myself: music?led to the conclusion that the influence of leisure contexts in terms of the integration of personal and social identity formation was mitigated by the extent to which young people felt the need to conceal their sexual identity.The purpose of this qualitative, retrospective study was to examine leisure as a context for identity formation among young people (aged 18?22) who self-identified as lesbian/gay while in high school. Phenomenology was the theoretical framework that guided the conceptualization, interviews, and data analysis for this study. Ten participants from the southeastern United States were asked to reflect on their experiences of leisure and the ways in which leisure contexts helped them to negotiate their understanding of themselves and their relationships with others. Although the purpose of the study was not to develop a global, explanatory model about lesbian/gay youth, leisure, and identity, we did, nevertheless, develop overarching themes that describe and grounded theory that explains the role of leisure in the process of identity formation in the lives of these participants. The four themes?reading myself, seeing myself: media consumption; playing myself: sports; and expressing myself: music?led to the con...

Variations of Experience in Formal and Informal Sport

Abstract The premise of this paper is that an important component of the value of sport is the experience it provides: the moods, feelings, and self-perceptions that occur in sports contexts. The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) was used to monitor the ongoing experience of 75 adolescents. Sport was compared with other activities in terms of concentration, mood, self-consciousness and sense of skill, challenge and control. Three different sport contexts were distinguished and compared—organized sport, informal sport, and physical education class. These three contexts were contrasted, and results interpreted in terms of the “flow model” of enjoyment and optimal experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). Sport was experienced as substantially more positive than the rest of everyday life. Sense of control was highest in gym class and lowest in informal sport; sense of skill was highest in informal sport and lowest in gym class; and significantly more was perceived to be at stake in organized sport than in informal...

Gifts of the Ordinary: Casual Leisure's Contributions to Health and Well-Being

Abstract The concepts of serious leisure (Stebbins, 1992) and “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) have assumed a central position in assessments of the contribution of leisure to health and well-being. However, researchers who have examined the contribution of positive emotions and pleasant events or “healthy pleasures” (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000; Fredrickson, 2000, Ornstein & Sobel, 1989) to health and well-being suggest that coping, as well as affirmation and elaboration of the self, occurs as a result of infusing enjoyable moments with meaning. The purpose of the paper was to examine the ways in which casual leisure may contribute to health and well-being in the context of stressful life circumstances and to elaborate the processes by which this may occur. Our goal is to argue for greater theoretical attention to the contribution of relatively ordinary forms of leisure to personal health and well-being. Findings from three interview studies with individuals who have experienced an unexpected negative life event and who live with chronic stress are considered with regard to this proposition. Drawing on research and theory related to positive psychology, explanations regarding the processes by which casual leisure activities may contribute positively to health and well-being are suggested.

Tomboys and Sissies: Androgynous Children?.

Psychological studies of masculinity-femininity in children have paralleled those done with adults, which often consider deviations from masculinity for males and femininity for females as abnormal and perhaps pathological. Children who demonstrate cross-sex behaviors, however, may become androgynous adults whose cross-sex behaviors mean flexibility, not pathology. This study had two purposes: (1) to identify potentially “androgynous” children as those labeled by their peers as “tomboys” and “sissies”; (2) to compare personality characteristics of “androgynous” children with those of peers. Subjects were 312 elementary school children in a midwestern city. Results indicate that the labels tomboy and sissy are not necessarily indicators of androgynous children, but important social behaviors are related to the labels. For males, the possibility of frustrated creativity was raised.

Having more by doing less: the paradox of leisure constraints in later life.

Abstract A considerable literature now documents the vast array of constraints that keep people from participating in or enjoying recreation and leisure activities. Consistently these factors have been regarded as negative and deserving of elimination, negotiation, or navigation. Recently, however, researchers have argued (in separate chapters in Jackson, 2005a) that constraints often exist in a beneficial relationship with leisure activity patterns and should, as a result, be studied for potential positive effects and managed accordingly. The case for the beneficial aspects of constraints to leisure has been made mostly with respect to aging, though arguably it applies to all ages. The model of successful aging that has received the most theoretical and empirical support in recent years is that of selective optimization with compensation (Baltes & Carstensen, 1996). We argue here for a proposition derived from this model that encountering and accepting constraint, while initially painful in many cases, is often life-enhancing. This paper explores this proposition and six implications for managing leisure experience in the course of adjusting to change and limitations throughout life.

Narrative in Medicine: The Stories of Elite College Athletes' Career-Ending Injuries

A qualitative investigation of the illness experience of injured elite collegiate athletes illustrates the relevance of narrative to clinical practice. The article demonstrates a method for systematically assessing illness narratives and provides evidence that story patterns of clinical significance result. By adding a narrative approach to the biomedical one, it is argued, both the psyche and the pathophysiology of the sufferer can be the subjects of healing.